Haven't put anything here in months because no one reads it anyway. But what the heck. I've spent the last 8 months or so jumping from one thing to another musically. Haven't had a get-together with those guys who jammed last year, mostly because the one guy's wife was hurt and took a long time to recuperate. (Some idiot hit her with a van as she was walking to her car in the supermarket parking lot). So the Stump Grinders (or the Apple Knockers, or whatever we could call ourselves) have been dormant.
So I've taken up one style of music after another, in my typical attention-deficit style. Took Bluegrass Banjo 1 and 2 at the Old Town School, with a teacher I really liked (Ryan Fisher) and one I always felt mildly annoyed by. But that was probably my "issue." I learned a lot from both of them. I've kept up practicing enough not to lose what I learned, but haven't progressed. Meanwhile I've been fiddling more, and joined some old time jam sessions at the School and at people's homes. Plus I pick up the guitar and uke every so often to keep from getting rusty.
Actually, learning a bit of Scruggs style banjo has been good for my guitar playing, because I finally feel at home with finger picks. I always felt clumsy with them before, so I always tried to finger pick naked (my fingers, that is) with muddled results. Now I've been relearning some tunes like "Freight Train" and "Railroad Bill" in crisper style. Maybe I should try more Travis style. Also fooled around with "Tears in Heaven" using the finger picks. Some guy from England or Australia (Mike Herbert) has some videos you can watch for free and that's one of the songs he covers.
I also stumbled on a really interesting NPR web page with clips from segments they did on the 100 most important musical pieces of the 20th century.
http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/vote/100list.html
Some of them weren't about "pieces," strictly speaking - like the story on all the Carl Stalling scores from Warner Brothers cartoons - but all were interesting. And certainly eclectic. I also liked the story on "Wildwood Flower," which pointed out how the Carter Family mangled the words to the original poem from 1860. And the piece on "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" should have been required listening for Bluegrass Banjo 1, as it described the evolution of Earl Scruggs' three finger style really well, with some commentary by John Hartford.
Speaking of eclectic... This morning I woke up and played "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard"on the ukulele. It's not a bad instrument to use for that song. But key of G is a little high for my 55 year old voice. Or a little low, depending on which octave I try to sing in.
And speaking of Warner Brothers, I also actually edited a Wikipedia article for the second time in my life. I put in a couple sentences about how "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" sounds an awful lot like "Chinese Breakdown," the old fiddle tune:
http://www.lyon.edu/wolfcollection/songs/joneschinese1257.html
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