A New Way of Using a Metronome - Very Slowly

I really need to work on my timing. Speeding up or slowing down - not playing in a steady time - is an issue for me at sessions. I was listening to an interview with music teacher Robb Cappelletto, who has become known for being Billy Strings’ guitar teacher. In the interview Robb said (regardless of what genre or style you might play or want to learn), “We always need to talk about technique. We always need to talk about time and rhythm. We always need to talk about ear training. We always need to understand harmony. We always need to (talk about fingering patterns). Whatever level the student is at, we can always talk about all of these. There's always a higher level to take something to.”

The one that stood out for me is timing and rhythm. Later in that same podcast, Robb says:

You can use the metronome like bumpers and bumper bowling to keep nudging you back to the center. Or you can use the metronome like an electric fence. And the latter is far more helpful.

If your metronome is playing on every beat, you're not keeping time. The metronome is keeping time for you. There is so much clicking that there's no way you could possibly go out of time if you actually know how to play.

(I'm going to paraphrase some more things that Robb said in that interview)

Make the click one beat per measure. Now you have a lot of opportunity to speed up or slow down and get off with the metronome because you're playing eight eighth notes per click now. Continually cut the metronome in half. If your metronome is at 120, then you cut it to 60, but you're still playing the same speed. There's just less metronome to keep you on track. But there's still enough metronome to remind you if you are keeping time enough. You're testing your ability to keep time rather than using the metronome to keep human time.

You have to start with enough click to train a pulse. You need to train your ability to hear and have a reference of what even time is. You can't just put the metronome on 5 (bpm) and play 150. You can't just do that right away. It's gonna be frustrating and probably not very beneficial. So, you start with the metronome as an eighth note, and then you cut the metronome down to a quarter note. And then you cut it down to a half note. And then if you can get to the point where the metronome is once a bar, or once every 2 bars, or once every 4 bars.

If you can get to the point where you can do that, the metronome did not keep time. It was just there to let you know if you kept time or not. The metronome is not keeping the time for you. Continually cutting your metronome in half is something that everybody can build up to. Cut the metronome in half and make sure you're still keeping the time.


Robb also cautions, if you can't sing it, you can't play it.

If you try playing it before you can sing it then you're essentially just guessing and hoping the frets are gonna remind you what it sounds like. You’re just remembering the order of operations and what it looks like, but not actually thinking of the sound.

You should be able to dubba dubba dubba your way through anything before you try to play it. Because if you don't know what it sounds like, you don't know the rhythm, you don't really know the shape of the melody. You're just hoping the confusing matrix of strings and frets is going to solve this problem for you, and it won't.


OK, so I tried this exercise described above where you put the metronome at like 20 bpm, but play at 80 bpm so that you’re essentially playing two measures of music per click. It's really hard! This is going to take some practice, which is good. However, this concept inspired me to create these play along practice tracks for the jig Lilting Banshee and the reel The Maid Behind the Bar. In each case there are long gaps between melody where you have to fill in the blanks yourself and then hopefully sync back up with the music at the right time. Give it a shot!

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Contra Dance Tunes Might Just Be My Favorite Types of Tunes

I'm an amateur, pedestrian musician. More of a participant than a leader. Not an authority in any way. Just someone who likes plucking melodies. I often play in Irish sessions, but I think my favorite types of tunes happen to be New Englandy contra tunes more than straight Irish trad session tunes.

There is some overlap of course, but I feel like contra tunes are less notey than Irish ones, with more emphasis on melody, beat, rhythm, and groove, and less about ornamentation and a constant stream of notes. This works for me because I like simple, basic versions of tunes. Even though I play tenor banjo - an instrument known for trying to fill as much space as possible with triplets and embellishments - I prefer to play a more sparse version of a tune, if possible. 

My experience with contra tunes is somewhat limited. I've never played for a contra dance, however, I have attended some contra tune jams where the pace is more jam speed than dance speed. I've been taking note of my favorite tunes as they come up and these include All The Way to Galway, Doon the Brae, Road to Boston, Jamie Allen, Scotty O'Neil, McLenon's Reel, Hut on Staffin Island, Riding on a Load of Hay, Walls of St. Malo, Horace Hanesworth, Robertson's Reel, Rose Tree, Shoes and Stockings, and William Blake's Dead, as well as Fair Jenny's Jig, Camp Pleasant Jig, Early in the Year, Flowers of Autumn, Moon and Seven Stars, and Maison de Glace. The 3/4 time tunes Crested Hens and Far Away also fall into this category. I think if you had to classify these tunes, the non-jig ones would be like polkas or marches. Very distinctive melodies that are easy to sing/hum/mutter and hear in your head. 

Here are some other things I like about contra music:

-The piano accompaniment. It stays right on the beat, providing a steady rhythm.  

-How the tunes can come from a wide variety of traditions, including Ireland, Scotland, England, Appalachian, Québécois, Cape Breton, New England, and more. Agnostic in this regard.

-Lots of "modern day" tunes (written within the last 50 years) are part of the active repertoire by composers such as Bob McQuillen, Randy Miller, Larry Unger, Keith Murphy, Brenda Stubbert, and Judi Morningstar.

-The music slightly less beholden to the diatonic keys of the Irish flute and D-whistle, so you see more sharps and more flats in the key signature, and tunes will include notes on the low G string of a fiddle.

-There's a wider variety of acceptable instruments. Like I said, there's the piano element. But I've also played in contra jams with saxophone, trombone, and silver concert flutes. You might also hear clarinet, marimba, or bass guitar. Instruments that would be controversial in a more strict Irish trad idea of appropriate instrumentation.

-Recordings by bands such as Wild Asparagus, Hillbillies from Mars, and Supertrad are really fun to listen to!

Anyway, that's it. 

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Having Fun With Soundslice

I titled this post Having Fun with Soundslice, but Obsessed is probably more like it. I can't believe I'm actually tearing myself away from this web-based interface for a few minutes to write about it. Here's what I've been using Soundslice for:

-To upload sheet music from pdf or photo and turn it into notation that can be sped up or slowed down, looped, converted to mandolin tab, transposed to a different key, and so on. There's a whole slew of Irish tunes that aren't on Trailjams.org that and I'm using Soundslice to upload the dots and create my own library of these jiggy, slidey, and reely tunes. I also have some sheet music for Caribbean tunes that I've collected and I have also been uploading those. This practice is teaching me a lot about timing and the sheet music symbols for quarter notes, eighth notes, rests, et cetera. Irish music is pretty much on-the-beat, even if that beat happens to be a 6/8 rhythm, but Caribbean melodies have some crooked measures and syncopation going on. You can only do 100 uploads per month which sounds like a lot but I've already maxed out for the time being. One of the reasons I had time to write this is because I need to wait a week or more before I can do the next round of 100 uploads!

-To write out variations of tunes. For example, I can upload a basic Trailjams arrangement of a tune such as Wind that Shakes the Barley and then edit it to add triplets and double stops wherever I see fit. I prefer to figure this stuff out on my own rather than by simply copying others and this functionality allows for lots of creativity. I don't know how to program hammer-ons, pull-offs, and other embellishments yet but I'm sure there's a way.

-Composition and Compositional Study. My initial reason for signing up for Soundslice was to notate an original melody I had written and then try to add chords to it. I've been wanting to learn how to use a music notation software with this purpose in mind but I've always been hesitant due to the perceived learning curve. I wanted to play my banjo, not work on a computer. However, with Soundslice it is pretty easy and I've realized that, when used the right way, it can actually enhance my musical knowledge. I like seeing how tunes are constructed - noticing patterns and repeated motifs - and Soundslice is helping with that. Getting the syncopation of a melody to land at the right place within a measure is a challenge that gets easier the more you learn about timing and how it is sub-divided.

-To create Slices from scratch. You can do an unlimited number of these. Sometimes you don't have a good source for the sheet music or maybe it's just a hand-written transcription or a piece you've learned by ear. Soundslice allows you to create notation from scratch. Or perhaps it's a straight-forward contra dance tune and you don't want to max out your monthly upload limit, so maybe you just type it in from scratch. It only takes a few minutes to get it straight. One of my primary roles at the job I've worked at for the last 20+ years is trafficking broadcast and digital orders. Basically, a fundraiser/salesperson submits an advertising/sponsorship contract from a client and then I make that campaign a reality by flighting it to run in whichever way it was described on paper - TV, radio, podcast, streaming, web ads. What I've realized is that creating a Slice from scratch is not that different from this skill set which I have already honed through years of work-related practice. It's fun for me.

-Creating Ear Training and Scale Exercises. This is an unexpected use, but Soundslice has been great in this regard. One exercise I created was to notate the D-Ionian, D-Dorian, D-Lydian, D-Mixolydian, and D-Aeolian modes and have those play over a second instrument which is essentially just a D note drone. In another case I wrote out arpeggios and then added scale numbers and solfège syllables to the notes.  Yet another exercise I created was to figure out the chord voicings for every chord in the D-major scale: D- major, E-minor, F#-minor, and so on. My instrument has an unusual tuning - GDAEB from low to high, sometimes referred to as "baritone 5-string electric octave mandolin tuning". Michael Kang of String Cheese Incident helped popularize this tuning. I use it for my custom-made tenor banjo. Soundslice has a lot of pre-set tablature settings, however, GDAEB isn't one of them. Fortunately you can create your own unique tablature tuning. It took me a while to get the pitches correct but I figured out a way to do it. I have not really practiced chord voicings at all on this instrument so I was able to create custom tablature for this tuning with that type of learning in mind.

That pretty much covers how I've been using it this first month. I'm sure there are other features that I haven't explored yet. One example: I haven't synced any audio to the notation/tablature. I don't know if I'll need to do that because the built-in instrument sounds in Soundslice are sufficient. Don't get me wrong, some are horrible sounding but I've found a few that I like such as harp, vibraphone, marimba, and ukulele. These work for my needs, which is basically just creating a library of music where the audio matches the notation. 

I'll end by sharing an example of an original arrangement of what I think is a Haitian melody called Bonsoir Dame. I found this song years ago on Spotify by a group called Zantalino y su Orquestra. It's a cheesy recording in the first place, but I had it transcribed by Nick DiSebastian and I've been holding on to that sheet music for years. The recording was in the key of C# (that's a key signature of 7 sharps for those keeping score) so the first thing I did upon uploading it to Soundslice was change it to a more congenial key such as G. Upon analysis, I realized that the actual melody had some timing challenges that were going to trip me up so I started tweaking the melody until it resembled something more like an Irish jig or slide. It almost became the pre-existing tune Going to the Well for Water in the process! That in and of itself was a study in how melodies come together. This one won't win any awards and I probably won't bust it out at the Irish session, but try to imagine a wizened Sliabh Luachra fiddler playing this in the corner of a cozy pub!

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I Played In My First Open Mic On Saturday

At one point, while waiting for my turn at the open mic, I though this might have been a mistake. Here I am with my dinky tenor banjo getting ready to play obscure instrumental tunes while others are singing and knocking out grunge covers or shredding on Jimi Hendrix. And the word "mic" in open mic suggests that there might be some amplification involved. I sipped a Guinness very slowly and pondered.

Let me back up a minute. A taphouse in my neighborhood hosts an open mic every other Saturday. I let it slip that I play banjo so Tyler, the jocular and risible (thanks thesaurus) Beatles loving young employee at the taphouse who is involved with the open mic, kept asking me when I was going to play. I can't say no to Tyler, right? Fortunately I recruited a local guitarist and open mic devotee David Grooveseeker Knickerbocker to play rhythm guitar so that I wasn't just up there by myself.

First off, I am much more comfortable playing in Irish sessions or contra dance jams because, well, you're not playing solo. In those settings multiple instruments are each playing the melody in unison, so if you flub or forget it doesn't really matter because someone else will still carry the melody forward. Also, unlike an open mic, a session is not really a performance. However, I looked at the open mic as an opportunity to showcase (force upon people) some obscure Caribbean style melodies that I've uncovered but rarely get a chance to play. So I chose three pieces that I know pretty well and David did an admirable job to learn the chords and play them with me.

The pieces I chose were Carnaval En Margarita, Entonement Meringue, and La Paloma Blanca.

Carnaval En Margarita comes from the 1990 CD Bonne Humeur by the Etcetera String Band, an obscure classic where this Mid-western string band reimagined early Creole/Caribbean dance music. Carnavel En Margarita was written by Lionel "Lanky" Belasco who was born in Venezuela around 1882 and grew up in Venezuela and Trinidad. Margarita is an island off the coast of Venzezuela. It's supposedly a paseo, although since I'm not really sure what a paseo is I'm not sure if my playing brings that out or not.

Entonement Meringue comes from the 1938 book Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica by Zora Neale Hurston. The book included some musical notation, Entonement Meringue being one of them. Hurston credited the piece to an A. Herandez, although I have no idea who that is.

The third and final tune I performed was La Paloma Blanca, which comes from the playing of Southwestern fiddler Cleofes Ortiz, who was born in New Mexico in 1910. I've heard recordings of this tune as done by the Buckhannon Brothers: Curtis and Dennis Buckhannon and by The Rhythm Rangellers: Paul Rangell & Emily Abbink. I play a more simplified version.

This was fun and if I get up the nerve I might do it again! Below are some sheet music lead sheets that I created for these tunes. If you learn any of these, let me know!

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My Ideal Irish Session

My ideal Irish session is a little different than the norm. It would be open to players of all instruments, not just the instruments thought to be the standard Irish trad instruments. It wouldn’t just be jigs and reels, but would feature a broad variety of tune types including hornpipes, slides, polkas, slip-jigs, marches, mazurkas, waltzes, barn dances, and so on. And it wouldn’t be limited to just tunes from Ireland, Scotland, or England, but would expand to include melodies from North America and other places, much like the mixture of tunes found in the Portland Collection, for example.

The pace would be moderately fast, like jam session speed. Not super duper fast, but not slow either. Somewhere in between. The focus would be on playing by ear and memory rather than sheet music so that you can engage with and interact with your fellow musicians in the moment. Everyone would be encouraged to participate and play along with unfamiliar tunes, trying to pick up what you can. Tunes would be played in sets of 2, 3, or more, just like a regular Irish session, but instead of it always being three times through a tune, there would be the option to play it 4, 5, 6 or more times through before moving on.

The setting would be in a pub or café because it's fun to be able to have a beer or coffee or whatever your preference is during the session. Being in a public space adds an element of excitement and pressure that can be a good influence, although on the other hand no one is going to judge you if you make a mistake or flub a tune. If it’s a three hour session, maybe there’s a natural 5 to 10 minute break built in mid-way through to give everyone a breather.

The atmosphere would be loose, with everyone getting an opportunity to call tunes and lead them. If someone walked in with an instrument case, they would be immediately invited into the session. It wouldn’t have to be boom-boom-boom rapid fire one set of tunes after another. There would be time chatting and socializing. A natural ebb and flow. You’d get to know everyone’s name. There would be no strangers. There might even be the occasional song. One or two songs per evening is probably enough.

Musicians would be respected not just on their playing ability, but also on their ability to be a good “hang”. Someone fun to be around. Personality is just as important as chops, if not more so. The only people not welcome back would be those who are obviously just there to be a nuisance and disrupt the good time. No jerks or a-holes allowed.

Seating would be completely democratic, however, self awareness plays a role. If you’re still learning your instrument and are unable to contribute or participate as much as a seasoned fiddler, then it might be better to switch seats and allow the master fiddler to be better positioned than the newbie. Nobody is going to make you do this, but it’s the right thing to do.

The more the merrier. No one would be turned away due to max capacity. Space and a chair will almost always be found. And we won’t be super worried about duplication of instruments. Did two guitarists show up? OK, let’s see what that sounds like!!!

The repertoire would constantly be growing. New tunes would be introduced and passed around. Tune names would be shared. It wouldn’t just be the same old tunes, or same old sets week after week. You'd come prepared to lead something different than last time. Keep it fresh.

The type of etiquette that would be very important is no talking or side conversations while others are playing a tune. If, for whatever reason, you are sitting out a tune then don’t talk over the tune and by all means don’t look at your phone the whole time. You’re under the unspoken obligation to participate as a good, respectful listener even when not playing. That part should be obvious but it’s not.

If I think of anything else I’ll add it!

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Six Ways That Jerry Garcia Has Been An Influence on Me

In honor of Days Between, here's another Jerry Garcia themed post.

I'm a hobbyist, adult learner who plays in Irish sessions, so it would be a stretch to say that I have much musicality in common with Jerry Garcia. However, I would like to think that he's one of my biggest influences, at least in the following ways.

Melody
Jerry's playing is very melodic. Yes he is a master improviser who is always aware of the chords of the moment which is informing his note choices. But, you can almost always hear the foundation of the song's vocal melody line in any of his solos, even as he builds and builds to a higher crescendo with each chorus. I know of no other guitarist quite like this. When I finally chose to start playing music, I chose a style(s) of music such as Irish trad that was all-melody, all-the-time.

Choice of Instrument

If the text-book definition of guitar flatpicker means Tony Rice, Doc Watson, or Norman Blake, then I don't know if you'd strictly call Jerry a flatpicker, per se, but he definitely used a pick to pluck solos and melodic lines. He wasn't just a strummer or finger player. He was a picker. And before he was a guitarist, Jerry was an accomplished 5-string banjo player, a role he reprised in the early 70's while a member of the short-lived yet highly influential traditional bluegrass band Old and In the Way. When you look at it this way, my choice to play tenor banjo makes a little bit more sense. It's an instrument that's tuned like a mandolin, flatpicked like an acoustic guitar, but is indeed a banjo.

Play By Ear - Be In the Moment

Jerry was not an illiterate musician by any means. He would peruse guitar theory books as they came out, and I'm pretty sure he could read music if he needed to, but Jerry was by and large an ear player. If he could sing it or hum it he could play it and that was his preferred way of going about it. It's taken me a long, long time to come around to this way of thinking, but I'm starting to embrace that same philosophy and I'm trying to do the ear training to get there. I don't like sessions where people are looking at sheet music because there is no interaction between the musicians and nobody is listening to one another. I like sessions where people are active and engaged, listening and adapting that day's version of the tune, even if it is a tune like Out on the Ocean that you've played hundreds of times before. What's something new, some new intention, that you can bring to that tune today? I think that's the approach Jerry would take.

Never Play the Same Setlist Twice

The Grateful Dead, and to some extent The Jerry Garcia Band, were famous for never playing the same show once, let alone twice! Jerry was well practiced (he knew his scales which we'll get to in a moment), but he was refreshingly under rehearsed and ready to take chances even if that meant pulling out a song that he may or may not be ready to play. I'm kind of the same way in sessions. I don't like the same old sets of three tunes back to back for all time, although the Dead did have their own dependable "medleys" such as Scarlet/Fire and China/Rider. I also like to mix it up and I'm just as likely to call a tune that I don't really know yet as one that I have down pat. Fortunately, Irish sessions seem to have this spontaneity built into their format. There's never like a setlist for an Irish session. You never quite know what you're going to play or how you're going to fill the two or three hours. Even making one change, such as changing Morrison's > Kesh > Swallowtail to Lilting Banshee > Kesh > Swallowtail can breathe new life into a tired set of tunes. Like when the Dead would do Mississippi Half-Step into Franklin's Tower.

Scales and Modes

Jerry knew his scales and modes inside and out and was especially fond of the Mixolydian and Dorian modes found in the folk and traditional music that was a big influence on him. I also like dwelling in these worlds and fortunately the repertoire of tunes that get played in Irish sessions has a generous dose of Dorian and Mixolydian. I know that this is partly because of the limitations of diatonic instruments like the flute, whistle, and pipes, which dictates that a lot of tunes have to conform to the notes of the D-major and G-major scales like E-Dorian, A-Dorian, D-Mixolydian, and A-Mixolydian. Hey, I'll take it!

Less Is More - Be a Feel Player Not a Shredder

I strongly dislike the type of guitar playing known as shredding. I guess Jerry could shred too when he wanted to, but to me he's more a taste and feel player. Why play three notes when one note will work just fine? Jerry was more about having a musical conversation, letting the notes flow and tell a story. He wasn't just regurgitating licks and riffs. With that in mind, I try to approach "Irish" tenor banjo from a similar perspective. So much of what is mistaken for good banjo playing is just pyrotechnics and rapid fire notes. That doesn't appeal to me. Part of it is that I don't have the skills or technique to pull that kind of playing off. But another part is I don't like the sound of it. Sure a well played, well placed triplet sounds great, but you can quickly overdo it. Rather than wonder "how would a banjo player play this?", I sometimes think more along the lines of "how would a flute player play this?". A flautist has to take breaths, so their version of a tune is going to likely be more sparse and less notey by default. I think you can potentially make more beautiful music from a less is more approach. Leaving space between the notes. The space between.

Fun fact: This post was originally titled "Six Ways That Jerry Garcia Has Been An Influence on Me". When I finished writing the post I counted and it came out to six. I didn't even have to go back and revise the title.

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Irish Fixed Do Solfège - D instead of C

I used an AI prompt to create this image

Solfège is a musical system that uses distinct syllables for the notes in a scale (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti). A great thing about solfège is it relates everything back to the major scale. If you are a musician, the major scale has a sound you are probably already familiar with. Whenever a note is flatter than the major scale, the solfège syllable rhymes with "ay". Whenever a note is sharper than the major scale, the solfège syllable rhymes with "ee".

For example, normally note 4 of the major scale is Fa, as in Do, Re, Mi, Fa. However, when the four is sharpened, like in the Lydian mode, the Fa (fah) sound becomes Fi (fee). This made me wonder if the Phish song Fee had a sharp four and Google says yes, Fee by Phish features a sharp four chord in its harmonic progression. Very clever Trey Anastasio!

One type of solfège is fixed do solfège where each syllable is permanently assigned to a specific absolute pitch. Normally C is always Do, D is always Re, and E is always Mi, regardless of the key or musical context. However, as an ear training method for Irish trad, I thought it would be fun to base the fixed do around the note D since D plays such an important role in Irish trad. D being the lowest note on the D-whistle and Irish tunes being so fundamentally diatonic.

Doing it this way, D is always Do, E is always Re, F# is always Mi, G is always Fa, A is always So, B is always La, and C# is always Ti. The other notes you have to remember are F is Me (may), G# is Fi (fee), Bb is Le (lay), and C is Te (tay). Using this form of notation, the first two measures of Swallowtail Jig would be Fa-Re-Re, La-Re-Re, Fa-Re-Re, La-So-Fa.

D-Ionian (AKA the major scale, key signature two sharps)

D = Do (doh)

●

E = Re (ray)

●

F# = Mi (mee)

G = Fa (fah)

●

A = So (so)

●

B = La (lah)

●

C# = Ti (tee)

D = Do (doh)

D-Dorian (flat 3, flat 7, key signature no sharps or flats)

D = Do (doh)

●

E = Re (ray)

F = Me (may)

●

G = Fa (fah)

●

A = So (soh)

●

B = La (lah)

C = Te (tay)

●

D = Do (doh)

D-Lydian (sharp four, key signature 3 sharps)

D = Do (doh)

●

E = Re (ray)

●

F# = Mi (mee)

●

G# = Fi (fee!)

A = So (soh)

●

B = La (lah)

●

C# = Ti (tee)

D = Do (doh)

D-Mixolydian (flat 7, key signature one sharp)

D = Do (doh)

●

E = Re (ray)

●

F# = Mi (mee)

G = Fa (fah)

●

A = So (soh)

●

B = La (lah)

C = Te (tay)

●

D = Do (doh)

D-Aeolian (flat3, flat 6, flat 7, key signature one flat)

D = Do (doh)

●

E = Re (ray)

F = Me (may)

●

G = Fa (fah)

●

A = So (soh)

Bb = Le (lay)

●

C= Te (tay)

●

D = Do (doh)

D-Harmonic Minor (flat 3, flat 6)

D = Do (doh)

●

E = Re (ray)

F = Me (may)

●

G = Fa (fah)

●

A = So (soh)

Bb = Le (lay)

●

●

C# = Ti (tee)

D = Do (doh)

Here's an exercise my music teacher Brad Overton gave me. Find a D drone on YouTube and try playing and singing these scales over the D drone. When doing a scale other then the Ionian/major scale, listen for the "weirdness" of the notes highlighted above.

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