The Glory-Beaming Banjo

Well, folks, the New Year is upon us. I hope you have enjoyed the holiday season. Thank you all for reading my blog throughout the year, despite my sometimes lackadaisical frequency. This is a hobby, and I appreciate all of your support. Keep in mind, we do have a Facebook page . Join us there to keep the conversation going. I look forward to what is to come in 2018. For your enjoyment, here are the Top 5 Glory-Beaming posts of 2017: The Year of Ward Jarvis : Learn how I decided to put together a project to learn the repertoire of the great Athens County, Ohio, fiddler. Review: Olitsky and Moskovitz Weave Beautiful Banjo Harmonies on "Duets" : A look at the banjo duets album, released earlier this year by two great players. New Additions to My Old-Time Record Collection : An overview of my budding old-time vinyl collection, including Tommy Jarrell, Ed Haley, Roscoe Holcomb and more. An Old-Time Smorgasbord in Peninsula : A preview of the wonderful Music on the Porche...

For whatever reason I forgot to write about one of my vinyl purchases earlier this year. As you know, I've been working on building my collection of old-time music on LP. Back in July, I learned that Mike Seeger's record collection was being auctioned off on eBay. As you can imagine, there were quite a few albums that I coveted, including a copy of Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music . However, the prices on some of the more collectible items skyrocketed beyond my checking account. But there was one record that I kept a close eye on.  The album I managed to buy was Visits ,  a compilation put together by Ray Alden and released on Heritage Records in 1982. The double album is split between "The Old Timers" and "The Young Musicians." It features the likes of J.P. Fraley, Fred Cockerham, Doc Roberts, Esker Hutchins, Mose Coffman, Burl Hammons, Buddy Thomas, Melvin Wine and Ward Jarvis.  Alden was the founder of the Field Recorders...

In January I dubbed this the "Year of Ward Jarvis." My intention was to start learning the repertoire of what I've come to call the Ohio River Valley Fiddlers, primarily those old-time musicians who lived in Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia. Starting with the repertoire of Jarvis, an Athens County, Ohio-based fiddler, I identified six of his tunes to learn from the field recordings by Jeff Goehring and David Brose. Those tunes were: "Head of the Creek" "Icy Mountain"   "Tomahawk" "Pretty Little Indian" "Three Forks of Reedy" "Cattle in the Cane" Goehring's recordings of Jarvis are available via the Field Recorders Collective. Brose produced two LPs that included Jarvis and his family in the 1979, Rats Won't Stay Where There's Music and Traditional Music from Central Ohio , both of which are now out of print. I received digital copies of these recordings through generous members of the Fid...

As I mentioned in my last post, I neglected to write about my progress on "Pretty Little Indian." This will just be a quick one about the fourth tune in my Year of Ward Jarvis project. It's an A modal tune played in standard GDAE tuning. I started working on it at the beginning of August. It's a crooked little tune, with some interesting phrasing. I especially like the long, E unison in the A part. Despite having several versions to work with and notation to help guide me, this has by far been the most difficult tune I've learned this year. I just recorded an updated version last week. I'm still not quite happy with my playing here. My intonation continues to be a problem, and my bowing at the end of each part gets messy. Here's my take: Here's the source. I'll be back soon with a year-end recap and some other miscellanea before we're done with 2017.

Well, it's been a month since my last post and four months since my last update on my Year of Ward Jarvis project. That means I've neglected to post about the progress I've made on two tunes, "Pretty Little Indian" and "Three Forks of Reedy." What the heck? The heck is I have gotten stuck. While I'm feeling OK about " Pretty Little Indian ," it still gives me some problems. It's an A modal tune played in GDAE, and it's got some interesting phrasing. I started working on it at the beginning of August. Here's the rough recording I made two months ago. I know it's not pretty (pun somewhat intended), but I've gotten better since then. I need to record myself again with how I'm playing the tune now. Although I'm still working out some kinks, I've gotten comfortable enough with it to move onto the next tune on my list, "Three Forks of Reedy." That's where the trouble lies. " Three For...