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...

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 ...

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...

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...