Happy New Year! Welcome back to Glory-Beaming Banjo. Last year ended on a positive note, and 2019 brings the promise of hope for another strong year of playing music and writing these here blog posts.
With a bit of a hurdle yet to clear before 2018 ran out, I managed to surpass both of my playing time goals and end the year with a 50-day playing streak. I feel reasonably good about the tunes I learned last year, but I do still need to work on refining them.
This year, I'm hoping to increase my playing time goals for banjo and fiddle and learn some more tunes, but I'm taking a break from the Ward Jarvis catalog. Instead, I'll be tackling some overlooked chestnuts as a means to improve my rhythm and expand my jam-friendly repertoire.
When I started on the fiddle, I had little interest in learning the common tunes I already played on banjo. I jumped from Wayne Erbsen's Old-Time Fiddle for the Complete Ignoramus to Brad Leftwich's more complex bowing patterns in the Learn to Play Old-Time Fiddle instructional videos.
As most of my playing is done solo, I suspect that syncopated bowing style was throwing off my sense of rhythm as time wore on. I'm hoping that by going back to learn some basic tunes and focusing on rhythm that I'll be able to right the ship. With that said, here are my 2019 fiddle, banjo and blogging goals.
My 2019 Fiddle Tunes:
Further efforts to improve my rhythm will include playing with others more often and recording myself regularly. Finally, just wanted to recognize that Jan. 1 marks my six-year anniversary for starting fiddle.
My 2019 Banjo Tunes:
With a bit of a hurdle yet to clear before 2018 ran out, I managed to surpass both of my playing time goals and end the year with a 50-day playing streak. I feel reasonably good about the tunes I learned last year, but I do still need to work on refining them.
When I started on the fiddle, I had little interest in learning the common tunes I already played on banjo. I jumped from Wayne Erbsen's Old-Time Fiddle for the Complete Ignoramus to Brad Leftwich's more complex bowing patterns in the Learn to Play Old-Time Fiddle instructional videos.
As most of my playing is done solo, I suspect that syncopated bowing style was throwing off my sense of rhythm as time wore on. I'm hoping that by going back to learn some basic tunes and focusing on rhythm that I'll be able to right the ship. With that said, here are my 2019 fiddle, banjo and blogging goals.
Fiddle
Even though my tune list this year is made up of common tunes, I'm leaning on my "Ohio tune list" to determine which common tunes to learn.My 2019 Fiddle Tunes:
- Arkansas Traveler (D)
- Mississippi Sawyer (D)
- Old Joe Clark (A)
- Turkey in the Straw (G)
Further efforts to improve my rhythm will include playing with others more often and recording myself regularly. Finally, just wanted to recognize that Jan. 1 marks my six-year anniversary for starting fiddle.
Banjo
One of my reasons for learning the fiddle was the hope that it would improve my banjo playing. Unfortunately, I haven't kept up my efforts to translate my fiddle repertoire to my first love. My tune list reflects a return to that ideal. In addition, my big goal is to learn to sing and play banjo with "Mole in the Ground," a song to which I already kind of know the words and have a general sense of the melody.My 2019 Banjo Tunes:
- Mole in the Ground (D)
- Raggedy Ann (D)
- Grey Eagle (A)
- Turkey in the Straw (G)
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