The Glory-Beaming Banjo

Like last year, I am finishing 2023 on a high note. However, my playing time will fall well short of my goals this year with even fewer hours than 2022. And yet, I've been on a role since November, logging my longest streak within the year, which was only surpassed by the streak that had begun in 2022 and carried over until the end of January.  Other than not playing enough, I managed to do OK with some of my other goals this year. I'm happy to say I made it to some jams and local festivals this year, but I'd like to get into a more consistent routine of playing with others in 2024. It was a sad year for the old-time community. We lost some great people who left an indelible mark on the music and the people who knew them. Their memory will continue to live on in those whose lives they touched. Rest in peace, Kerry Blech, Robert Anderson and Bob Miller.   Got Back to Jams (A Couple, Anyway) Thinking back on 2023, I thought I went to more than just two jams. I attended a b...

Greetings, glorious readers! It's time for a quick update of my February five-string flings. Since my last update, I had two wonderful opportunities to play old-time music with friends.  First was a house jam to celebrate the birthday of Stephen Rapp , a regular player in Paul Kirk's Old-Time Tune of the Week videos. The festivities included a great gathering of Northeast Ohio musicians. I mostly played banjo. The group played a couple Ward Jarvis tunes for which I pulled out my fiddle, but I was too rusty to play along, so I went back the five-string.  Next was the 7th annual Lake Erie Folk Festival in Euclid, Ohio. I sat in on two organized community jams with an impromptu jam in the hallway in between the orchestra-sized sessions. I played banjo for the first couple hours and then switched to fiddle.  In addition, I finished work on "Hawks & Eagles" from Michael Ismerio's All-Access Online Fiddle Course and moved on to "Sally Ann." Because of s...

If you're a subscriber to The Old-Time Herald -- and if you read this blog, you should be -- you may have been wondering where your magazine has been these last nine months. The quarterly magazine published it's last issue in January 2020. The next issue would have been the annual Festival & Camp Guide in March, but then the COVID-19 pandemic dashed those plans.  Ad revenue dried up. Production came to a halt. In the meantime, however, the publication team redirected funds and efforts to revamp the OTH website. Unveiled this month, the new oldtimeherald.org has undergone a major makeover, replete with a new digital edition of the magazine, robust content and access to PDF downloads of past issues.  Editor Sarah Bryan sent a message to current subscribers on Dec. 7 explaining the delay in printing and unveiling the revamped website. But most of all, she wanted to let readers know that the magazine is still in business.  "When the pandemic struck early this year, we had...