Contra Dance Tomorrow Night

I'm playing the Indy Contra Dance tomorrow night with Vicki Stohl and Chuck Wuthrich. Vicki plays piano, foot percussion, and The Cup; Chuck plays bass. I'm on clawhammer banjo. Not a classic old-time lineup, string band lineup, or contra band lineup, but I think we sound pretty good, especially with Vicki's musicianship pulling us along. Collectively, we are the HoosierTones (notice-one word, capital H capital T - I think it looks cool!) and we are gonna to bring it for the dancers tomorrow. A few surprises await, so come on out and discover them. Also, The Cup has apparently gotten some wider recognition lately due to a video from a movie called Pitch Perfect. I have only seen the below video - Vicki says it's something every percussion major - such as herself - is intimately familiar with. Anyway, Vicki rocks the cup. We are anticipating some slight logistical issues from micing it, along with her feet and the piano, but we should have them worked out by dance time!

Weekend Jam - Back to a Busy Week

Light blogging this week, due to work (boo!). Went to a jam at Lee Mysliwiec's in Bloomington this past weekend. It was great! So great, in fact, that I didn't take any pictures, vids, or audio, so I have nothing to post other than words. Not the best strategy for a blog about the banjo! Oh well, I'll try to gin up some more content this week. Now, back to arguing about insurance.

Learning by Ear v. Learning by Book

Is this the best way?

I'm in a contra dance band with my friends Vicki and Chuck. Last night Vicki and I were working up tunes to play for the next dance, and we settled on St. Ann's Reel. Vicki is a supremely talented multi-instrumentalist. A percussion major in college, she's also a mean piano picker. She went to town on piano on St. Ann's Reel, changing up the rhythm, really making it come alive. I, on the other hand, just plodded along, playing this tune the way I learned out of Dan Levenson's book. My playing bored me. I could hear the places where adding some syncopation would have really added to the experience, but I couldn't just syncopate on the fly. So over the next few nights, I'm going to have to play around with the tune, and change it up.

I learned this tune out of a book several years ago. I haven't played it much since then, and so I basically only know it as I learned it. But still, I've played it, it's a tune I can call up without any difficulty. And yet I can only play it basically one way. This raised a question in my mind. Would I be more flexible in my playing if I'd learned it by ear instead of out of that book? I'm not sure either way. I've probably learned more of the tunes I can really play out of books, in part because until fairly recently I didn't have a good enough ear to really learn a tune that way. Now, when I learn tunes by ear, I'm constantly playing around with them until I get them right, and sometimes when I don't get them exactly "right" I end up doing something I like better. On the other hand, I still usually end up playing a tune in pretty much the same way over and over again, unless it's a tune that I either play so much that I really develop a feel for ways to change it up, or it's a tune I'm playing for a dance and I really don't want to play the same thing for five minutes, either in practice or in the dance.

Ultimately, I think learning by ear is more fun and challenges me more, but in the end I don't think it makes a huge difference. Once you learn and play a tune, you pretty much make it your own, no matter how you learned it. Still, I do wonder what kind of lingering impact that initial learning experience has...

Syncopation II

Here's Cathy Moore's You Tube video on adding "drive" to your playing. Good stuff! 

Double Concert Review!

It's been a busy weekend. I actually made it to two concerts! On Thursday I saw Scott Miller and Rayna Gellert. As I said, I used to see Scott Miller back in Knoxville in the early 90s playing in bars. He's no longer a full-time musician (which I believe he was for a while), dividing his time between music and cattle-raising. The venue was the Hard Rock Cafe (of all places!) which charged us $10 to get in the door. Apparently, this wasn't enough for a decent seat, though. The hostess asked us if we'd like to eat (it was shortly before 8), and we said no, we're here for some drinks and the show. So it's not like we weren't going to spend any money, we just didn't intend to spend it on food. "OK," she said, "well, we want to reserve the tables for diners, so you can sit at the bar." Fine, we thought. Only the bar turned out to have a view of the performers' butts! Hard Rock needs to decide if they want to be a restaurant or a concert venue. This kinda-sorta-both did not make me want to return.

The opening act was forgettable, so much so I can't remember their names. Scott and Rayna were great, if a little down. His music was kind of novelty-act-style when I saw him 20 years ago ("Sweet Home Ft. Sanders" sung to the tune of "Sweet Home Alabama"), but his more 'serious' stuff is, from what I heard, more of the cry-in-your-beer kind of thing. But a good show nonetheless, him on guitar and vocals, back up by Rayna on the fiddle.

The second show I saw was a benefit for Jude Odell, the best banjo player in Indiana! Unfortunately, she just got diagnosed with colon cancer, so some folks threw a benefit concert to raise money for her treatment. Many bands played, but the highlight for me was her in a trio with a guitarist and harmonica player. They played "Hot Tamales" - and did a nice, rollicking rendition. She played a Memphis Minnie song, and accompanied herself on a tenor guitar which she tunes like a banjo in G. That trio had a great, old-timey sound that was a lot of fun to hear.

A digression about Jude. She's a great banjo player - seriously the best clawhammer player in Indiana, hands down. But it can be hard to jam with her, because she's also a great talker! You play a tune, and then talk for two! But she's a great conversationalist as well, so you have a good time either way! Get better, Jude, I want to spy on your playing for years to come! Here's Jude and her band at the show:

Syncopation

I've been listening to the "jukebox" on Banjo Hangout for the last day at work. It's great, because most of the tracks are strictly instrumental, and the few that aren't you can just skip. Also, while quality can be a bit uneven, of both recording and ability, it's generally pretty good, and is often excellent. I highly recommend it. One thing I've noticed is that there are several players who play perfectly proficiently - they hit all the right notes - but they just don't grab me. Their playing is good, but boring. I think the problem is that they don't syncopate. They play every note ON THE BEAT, and it's just...boring. A few people syncopate too much, and that gets irritating, but it isn't boring.

I'm going to have to record myself playing more tunes, and make sure I syncopate enough. Cathy Moore, on her You Tube channel, has a video about putting "drive" in your banjo playing. I'll link to that later, when I have time to look for it. She discusses this issue, but I hadn't been able to really hear the difference until listening to so many user-uploaded files on banjo hangout. Now I just want to get the hell out of this office and make sure I'm not putting people to sleep with on-the-nose playing! Oh well...

I Haven't Heard That One Before

The Indianapolis Star (the local paper here) has a slideshow of the top five live shows this week. The first show on the list is "An Evening of Bluegrass," which the reporter begins by describing thusly:

Yes, it's true: there's more to bluegrass than the dueling banjo scene from "Deliverance."

Really? Who knew? Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of a good banjo joke, but jeez, that one's so old it's turned to dust. They've been making t-shirts that say "paddle faster, I hear banjos" for at least the better part of a decade. Since you're being paid to write things, try coming up with something fresh, you know, without mold.

The rest of the piece demonstrates a level of sophistication that makes me think it's taken straight from the press release, while the above was tacked on by someone looking for some yucks:

Today, the classic American genre is vast and varied, with traditionalists carrying the torch while newer, innovative acts like Yonder Mountain String Band push 'jamgrass' into the future. An Evening of Bluegrass at Deluxe brings together some of the best voices and pickers in bluegrass today, featuring Noam Pikelny will be among the featured performers for An Evening of Bluegrass at Deluxe in the Old National Centre. (pictured here), Bryan Sutton, Ronnie McCoury, Luke Bulla and Barry Bales. If those names aren't familiar, check their resumes: they're members of Alison Krauss & Union Station, The Punch Brothers, The Del McCoury Band and others. See classic Americana done right.