I just got a Jump Lead from Troubadour in the UK. It was designed as a clip-on tuning pickup, but it can work really well as a general acoustic pickup if you put it on the right place on the instrument.
I discovered that if you clip it to a Fielding-Cutler Mute on the bridge, the sound is great: warm, mellow, very little acoustic feedback, but lots of chunky overtones. I like it!
… to buy so many CDs at the Midwest Banjo Camp. I’ve spent the last couple of hours keying in track listings for The Old Time Banjo Festival, Erynn Marshall & Chris Coole, and Neil Woodward. Please, please please don’t let me have to do the same for the Uncle Dave Macon set, ‘cos then I’ll be here all day.
Well, just two more sessions to go at banjo camp. It’s been a lot of fun, and I’ve learned so much. I do need to get my chord skills down, but even my half-formed frailing did garner compliments.
The concerts were great. Last night we had Wade & Julia Mainer perform some gospel numbers. Wade turned 100 this year, but you wouldn’t know it to hear them play.
So it’s a long drive back, but it was worth it.
okay, I need to work on my basic G chords and getting to know the standard jam canon. I knew none of them at the slow jam tonight - no Boil Them Cabbage, no Cripple Creek, no Buffalo Girls. I might know a bunch of modal tunes, and one in F even, but can I fret a C chord … ?
Fully installed at Midwest Banjo Camp at East Lansing. It’s green, there are chipmunks, and many, many banjo players - oh, and Clif Ervin, bones player extraordinaire.
I’m going to the Midwest Banjo Camp this summer! W00t!
(and yes, I’ve set up a Banjo Hangout account. It’s like myspace for banjo nerds.)
It was the Banjo Special last night. There was much frailing, picking, and whatever it is that Irish Tenor players do.
I just can’t get the B-part of Sail Away Ladies down, so the ladies will have to stay on land for now.
Note to IKEA: while cheese has many excellent qualities — nutrition, sustainability, yumminess amongst them — it is not a suitable material for making nuts and bolts. While building an Anssi bar stool, I managed to round out just about every fastener, despite using good tools.
Building the Anssi was especially frustrating, as it’s the only IKEA piece I’ve ever built that had such poor tolerances that everything needed slackened off in order to make the next part fit. It’s built now, though, and hasn’t imploded from internal stresses (yet).
I bought it as a banjo seat, for while I was at Casa Wakefield in Missouri the other week, I noticed how good a bar stool is for comfortable playing.
Took advantage of the holiday to scoot down to The 12th Fret to have my banjo looked at. I’d managed to do a bad thing to the tailpiece (which I’d rather not talk about, thank you), and had Grant fit capo spikes at 7, 9 & 10.
While working on the fretboard, Grant confirmed that these really were model railway track spikes — or more correctly, model railway enthusiasts use capo spikes to hold their rails down!
These are not the Planetary Tuners I sought …
I’m currently intrigued by a Lee Hammons tune that Chris Coole taught me — Walking in the Parlor. It’s very simple, never straying beyond the second fret, yet packs in enough drop- and double-thumb in a short piece to still make it challenging.
Not all of these could be classed as banjo tunes, but I’d want to try, anyway:
Yesterday went to The Twelfth Fret and traded in the Goodtime for this:
It’s a Gold Tone Bob Carlin Signature. It sounds beautiful, and unlike me, plays like a dream. So if I’m not blogging so much, this might just be the reason.
