Progress and Passion

Since we last spoke I have added at least one more number to my vast list of songs. That is Old Dan Tucker. I am also working on Spanish Fandango and The Wreck of the Old '97. I know, that's not a whole lot, which brings me to the question of passion. I have been re-reading Stephen King's On Reading in preparation of my assignment by my daughter and granddaughter to write a novel during the month of November. Mr. King says that he writes 2000 words a day. He recommends that new writers try for 1000 per day. If I am to write 50,000 words during a month with 30 days, that's 1666 words a day. However, I will be missing for at least five of those days, so that leaves 25 days. 50,000 divided by 25 is 2000 words per day. That is roughly ten pages a day, seven days a week for the time that I have. Writing that much will probably take at least several hours, I am guessing, if I think of something to write; a considerable commitment.

Mr. King also says that to be a writer, you must be passionate about it. He means that you must be serious about the business of writing and get yourself down to it, no fooling around. I think he is quite correct, and if you are passionate, the getting down to it part won't seem like work. That is true with writing just as it is true with playing a musical instrument or doing anything else in life. Everyone doesn't have to be a writer or a musician. Thank God. There are already enough lousy ones of each out there.

I think that I am not very different than many other people who aspire to write or to play a musical instrument. I like to do both, but there is a certain lack of passion and my commitment to each is spotty. Whenever I read about a good writer or a good musician, or a good whatever, the common thread is that they practice their craft all the time. Patrick Costello (www.dailyfrail.com) is the person who has had the most influence on my banjo playing. He is an excellent folk musician who expresses himself with a banjo or guitar. His banjo playing is suburb, but he has practiced his craft for 25 years or more, passionately. He tells of the hours he walked up and down his driveway practicing the frailing strum. He has a real love for what he does and he had the passion to spend the hours and hours that it took to get him where he is today. Stephen King has a passion for writing. He likes what he does. But where does this passion come from? What do you do if you don't have the passion to practice for hours at a time, or to write for hours at a time?

So far, I can play the banjo for a half hour at a time and be somewhat content. I know that if I play more, I will make more progress. I would like to get to the point where I am more familiar with the fingerboard and have all of the chords, movable and otherwise, mastered. I guess I had better stop writing and get playing. I don't know about those 2000 words of writing every day for a month. I may have to accept that I may not achieve my goal of becoming a world famous author of best selling novels. I believe that all of this came about because I just got a call from our piano tuner to make an appointment to tune ours. Mamma Mia, another musical instrument being neglected by the resident players!

My New Harp

My new C harp arrived in the mail today. It is a Marine Band Special 20, handmade in Germany by Hohner. I have another C harp and a G harp from Hohner, but they're made in China and they don't say "handmade," so I don't want to guess how they are made. I'm still awaiting two books from Amazon on playing the blues with it. I have never been much into blues, but I like some of the things I've heard played on the harmonica. So, now I am learning the banjo, mandolin and harmonica. It is said that the harmonica is an excellent tool to learn songs by ear and is recommended in playing the banjo. In fact, many banjo and guitar players use a  neck rack to hold the harmonica so they can play along with their stringed instrument. I don't know if I'll ever get  to that point in my musical ability, but I have a rack, so we'll see what happens

What Next?

If you follow all of the advice that you get you would exercise one hour a day, meditate one hour a day, walk one hour a day, engage in a hobby one hour a day and, depending on your interests or avocation, do other things for one hour a day. You can readily see that if you follow that regime, your day quickly fades away. Of course, you also have to do certain household chores, perhaps go shopping, pay bills, read and study things necessary to understand current affairs. For the past several days, I have been occupied with the water in our cellar. Fortunately, there was little damage, but much annoyance. I have been busy organizing and repacking my toy trains and related accessories in plastic boxes. I didn't keep track of how many hours were spent doing that, but there were enough and, when I was finished for a day, I didn't much feel like doing anything else, including playing the banjo or the mandolin.

Today, for the first time in perhaps a week, I picked up the banjo to do some practicing. I didn't do it for an hour, but maybe for a half hour or twenty minutes. I don't really keep an accurate account of the time. I think I need to get better organized. I believe that I should try a new song every week and stick with it for the week to see how that works. I should do that along with a review of the songs I have already learned. That sounds like a plan, but I also have to get busy on the front and side porch, scraping and painting. We'll see where the music fits into that.

A Banjoist I May Become

If I practice every day, I may become one. I have been alternating between the banjo and the mandolin in my practice sessions. I'm not sure that is a good idea. I enjoy learning both of them, but, I have to admit, I'm not an enthusiastic practicer. I would like to pass through the practice stage and just have all the knowledge, but I know that's not possible. I am making some slow progress on the banjo. I am trying to follow the advice of Patrick Costello to become thoroughly grounded in rhythm and then to follow the chord progressions to play any song. Well, easy for him to say. I fear that any musical genes in my family have skipped from my father, who had his own band and played drums and my mother, who played violin, completely over my head to my grandson, Stephen, who has exhibited some remarkable musical abilities. Be that as it may, I still want to learn these instruments, so I will have to work harder at it and re read and re listen until a light bulb goes off.

I told Anne today that I was thinking of getting myself a birthday present for my birthday that is in two days. I said I wanted a banjo strap. I have one on each banjo, but I want something more colorful for my new banjo. My Deering Goodtime banjo has a strap with colorful frogs on it. My new one has a plain brown strap, not in keeping with my flamboyant character. She suggested that I simply switch straps. (I hate practical advice.) I realized that while my brown strap is a true banjo strap, my colorful one is actually a guitar strap. Okay, I can now see that some of my readers' eyes are glazing over. A guitar strap is shorter and attaches to the instrument differently. Guitar straps come in all sorts of colors and designs and are generally cheaper. So, maybe I want a guitar strap with an appropriate design for my birthday.

In terms of my practice repertoire, I have been trying Will the Circle be Unbroken, an essential banjo tune, Rosin the Beau and Mountain Dew. There are so many songs I want to learn, it is hard to pick a few to practice, but this I must do if ever I am to succeed.

There is a folk musicians group near here, the New Jersey Bluegrass and Old Time Music Society, that meets the third Sunday of every month through May in a church in Little Silver and has practice workshops for new players. They say it is not intimidating, but I'm not sure I want to subject myself to that, but maybe I should. Even though I'm not looking to play in a group, it is said that you can learn a lot in a group jam session. We will see what happens there. I will report back, I think.

Mandolin Lessons

My mandolin lessons so far have been from several older books that I bought years ago and a couple of newer ones. I am currently learning the notes on the first and second strings and reacquainting myself with reading music. A lot of banjo music is written in Tab (tabulature) in which, instead of a regular musical staff, the staff represents the strings on the banjo and a number appears on each line representing the fret at which the string should be pressed. Tabulature is helpful when starting as it allows you to play without first translating the music into strings and frets, etc. It can become a crutch and it is best to use it sparingly until you can play without it.

Mandolin music is also available in Tab, for some genres, but the mandolin can play so many types of music that it is best, I believe, to start with regular music notation right in the beginning. It is probably easier to use music notation with the mandolin because the tuning of the mandolin remains constant, whereas the banjo can be tuned in a number of different ways and, of course, with each tuning the location of the notes change.

So far I am playing rather rudimentary songs: Bile Them Cabbage Down, Shoo Fly, Merrily We Pick Along and Skip to My Lou. These songs use notes on the first two strings. Soon I will learn the notes on the third and fourth strings. The Mandolin Cafe has a section offering free lessons, which are very basic, but then there are offers to buy more complete lessons. The prices seem reasonable, but maybe I will wait a little while and see how I do with the books that I already have.

My First Audience / Mandolin / Banjo

I was tuning my mandolin last night, when my five year old granddaughter, claiming she wasn't tired at 10:00 o'clock p.m. and therefore didn't need to sleep, climbed onto the top of the sofa to watch me and ask what I was doing with the guitar. I tried to explain to her the difference between a guitar, a mandolin and a banjo, since the banjo was sitting right there and she could plainly see that it wasn't the same as a mandolin. She listened politely. I then decided to play a few tunes on the banjo, which I did. I played Gypsy Girl, Wildwood Flower, Cripple Creek, Bile them Cabbage Down, Red River Valley, Skip To My Lou and Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore. She listened politely. So, I have now played the banjo when someone was actually listening to me. She didn't run screaming from the room, or laugh uncontrollably, so maybe I am ready to play for other humans. Not sure yet. It may be that she wanted to do either or both of the above, but was afraid she would be sent to bed.

I was thinking of the name of this blog. I don't like "The Banjo Man" for some reason. I was thinking of changing it to "A Banjoist" or maybe "A Mandobanjoist , but that would imply that I play a banjo mandolin, or as some call it a mandolin banjo. I do have one of those, although I promised it to my 13 year old granddaughter when she was six or seven. The skin head on it is torn and I have a new skin head, but, so far, I lack the courage to replace the head by myself. Since I bought the skin head, I have learned that there are small drum heads that might work well on it. Maybe that will be a back up plan. Anyway, I don't know what to do with the name, not that it makes a whole lot of difference to the people (person) that follow this blog, but it's something to think about.

So, the mandolin is now in tune. It was badly out of tune probably because I haven't played it in a while. But, now it is good to go. There is basically one tuning for the mandolin, not like the banjo which is open tuning. The mandolin is tuned like the violin, in perfect fifths, so it is supposed to be easier to play than the banjo. We'll see about that as I now start to work on that along with the banjo and to master snow shoveling techniques in the coming days.

No Retreat For Me This Year

I won't be going to the Folk Musicians' Retreat this year because of Anthony's and Alex's First Communion in Florida. Some of the musicians that I met there the past two times were really great people and I'm disappointed that I won't be there, but I would much rather be with the boys on their important day. It seems funny that, now that I'm retired and have few things on my calendar, two important events have to conflict. There are all of these other days when I'm not especially busy.

I am still trying to get some playing in every day, but I have to get to the point where I sing while playing. Maybe soon.

The Transition

I haven't published much on this blog, because, frankly, I got tired of thinking of legal related topics to write about. I am now retired and, except for a few wills and estates for family and close friends, I think it would be ducky to retire from the law as well. I know that some colleagues love the law and would continue to practice to their dying day. I like the law, find it fascinating, but also find it getting more and more complicated. So, since I have told my banjo buddies that my musical name should be Barrister Bill, I will use this blog to write primarily about my musical progress, mostly on the banjo, but also on the mandolin or any other acoustic instrument I might try. I am not going to even think about giving instructions. There are others who are much better at that than I. One in particular is Patrick Costello.

So, this will become, in effect, a diary of my progress and, hopefully, spur me on practice righteously. I do know that I must sing as I'm playing. In fact, I should first of all learn to sing the songs. The songs that I can play thus far, not really well, but I can recognize them are:

1.)  Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore
2.)  Skip to My Lou
3.)  Red River Valley
4.)  Bile Them Cabbage Down
5.)  Cripple Creek
6.)  Wildwood Flower
7.)  Gypsy Girl

I am currently working on Rosin the Beau and Spanish Fandango. So, we'll see how all of this goes.