Steady as she goes. That was the name of the game these past three months. I maintained my pace toward my yearly playing goals on fiddle and banjo. I learned "Mississippi Sawyer" on fiddle and "Sloop John B." on banjo. I attended two local festivals and arranged a one-on-one jam session to keep up with my "playing with others" goal. I posted twice a month on this blog, which is at least consistent if not up to last year's standard-bearer. All in all, it was a steady third quarter.
On the fiddle, I played 50 hours this quarter and feel pretty happy with "Mississippi Sawyer." I've worked out a couple variations, and I even tried it out in a jam at one of the festivals I attended this year. I've also continued to work on "Possum on a Rail." Next up is the good old chestnut, "Old Joe Clark." I also had written down "June Apple" in my notes. Depending on how well "Old Joe Clark" comes along, I may try a second tune this quarter.
On banjo, I played 13 hours this quarter, which puts me one hour ahead of my benchmark. I'm hoping I can exceed my goal and finish with a nice, round 50 hours for the year. I started the quarter still concentrating on "I've Been All Around This World," and got it to a more satisfying place than where I was at the end of the second quarter. I then moved on to "Sloop John B." While I had the lyrics pretty rock solid, I didn't have much of a guide for playing it on banjo. I looked up the chords and basically picked my way through it slowly by ear in standard G tuning (gDGBD). My next song will be "Down in the Willow Garden." It's another one I know the words pretty well, but will have to figure out my own banjo accompaniment. However, I imagine if I needed to, I could track down a banjo tab for this tune.
This quarter was a busy one for local festivals. I attended Music in the Valley on July 14 and then the Raccoon County Music Festival on Aug. 10. The weekend following Raccoon County, there were two more festivals, Music Along the River and the Blue Sky Folk Festival. Unfortunately, I couldn't attend either one. I voiced my concern about this problem last year, but I still hope the organizers of these festivals will find a way to space them out a little more. Blue Sky used to be in September. I'm not sure why they moved it up to compete with the other two. I think it's a real shame.
In addition to jamming at the festivals, I also got together again with a local old-time master who has helped me improve my fiddling quite a bit. During our first meeting in November last year, I learned I had a serious timing deficiency. And though I'm by no means cured, I was happy to hear I have made some solid improvement. I've been revisiting "Going Down to Georgie-O" and "Forked Deer" to smooth things out.
One other highlight this quarter was stumbling across a banjo builder at a local arts and crafts show. I met Don and Jackie Gardner at the Made in Ohio festival. They are the proprietors of Gardner's Dulcimer Shop in Grafton, Ohio. I got a chance to ogle and play his beautiful banjos, which I found to be very reasonably priced. I had my credit card on me, and I had a hard time resisting the urge to go broke. Their banjos are definitely worth checking out.
While I'm not setting any records with the number of blog posts I've made in the past three months, I maintained consistency and matched my second quarter production of two per month. I was happy to finally finish my review of Lew Stern's biography of Tommy Thompson and to share an initiative to track down recordings of the Southern Ohio fiddler Jess Large. Sadly, however, the old-time community lost John Cohen this month. On the bright side, Mike Seeger's Just Around the Bend project was released, and my copy recently arrived in the mail, so you can expect a review of that in the coming weeks.
I want to finish 2019 on a strong note. I'm on pace to reach my playing time goals, and feel good about keeping that up. There are no more local festivals this year, but I'm planning to attend some jam sessions in the next three months to continue playing with others. Maybe I'll get back to recording myself, as I had planned this year. Thank you for hanging in there with me.
Previous Quarterly Reports:
On banjo, I played 13 hours this quarter, which puts me one hour ahead of my benchmark. I'm hoping I can exceed my goal and finish with a nice, round 50 hours for the year. I started the quarter still concentrating on "I've Been All Around This World," and got it to a more satisfying place than where I was at the end of the second quarter. I then moved on to "Sloop John B." While I had the lyrics pretty rock solid, I didn't have much of a guide for playing it on banjo. I looked up the chords and basically picked my way through it slowly by ear in standard G tuning (gDGBD). My next song will be "Down in the Willow Garden." It's another one I know the words pretty well, but will have to figure out my own banjo accompaniment. However, I imagine if I needed to, I could track down a banjo tab for this tune.
This quarter was a busy one for local festivals. I attended Music in the Valley on July 14 and then the Raccoon County Music Festival on Aug. 10. The weekend following Raccoon County, there were two more festivals, Music Along the River and the Blue Sky Folk Festival. Unfortunately, I couldn't attend either one. I voiced my concern about this problem last year, but I still hope the organizers of these festivals will find a way to space them out a little more. Blue Sky used to be in September. I'm not sure why they moved it up to compete with the other two. I think it's a real shame.
In addition to jamming at the festivals, I also got together again with a local old-time master who has helped me improve my fiddling quite a bit. During our first meeting in November last year, I learned I had a serious timing deficiency. And though I'm by no means cured, I was happy to hear I have made some solid improvement. I've been revisiting "Going Down to Georgie-O" and "Forked Deer" to smooth things out.
While I'm not setting any records with the number of blog posts I've made in the past three months, I maintained consistency and matched my second quarter production of two per month. I was happy to finally finish my review of Lew Stern's biography of Tommy Thompson and to share an initiative to track down recordings of the Southern Ohio fiddler Jess Large. Sadly, however, the old-time community lost John Cohen this month. On the bright side, Mike Seeger's Just Around the Bend project was released, and my copy recently arrived in the mail, so you can expect a review of that in the coming weeks.
I want to finish 2019 on a strong note. I'm on pace to reach my playing time goals, and feel good about keeping that up. There are no more local festivals this year, but I'm planning to attend some jam sessions in the next three months to continue playing with others. Maybe I'll get back to recording myself, as I had planned this year. Thank you for hanging in there with me.
Previous Quarterly Reports:
[Photo credits: The top photo comes from the Raccoon County Music Festival Facebook page. See if you can find me. The second image is the banjo selection from the Gardner Dulcimer Shop tent at this year's Made in Ohio.]
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