The Glory-Beaming Banjo

Can you believe 2018 is drawing to a close? That means it's time for a heavy dose of navelgazing to see what's built up, what needs work and perhaps what needs to be cleaned out. Back in January, I dubbed this " A Second Year of Ward Jarvis ," building on the previous year's progress . My goals were to learn four Ward Jarvis tunes on fiddle, log 186 hours of practice and play my banjo more often. The tunes on this year's list were culled from my list of common Ohio tunes , as well as one carryover from 2017. Here are the tunes: Three Forks of Reedy Leather Britches Forked Deer Grey Eagle Fourth Quarter Highlights The Good:   "Grey Eagle," while still a work in progress, has come along nicely. I had the opportunity to play with some folks recently, and I gave my newest tune a try for the first time in a group setting. It didn't go half bad. There are still three and a half weeks to go this year, and I think by then it'll be do...

Last time, my quarterly progress report was late . It only makes sense that this one would be a couple days early. Besides, I couldn't think of anything better to write. So, there's that. These last three months have been full of highlights. I've continued to make good progress on my Second Year of Ward Jarvis, there have been concerts and reviews, and I started a daily playing streak that continues to this day. Let's explore these more deeply. General Highlights My ongoing streak  is the accomplishment I'm perhaps most proud of. Yesterday, I hit 50 days in a row of playing fiddle and 47 consecutive days of playing banjo. It was also rewarding to have  two reviews I wrote appear in the spring issue of  The Old-Time Herald . I reviewed Richard Jones-Bamman's book, Building New Banjos for an Old-Time World , and the Clarence Ashley album, Live and In Person: Greenwich Village 1963 . I'll be writing more reviews for the publication in upcoming issue...

Considering my goal was to learn four more Ward Jarvis tunes this year, a quarterly update on my progress seems like a good idea. However, if that were the case, this post should have appeared a month ago. Apologies for the tardiness of something you didn't know was coming. I'll strive to do better next time. For this Second Year of Ward Jarvis , I started with "Three Forks of Reedy," which was a holdover from last year's overzealous attempt to learn six tunes. I actually started working on it in November, but got stuck . Since then I've noodled with how I play it several times. I think I've finally gotten close, but feel like I'm still missing something. In the attempt to figure out my shortcoming, I consulted The Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes . "Three Forks of Reedy" is not included, but I had read on the Fiddle Hangout that Jarvis' tune had come from Ed Haley's "Three Forks of Sandy," which is ...