The Glory-Beaming Banjo

In reading about productivity tricks learned from the late author David Foster Wallace , I was introduced to the notion of the "OK Plateau," a concept coined by another author, Joshua Foer , who defines this as the place where people reach an acceptable level of skill and then stop trying to learn new things, which Wallace describes in his very long novel Infinite Jest . " Then [there's] maybe the worst type, because it can cunningly masquerade as patience and humble frustration. You've got the Complacent type, who improves radically until he hits a plateau, and is content with the radical improvement he's made to get to the plateau, and doesn't mind staying at the plateau because it's comfortable and familiar, and he doesn't worry about getting off it, and pretty soon you find he's designed a whole game around compensating for the weaknesses and chinks in the armor the given plateau represents in his game, still — his whole game is based on...

A few years ago, I read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers , which propagates the idea of "the 10,000-hour rule," whereby it takes 10,000 hours of practicing a certain task to become a master of that task. This idea planted a seed that led me to create a spreadsheet to track my banjo playing. I already tracked my running on another spreadsheet, so it seemed natural to carry over the practice to quantify my musical pursuits. Since 2008, I've logged 1,010 hours (and counting) of banjo playing, so in another 45 years I'll have mastered the instrument. I'll be 79 years old. It seems hopeless to think that way, but having the spreadsheet helps me keep track of my progress, regardless of whether I ever actually reach that gilded 10,000-hour mark. A year ago, I bought a fiddle as a Christmas gift to me from my wife, and you'd better believe I created a spreadsheet to track my playing. I made some great progress in the beginning of the year, but then the weather got...

It's not like he claps along, but there's something magical about playing the fiddle (or banjo) in front of my son and not having him scream out in holy terror. My morning routine has changed slightly, after my wife asked if I could watch the baby a little longer in the mornings when I feed him so she could catch some uninterrupted shuteye. She didn't think my playing music in the attic would disturb her sleep, and we have a bassinet up there for our son to sleep in while I saw away. To my surprise, he quickly dozes and let's me have my half hour of practice time. Hopefully, there won't be any irreparable harm to his ears or psyche when all is said and done. This week I picked up Brad Leftwich's Old-Time Fiddle Round Peak Style from the library to see if it was worth owning. There's a lot of information to parse. You can download the CD tracks for free, and having read most of the non-tune parts of the book already, I'm not sure it's a must-h...

Family life is starting to settle into a routine. Last week, my wife and I swapped feeding shifts, allowing me some extra time in the morning before work. It's not much, but the half hour I get to play fiddle in the basement has been rejuvenating. The attic is my preferred practice space. The finished room has a corner dedicated to my music, including a stereo, LPs and CDs, bookshelves, a music stand, extra chairs in case of musical visitors, and a table for appropriate beverages. The basement, however, puts an extra floor between my making noise and my sleeping family. Not as cozy as the attic. In the last four days, I've managed to practice three times. Those sessions have mostly been focused on knocking off the rust accumulated over the past month since our son was born. My main goal for now is to just focus on bowing and maintaining the few tunes I've learned so far. If I can get a few steps closer to mastering the bow, I'll call this year's progress a ...