Places to See #2

This week's passel o' links I found entertaining or of interest:

► The oldest recorded melody? I find this one particularly fascinating, even a bit spine tingling. If this is anything *close* to accurate, we're hearing music that fell on the ears of the ancients, eons ago.

► Interesting glimpses of New York diaries from all different time periods and very different personalities...as always, I'm intrigued by variances in handwriting and style.

► 10 words that need to die immediately. (They do, they do!)

► The Lamy Safari color of the year, 2012.

► Cats as fonts--cute. (Thanks to notagain at Manual Entry for this one...)

► Guitars in space!

► Speaking of guitar, wanna buy a guitar boat?

► How to make a duct tape rose. Well, *I* thought it was cool!

► And this round's "just because" entry, cat caught barking...

Star of the County Down...sort of.

I think I'm going to start putting these music posts up on occasion--not normally this frequently, but now and again--primarily as a means of working on the stage fright I mentioned. Even faced with a microphone, I go dry-mouthed, so this is a good exercise: just recording them and letting them hang out there all public-like.

I can hear the nerves in this one, big time, but I'm done trying for the perfect take. It's an instrumental fingerstyle arrangement I did of an Irish song called Star of the County Down, which is often done in a more march-like 4/4 version...but this was the way I first learned it.

I swear, I *can* play in keys other than A minor. Honest, I can!

Guitar goofing and goofing up

At the type-in, the subject of playing music came up, and someone (Justin?) asked me if I played with a band.  I answered (tongue in cheek) "Not currently."  And then spent the rest of the day worried someone had actually believed I meant it, and that I can actually, in fact, play well enough for such things.  I can't.

But I have had the guitar out more since then, out of shame, so there has been that benefit.

Here's something I came up with years ago that I've been goofing around with again: two chords, very simple melody, fingerpicked.  Lots of the audio equivalent of typos: my fingers were tired and I kept buzzing, my guitar wasn't completely in tune.  Not to mention Tam gets in his two cents at the end, sort of throwing me off.  The tune needs a title one of these days.  It's in A minor, so the "A minor thing" name on the track means that it is, in fact, an A Minor thing.  Not a minor thing.  Or, actually, it is a rather minor thing, but...

Oh, never mind.

Anyhow, it kinda feels nice, having sore fingers again!

What I did this weekend....

Aside from spending time obsessing about 3x5 cards, that is. I went to a really awesome music workshop!

Warning: I lazily cut and pasted this from a post I made to the FLATPICK-L guitar list, which means a high percentage of the content would likely only be of interest to fellow guitar nerds.

--BEGIN PASTED STUFF--

Steve Kaufman's workshops may just be the next best thing to his Kamp. And in his workshops, you get him for an entire day and a half, instead of just one class out of a week. (See other Kamp references on my blog here)

This particular workshop (pulled together by the Winlock Bluegrass Organization and Marv's Music) was held on April 24th and 25th, and was the first time I'd attended one of Steve's full workshops. I had high expectations, based on two trips to Kamp in 2001 and 2008, and such of his teaching materials as I've been able to accumulate. I wasn't disappointed. He's a masterful teacher, and a fun entertainer. More than that, one thing I've learned through workshops and Kamps is that although you can (and should!) learn something from every teacher and performer, now and again there will be one who speaks your language: someone whose methods just click for you, and turn on that little light bulb in your head. Not all of us will connect with the same people, of course--we learn in different ways and have different approaches to music. But Steve just makes sense to me.

The workshop was held at the old Yardbirds Mall in Chehalis, WA. I'd never been there before, but contrary to my usual method of operation, I found the place on my first try--it's kind of hard to miss the GIANT black bird sculpture out front. Too bad these can't always be used as landmarks for events--sure would make my life easier if I could just always look for ENORMOUS cartoon crows.

The mall used to be one of the biggest shopping centers in the area. These days, it's primarily an event center, with the downstairs portion taken up by lots of quirky little shops on one side and a grocery store on the other. We were upstairs, in a big room labeled "the Bird's Nest."

Since not everyone was able to make it to the evening session, and some people had had a long travel day, Steve kept Friday evening pretty laid back. He let us get all the gear questions out of the way, and showed off his beautiful red spruce / bubinga Ken Miller guitar. (Incidentally, bubinga is really fun to say. Bubinga, bubinga, bubinga!) He talked a bit about his too-thin yaller picks and why he likes them. He also had us write down some of the topics and tunes we wanted to work on the following day, showed us a little crosspicking and went over some rhythm techniques and bass runs.

Saturday was more intense. It started off with what he called the Saturday Morning Hot Seat. He went through the tunes we'd written down the day before, and for each tune, called up a victim...er...volunteer, and had them play it with him. Then we talked a bit about the tune. We covered Salt Creek, Bill Cheatham, Black Mountain Rag, St. Anne's Reel. Everyone did pretty good. Somewhere in the middle there I *almost* nodded when Steve said he'd go through Blackberry Blossom in a minute, which made me a volunteer. By the time Steve and another student were about halfway through St. Anne's Reel (Blackberry Blossom being next), I was already shaking and my hands were going clammy. But, hey, I told myself, I can do this. Blackberry Blossom is one of the tunes I've played and played and played with the Bluegrass Workout CDs. I was worried about flubbing the chords when my turn came to play backup, but I figured I could handle the melody. Then I actually got up there.

Aaand I was shaking so hard I could barely hit the strings, I blanked out on huge sections of the tune, I frantically hit random notes, and just generally made a mess of things until I finally just came to a crashing halt. And Steve made me play it again! Several times. The very last time through, I almost played the right notes in the B part. Yay me! But I was still shaking so hard my teeth were practically chattering. I can't say my performance was a resounding success. At the least, though, maybe some of the other students who were nervous about getting up there can think, "Well, at least I could do better than *that*...."


Me in the hot seat: note my deer-in-the-headlights expression.

As I walked back to my seat, Steve said, "Now, you do that again next chance you get! That's how you get over performance anxiety!" Oh, goody! My poor bruised ego was screaming, "Do it again? Are you kidding?? Don't you *dare* do that to me again!" But I reckon I'm fool enough to try.

Over the course of the rest of the day, we learned Mississippi Sawyer and did some crosspicking. Steve pulled a sneaky one on us, though: he taught us a seemingly random little progression and had us work on it piece by piece for a good portion of the afternoon. Then he put it all together and, like magic, there was a crosspicked arrangement of the first part of Wildwood Flower.

Interspersed between it all, Steve dispensed wisdom on allocation of practice time, getting volume and power out of your playing, and why it's important to work on your down-ups. I want to work on his wide swing attack--my volume needs all the help it can get. And I know pick direction is one of the biggest reasons I have points in tunes where I get mixed up: it would behoove me to slow down and really concentrate on the down-ups for awhile. He also talked about the importance of repetition when learning tunes, which was something I needed to hear. I love pretty tunes, and I'm able to toddle off after more and more pretty tunes without really learning the ones I already have.

After the workshop, there was a bit of jamming, and later in the evening, Steve's concert down at the Hub City Cafe in Centralia, WA. (I got lost on the way there. See above about ENORMOUS cartoon crows. I'm tellin' ya...it'd really help me out!) Marv's band, the Black River Band opened, and did a fine job. I especially liked their rendition of "The Water is Wide," and Joan Smith's original song at the end of their set. Then Steve came out and started out by tearing it up on a fiddle tune medley segueing into some fingerpicking. Good stuff. The whole set was good. I think my favorites were the waltzes, just because I'm a sucker for waltzes--he did a really pretty harmonics bit at the end of Festival Waltz, and Ookpik is an old favorite of mine. He ended it off with a medley that started with Over the Waterfall--another favorite of mine.

All in all, a great time! Kind of a little taste of Kamp.

This and that

(In the interest of full disclosure, I do own two guitars now: one is a much less expensive but still mighty fine Recording King RO-127--I can't say enough about these guitars for those looking for something a bit better than dirt cheap, but still in the semi easy-to-replace ballpark. This one goes with me anywhere I'd be nervous about taking the Collings. Best bang for the buck out there, in my opinion.)

(Oh, and in the section below, there were two places where I meant to type SG-1 and typed SG-3 instead. You'll see what I mean.)

Jay Respler's contact info:
ADVANCED BUSINESS MACHINES CO.
230 RANDOLPH ROAD
FREEHOLD NJ 07728-1535
732-431-1464
JRespler@superlink.net
http://uweb.superlink.net/jrespler/

I have a confession to make....

I'm a serial hobbyist.

I have a lot of interests, but I have trouble with combining them, with the exception of crocheting and writing, which seem to go hand in hand -- every November I do NaNoWriMo and crochet up a storm. But other than that, I tend to pursue one interest at a time with a completely obsessive focus.

So...lately it's been music. I went to Kamp Kaufman back in June, and I've been to various jams since then, plus one bluegrass festival (and counting -- hopefully I'll make a few more of the small ones before the season is out. There's an Irish session in town that I want to start going to. I've also been hanging out on FLATPICK-L, and playing my guitar. A lot. Usually a few hours every evening, sometimes more. I play for a bit when I first get home, just sitting on the couch. I play while watching TV, both while watching shows, and sometimes try to pick out the melodies during commercials, just for practice. (Anyone else ever jam with the freecreditreport.com guy? Don't answer that....) I play along with CDs, especially since I picked up a nifty little program called Amazing Slow Downer (cheesy, but descriptive) that lets me adjust pitch and speed. Mostly I've been working along with Steve Kaufman's Four Hour Bluegrass Workout, which has backup tracks for a whole bunch of fiddle tunes. Very nice. I still have to learn about nine-tenths of them, but hey, it's a start.

The sad thing is that I'm only *just* getting back to where I was last time I obsessed over guitar. I spent a few years way back when being a total guitar junkie. Then in 2002, a lot of things happened: my mother passed away, leaving me (legitimately or not) feeling like I was partially responsible for helping out with my youngest siblings (littlest sister was 12 at the time). Also, many of us spent much of the summer working toward and then attending World Youth Day in Toronto. Then my job was eliminated (remember this was right after 9/11), and I got more into playing the mandolin (though it's never had quite the draw guitar has, for no logical reason), and that November -- maybe the biggest reason my focus changed -- I participated in my first NaNoWriMo. Guitar fell by the wayside. I lost five years worth of potential practice time. There's no going back, and I'm really kicking myself for it. I'm determined not to let that happen again. I ain't getting any younger, and I really want to get to the point where I can participate in a jam without embarrassing myself. Maybe learn some swing, too.

Now the trick is to keep writing in the picture, too. If I could stay away from this here Internet thing, I'd have a better chance! Hence my love for typewriters....

Speaking of which, although I've told myself I'm *not* going to buy anymore, there's currently what appears to be an SG-3(?) on Craigslist. I don't have a desktop model yet. If I can ever get the seller to respond, I might have to make an exception for that one. If. Twenty-four hours and counting. What's up with that?

Back from Kamp, Kamp was great, I is tired....

So...trip report attempt. First off, it was, like last time wayyyy back in 2001, one of the best experiences of my life. I don’t really have words. It was kind of like a really fantastic family reunion, but all centered around acoustic music of all kinds and all levels. All of the instructors were good. (Instructor list for those who might know them, maybe: The Flatpicking Team: Russ Barenberg, Kathy Barwick, Mitch Corbin, Mark Cosgrove, Beppe Gambetta, John Goldie, Chris Jones, Steve Kaufman and Chris Newman. The Mandolin Team: Carlo Aonzo, Robin Bullock, David Harvey, Emory Lester, Don Stiernberg and Roland White). Excellent line-up on both sides of the fence, but I went for guitar this time around. About three instructors in particular stood out for me (Mitch, Chris Newman and Kathy) — I’ll probably spend most of my practice time on the material they gave me, as much as possible.

The trip out was awfully long — got picked up here just before nine in the evening and didn’t arrive in TN until about one or so their time. I didn’t really sleep, either. And I wasn’t altogether impressed with Delta as far as customer service went — I know everyone is pretty tense when air traveling these days, and it can’t be easy for the airline workers, but they had an awful lot of surly personnel. Still, I got there OK. I wasn’t sure where to go to catch the Maryville College shuttle, so I wandered around by baggage claim until I spotted a guy with a guitar case and asked him if he was headed to Kamp (it’s Steve Kaufman’s camp, hence Kamp), which he was, and we figured out between us where to go, picking up another straggler as we went. We chatted until the shuttle came, which happened pretty fast. Nice guys - one of them ended up being in my class.

There were already some familiar names (folks I "know" from the FLATPICK-L mailing list) in the building where we registered, so that was good. I spent most of the afternoon and early evening wandering around saying hello to the folks I knew from on-line or last time, and getting to know at least some of the others. I stayed in the same building as last time, this time in a suite: four of us in two bedrooms, with a little kitchenette in between with a fridge and everything. OK, so the beds were very hard college mattresses, and everything was a bit on the worn side, but still, not bad at all. My roommate was another single gal, and we clicked pretty well. I was a little afraid I’d end up with someone who went to bed early and slept lightly, but we almost invariably stumbled in about the same time every night, and if we didn’t, we’re both sound sleepers so it didn’t matter. And the gals in the other room were a mother and daughter from Atlanta — super nice folks. The daughter is about sixteen and already a great mando player, and mom is a professional classical musician who primarily plays oboe. It was kind of a hoot seeing people giving our door a funny look if they walked by when she was practicing...”Hey...wait...that’s not a mandolin OR guitar OR fiddle OR banjo...what the hey???” She performed with a violinist at one of the open mics - really purty music.

First evening, I bought a guitar. Already had that deal lined up so I wouldn’t have to carry a guitar with me on the outgoing trip. I bought it from a guy who was one of the first few “Internet people” I met in real life — a Vermonter with a rather dry and twisted sense of humor. Really fun guy who does a lot of good parody songs. Thenewlittleguitar (it needs a name) is a more basic model than my other one, and therefore less worrisome to lug around. The back and sides are made out of a material that’s almost like...well...Formica. The top (where most of the sound comes from) is real wood. Makes for a pretty sturdy instrument that still sounds decent. I’m tempted to bring it to work with me some of the time and see if I can find somewhere private to practice a bit during lunch.

I went to bed relatively early that first night since I didn’t know where the good jams were yet. Last time I went, people did a lot more hanging out outside; this time most jams were in rooms. One of the dorm areas has buildings with rooms that have huge living rooms in each suite, and many of the people on that side hosted jams of all sorts. Once I was introduced and a little less shy about poking my head into the rooms, I mostly hung out with a group that tended to stay smallish (ten or fifteen people) and played a lot of different styles — one night they were doing the contradance music I know and love, another night one of the instructors who does Celtic music and jazz was there, another night another instructor was playing awesome swing music. I did more listening than playing; maybe next time I’ll have learned more of the commonly played tunes and improved my chord knowledge. I'm also a lot better at mando thank guitar at this point, and although several people kindly loaned me mandos over the course of the week, I was really struggling whenever I didn't have one.

Most days we got up in time for breakfast at seven thirty or eight, played / talked some, had a class, had lunch, played some / talked some, had another class, played some / talked some, had dinner, played some / talked some more, went to the concert of the evening (there was an open mike, and then the various instructors took turns doing sets over the course of the week, generally bringing up others for backup), and then after the concert, we’d play (or listen) well into the wee hours. I wasn’t as hardcore as some of the craziest folks, but even so, I ended up being up until three or four most nights. It’s sooo hard to go to bed when the next tune is always something you don’t want to miss. Just one more...and the next thing you know, you’ll be lucky to get a few hours sleep before the whole merry-go-round starts up again. The last night, I didn’t go to bed. The first all-nighter of my life. I knew I was going to need to be up by three-thirty or so to get ready to head out for my six o’clock flight, so there didn’t seem much point in lying down. Mostly hung out playing tunes and chatting with a guy who was in my roommates class, and listening to another guy who was settin’ on the porch playing guitar until late. Good times.

The flight back went really well, actually. I decided at the last minute to risk carrying on thenewlittleguitar in a gigbag rather than borrowing a case I’d have to ship back. I was worried they’d take it away from me and it’d end up getting smashed in a luggage compartment, but it worked out just fine. The first plane from Knoxville was really small, and the stewardess said I’d probably have to gate check it since someone else already had a guitar in the coat closet, but it turned out it fit in the overhead with millimeters to spare. On the second flight from Houston, I expected to be challenged when I carried it on, but no one said anything, and the nice folks in my row helped me pack bags around it so it wouldn’t get smooshed. No problems. And Continental actually still serves meals. *gasp* They also didn't charge me for my second checked bag (I checked my backpack so I could just concentrate on carrying the guitar), although according to their policy, they shoulda. I'm not going to complain.

Now I miss Kamp. *snif* Really good group of people, all ‘round. I’d really love it if I could go again next year. I’m already trying to think of ways I could make some cutbacks in order to make it possible.

You might be a guitar addict if...

Early yesterday evening, I started on a couple of new tunes. At about six-thirty, I got out some homemade chili to have for dinner. I turned it off when it got hot, and immediately got distracted by the tunes again.

Two hours later, I'm heating it up for the third time (luckily chili only gets better under such treatment...), and realize that I'm stirring it while I still have the guitar strapped around my shoulders and my left hand still on the neck.

I'm thinkin' that's not altogether sane.

*happy dancin'*

I'm going to Kamp, I'm going to Kamp!

Now I just have about three bazillion tunes and their corresponding chords to learn in four months. And I've not played in so long that my fingers are all soft. I played much of last weekend, and every night this week; now I think I've decided I need a new left hand. Ow. Unfortunately, music stores don't seem to carry those.

But I'm going to Kamp, I'm going to Kamp!

One benefit of being forgetful and of having moved twice in the last few years is that I've been having many almost-like-Christmas moments with regards to my music stuff. I'd forgotten just which books and things I'd picked up over the years. One example: I've been trying to start on the list of tunes that I know get played a lot at camp, and I was thinking it'd be really nice if I had a copy of Steve Kaufman's "Four Hour Bluegrass Workout", which I've always heard was really good - and it'd let me practice with backup, so I know I'm not slowing down on the hard parts and not really playing the tunes properly. I've been stumbling along without it, but last night, I was going through my shelf o' books, and there it was! Autographed, no less!

Heh...and now I remember when I bought it. A full-on blonde moment made me forget the actual item purchased.

I went to a concert Steve did down in Centralia, WA right after I arrived here in WA. Afterwards, there was a table with lots of CDs and instructional materials and that, and since I'd heard so much about that book and tape set, I grabbed one. He scanned my credit card (which, strangely, has my name on it), and afterwards said, "Thanks, Elizabeth!" I kind of stared open-mouthed and said, "You remember my name?" 'Cause (as I stammered immediately afterwards) I went to his camp all those years ago, but.... Poor Steve...you could see he was trying to think fast for a way to answer that without being rude. ;-) I are a natural blonde... We kind of got past the moment and he kindly autographed the book for me. Looking forward to playing with it this weekend!

Musical memories - warning: long!

In the last little bit, I've started to become obsessed again with guitar. Because, don't ya know, it's always when I've no spare time whatsoever amongst my many hobbies - crocheting, calligraphy, baking, writing, biking - that I decide to cram another back into my life. I always end up picking up old hobbies in November during NaNoWriMo, when I have no spare time. Go figure. (Incidentally, both times above when I typed hobbies, I first typed "hobbits". What that means as a Freudian slip, I have no idea....)

I'm seriously thinking about slapping down the credit card and attending Steve Kaufman's Flatpicking Kamp at Maryville College, TN this year. I went once before, back in 2001, before 9/11 and before Mom's illness. It was one of the best weeks of my life. I was surrounded by music crazed lunatics, many with out-of-this-world guitars and mandos that they let me play to my heart's content: old Martins and Gibsons; new Collings and Santa Cruz and Bourgeois and Gallagher guitars; fabulous beauties from one-man or very small shops like Dudenbostel and Merrill. And there was jamming, classes, jamming, workshops, concerts, jamming, and a tiny, tiny bit of sleep. Mostly, I listened. Everywhere you went on campus, there was music. Some of the attendees were serious pros...you could stand outside the dining hall for hours just listening in on folks standing around playing music under the trees there. Someone was always ready to offer tips, or let you pick something at your own pace. I came away dazed, still hearing tunes ringing in my ears, with more material (both mental and in books and tapes and things) than I could get through in a lifetime.

I planned to go the following year, either for guitar or mandolin classes, and for the rest of the experience outside of class. I was signed up. But around March or April, we found out that Mom had terminal cancer, and would likely pass away by summer, or in the summer. She died in late May, a few weeks before camp would have taken place, and of course I didn't go. I couldn't. Later that year I lost my job and things just...changed a lot.

This year, I'm finally in a position to go again, I think. I'm terribly rusty. I've hardly played guitar or mandolin since moving to Washington, and for the last little while, I've made little effort to seek out other musicians. For the last few days I've been practicing guitar - fiddle tunes, mostly, as those are what typically get played in the easier jam circles. The jazz tunes are left to the more advanced crowd, generally....

Tonight, I got out some CDs of old playing sessions back home. A number of us used to get together and play a night or two a week, and one of the guys had recording capability. He'd make CDs of the night's playing and give us copies. Partly it was for those who learned by ear, partly it was just so we could hear ourselves. We weren't very good. But it was fun. And, important for practicing along, we played slowly. I found a CD that had many of the tunes I'm working on, popped it into the computer, and started playing along. On the very first one, I noticed the cello in the background and had to stop and listen. It's very bittersweet.

Most of us kids learned to play an instrument at some point, at least in a basic way. Some of us have stuck with it more than others, but almost all of us at least enjoy playing casually. Mom, bless her heart, put up with the never-ending racket for years, without ever joining in. She didn't think she had any musical talent. A teacher when she was in grade school told her she would never be good at music. I wish I could go back in time and throttle the creep. In any case, it wasn't until about a year or a year and a half before she passed away that she finally decided she wanted to play music. She chose cello -- she loved the sound of it, and the feel of the wood singing, and the movement of the bow -- everything about it. She couldn't play anything very complicated, but had started playing along with us toward the end, just adding bass notes to fill in the background. It sounded really cool. And now...it's such a beautiful thing to hear. I've been thinking a bit sadly about the fact that I never saved letters she wrote to me, not knowing I'd want them so soon. I have very little of her in that way. But there she is on these old recordings of poorly played, limping music, proudly adding her notes to the bass to hold the tunes together. It makes me smile and tear up at the same time.