Hot night on the Marietta Square! Thanks to the fiddlers for the music and Thomas Kerns for the video.
If you are around Marietta GA on a Tuesday evening, drop by the Australian Bakery for bite and some great music and fun!
St. Ann’s Reel
For our recent anniversary, my wife and I went to a spring event in Atlanta to see Cedar Hill. Duck and the guys were kind enough to play “Misty” just for us….
If you want more information on the band, check them out here.
Video shot by Bob Perl
I am learning the bluegrass community is deep AND wide. I would like to share some of my favorite blogs and sites that share the love through news, tips and humor.
First up is The Bluegrass Blog. This blog is a great clearinghouse for bluegrass folks with a unique feature called “The B”. The B is a page on the blog where anyone registered can post as long as the post is about bluegrass. This is a great way of promoting your band, latest CD project or an event. The site is authored by John Lawless and Brance Gillihan. There bios are available on the blog. John’s company is AcuTab Publications, a source of quality bluegrass training materials. Brance has a audio/video production called Clear Blue Productions, an audio/video production company. It is obvious they love bluegrass music and The Bluegrass Blog is a great resource. In a recent rating of the Top 100 Music Web Sites “The Bluegrass Blog” was rated 97 which is quite a feat for a bluegrass music site to be on the lists with pop, rock and rap music.
The oldest bluegrass site on the web is Cybergrass. Bob Cherry is the owner/operator of the site. Here is a quote on its origins “Bob Cherry created the first bluegrass web site on September 9, 1992 while working on an electronic documentation project. This was the world’s 7th web site. It got the name Cybergrass in 1995 thanks to Karen Quick.” This site is updated frequently and is a top source for bluegrass news. Check out the Top Ten tab for popular articles and postings. Today the Top Ten range from “How to rip your vinyl records to CD’s or mp3′s” to “The Story of the Martha White Bus”. This site also provides code for several ways of posting bluegrass music news on your own blog or business site. The site is packed with information and the adverstising in relevant to the bluegreass community.
The epicenter of the bluegrass world-wide community is the International Bluegrass Music Association, known as the IBMA. This organization is the authority on the subject of all things bluegrass and of course the IBMA hosts the most prestigious award ceremony for bluegrass, the annual IBMA Awards – The International Bluegrass Music Awards. Bluegrass Music is alive and well and growing now and programs from the IBMA like “Discover Bluegrass” are leading the way.
Do you have a favorite site or blog? Leave a comment and let us know!
I have played music in one form or another since I was 10 years old. From Junior High band to successful rock bands and “disco” show bands, I have done it all. Recently, I have added banjo to my arsenal of stringed instruments. I have played guitar and bass guitar for years, but have always love the twang and ring of the 5-string banjo. Here are 7 reasons I think that you will benefit from playing bluegrass music and especially the banjo.
1 Playing banjo is good for the spirit! It is true, as Steve Martin has often said, “The banjo is such a happy instrument–you can’t play a sad song on the banjo – it always comes out so cheerful.”
2 Learning to play banjo is the best lesson in discipline you will ever learn. Hours of practicing the forward, backward and reverse rolls are great training for patience AND persistence. Note to those with spouses and significant others: When you have practiced enough to drive them crazy, you are on the right track. Keep practicing!!!!
3 Toting the banjo. Toting a 12 pound banjo and case will improve your physical conditioning. Be sure and stay evenly balanced by carrying a bag of song books, stands, picks and other goodies in the other hand.
4 Playing the banjo with others. I have found that bluegrass jams are a great way to make music and make friends. The communal aspect of the jam circle and it rituals are really intriguing to see in action. It is amazing that a group of folks that may have never met can get together and play tunes some may not know and produce very listenable music. The “JAM” rocks!!!
5 Buying, Selling, Trading banjos. Many musicians spend a lifetime with one special instrument. However, most are not so monogamous with their banjo. In self-defense, it is good to acquire the skill sets of the Western “horse trader” and learn how to buy low, sell high and trade right. These skills are often transferable to the business world, especially for automobile sales and trading stocks.
6 Banjo as a second instrument. Don’t ever let your banjo know you are really a guitar player. It is best if they do not meet …. However, learning banjo will improve your guitar playing and timing in general.
7 Giving back with the banjo. Be sure and share banjo happiness with others. Get some friends together and take your music to the nursing home or children’s hospital in your area. This is a wonderful opportunity for giving back and your will be blessed to see the appreciation in the eyes of those you are playing for.
I will leave you with this thought: Nothing says ‘dropping out of society’ like learning the banjo. – Daniel Roth
If you have a benefit for playing the banjo, let us know!!!
This might be old news to a lot of you, but one of the “must-have” tools in your songwriter’s bag of tricks is The “Nashville Number System”.
This system, as the name implies, was developed by the seasoned session players in the Nashville studios in the 1950’s. The problem was standard music charts were written in one specific key. If the singer needed a different key, the transposition of the chords took too much time in an expensive studio environment.
Solution! The Nashville Number System!
Here’s how it works – The 7 notes of the major scale are assigned – you guessed it – NUMBERS!
For example, the key of C major scale consists of C D E F G A B. With the NNS the notes are C=1, D=2, E=3, F=4, G=5, A=G, 7=B. So a familiar tune with 3 chords of C-F-G is 1-4-5 in the system. I know that this sounds ridiculously simple, but believe me, this is a great way to learn the relative chord structure of songs and very useful for studio work and jams.
Note – there are many links out on the web on the system and there are more complicated versions. If you want the ultimate book on this, get Chas Williams book from Amazon on the subject.
If you are serious about your songwriting and getting cuts, learn this system.
One thing about taking up a new instrument, in my case, the banjo, and learning about bluegrass jams is that you are introduced to another world of music. Part of the new world of music for me includes the beautiful fiddle tune “Ashokan Farewell” It is played just about every week at our Tuesday night jam at the Australian Bakery.
I would have sworn it was 200 years old and migrated from Ireland or Scotland. However, it was written in the 1980′s by Jay Ungar. Read his story of the tune (and the place) here.
It is worthy of your time to read about the history of a tune from the composer’s point of view. When Ken Burns heard the music from a Fiddle Fever recording, he chose it for his epic Civil War series, the only “new” tune used in that project. It since became the signature song of the series and has become a standard around the world.
If you have not heard the tune, here you go…