been a while

I fixed yon Sea Monkey about a month and a half ago, and have been working at building up those calluses again. Slowly, though, because there's a lot these days to split my attention between and among, even after the kid is fast asleep.

But I'm getting back at it. I like "Wildwood Flowers" except for the jarring switch to the F chord halfway through. F chord, why must you sound so very pretty but be so hard on my inflexible fingers? Hooray for The Carter Family, though. Good stuff, there. If I can find tab for "Ring of Fire" I will be over the moon!

But my favorite song so far, out of all of them (even "Goodnight Ladies" LOL) is this very simple tune called "Dance" from an 1860's banjo instruction manual. It's so light and danceable, and I always see in my head somebody's grandpa with his banjo on his knee playing while the kids and grandkids dance in the parlor some spring evening. It's very short and uncomplicated, and is good practice for me for a number of skills (not using the same finger to play different notes on the same string back to back, building up my flimsy pinkie for further full-on F chord mayhem [this song only needs the little finger note of the F chord, lucky me!], and getting used to switching between quarter and eighth notes). Best of all, it has a pull-off, which is a little tricky to accomplish being as it is the wimpy pinkie that must do the pulling off, but is sounds divine.

For a while tonight, I just practiced some rolls with the F chord. Over and over until my fingers were ready to cramp. Sad thing is, I could do that all night it sounds so nice. Even just screwing around in a vague sort of alternating thumb roll sort of pattern, it's just pretty. Have I mentioned that I love the sound banjos make?

Big problem areas: my posture and my right hand. The one affects the other, and crappy posture is what makes my fancy new banjo strap dig into my shoulder so unpleasantly. Bonus points for figuring that out before I really hurt myself, but I'm not sure how I'll fix my posture without mechanical help. Corsets and banjos go well together, right? Speaking of, the problem with my right hand is the very sloppy way I attack the strings. I'm not hitting just the string I want when I want to, which sounds a bit like a Neil Young guitar solo. (I love you, Mr. Young, but I'm not trying to make those sounds, especially not with an instrument that isn't wired.)

And that, ladies and gents, is what life has been like lately.

mixed banjo news

After a very unsatisfying hour of pickin' yesterday, today I remembered to trim my fingernails so that I can play actual chords that sound right. "Good Night Ladies" is coming along, and now I'm switching that out with the forward roll exercise of "Roving Gambler" to encourage me to work out the kinks so I can move on. There's an additional exercise online for the alternating thumb roll, which is a different version of "Roving Gambler" but I haven't bothered to print it out yet. One of these days I'll remember.

Then my friend Leah showed me the Jefferson Starship song "The Baby Tree," so there's another tune I'll have to track down tab for. And on my way home from the post office today it occurred to me that The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets song "Cultists on Board" is really begging for a bluegrass treatment.

I have pictures of my crocheted strap now too, although the detail pictures I had Mark take are too blurry (thanks to a certain Gaz's grimy fingerprints) to bother posting. I even wrote down the pattern, but it's all the way over there and I want to go to sleep.

twang and crochet

Practice is going well, and you can peep a picture of me in "The Shed" (aka The Library) playing a jaunty tune. Whee! I have to sit in that awkward position because it turns out that resting the pot against my still-lactating breast will lead to plugged ducts (and thereby, an infection). Still, I am undeterred. My fingertips are toughening up, and "Good Night Ladies" actually sounds like it should, albeit with some frustrating chord-change hiccups.

It's coming along so well, I moved up to "Roving Gambler" for a little while, which uses a whole 'nother sort of roll.* I already practiced once today, but I may try to work in another half hour in a bit. I'm seriously tempted by "Gun Street Girl" which is only a two-chord song. I only know one of the chords, of course, and the other looks impossible (am I the only one who can't span three frets between my ring and pinkie fingers?), but it's such a nice unstructured song I just want to pick until I figure out the leisurely hand it employs. It also helps that this is one of the songs in my Indiana collection. I am most nostalgic for the state of my birth when I am experiencing it in song form.

I am also crocheting a strap for Sea Monkey, based loosely on a cradle strap. I've got the shoulder pad part done, and now I just need to crochet up a really, really long narrow strap that can go all the way around me and the banjo. It took two days for the shoulder strap, which was about 3" x 24" and now my hands are pretty well angry at me. Again. So while I really want to have a strap that is comfortable and attaches properly to SM, I probably need a day off. Especially since hands are useful for other things. Like, you know, everything.

And miracle of miracles, Gaz insisted on an early bedtime. It's like I hit the lottery.

* That would be the forward roll. Not a kaiser roll. Not an onion roll either.