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)

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E = Re (ray)

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F# = Mi (mee)

G = Fa (fah)

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A = So (so)

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B = La (lah)

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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)

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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)

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G = Fa (fah)

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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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My Grateful Dead Origin Story

The vinyl version of Reckoning contained the song Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie

I've written about this before, but my Grateful Dead origin story began in August 1992 when Eric Clapton's Unplugged CD came out. I was in the record store Digits on West Broad Street in Richmond to buy that Eric Clapton CD when the record clerk said "If you like that, you should check out the original unplugged, pre-MTV" and he handed me the Grateful Dead CD Reckoning, their live acoustic album culled from fall 1980 performances at The Warfield Theater and Radio City Music Hall. I got that CD then and there, and thus began my Grateful Dead journey.

Reckoning was a great way to jump into the Grateful Dead because it accustomed me the to the idea of live recordings and introduced me to their roots and influences. Not only did it have superb originals such as Dire Wolf, It Must Have Been the Roses, Cassidy, and Bird Song, but it also included covers and traditional songs such as The Race is On (country), Dark Hollow and Rosa Lee McFall (bluegrass), Been All Around this World (old-time/traditional), Jackaroe (Celtic folk), and Deep Elem Blues and On the Road Again (blues). This led me in all kinds of places as I started to check out artists ranging from Mississippi John Hurt to Elizabeth Cotton to Bill Monroe to Miles Davis and beyond. I was already interested in folk and Americana, but this really propelled that fascination.

The 2-CD live album simply called Jerry Garcia Band had recently come out (August 1991) so that was the first non-Grateful Dead Jerry Garcia CD that I got, followed shortly thereafter by the Garcia/Grisman CD Not for Kids Only and the self-titled CD by potent but short-lived bluegrass band Old and in the Way, featuring Garcia in a side-man role on banjo alongside Peter Rowan, David Grisman, John Kahn, and Vassar Clements. I also got the first New Riders of the Purple Sage CD since it had Jerry on steel guitar.

In 1992/1993, the idea of releasing entire, unabridged Grateful Dead or Jerry Garcia Band concerts song for song, warts and all, had not hit yet so unless you had tape trading connections you relied on the officially released live albums such as Without A Net which were almost always comprised of a la carte recordings from different live shows designed to emulate the flow of a live concert but not actually tracked start to finish from one show. For the first couple years this was my only option, although I would sometimes tape episodes of David Gans' The Grateful Dead Hour off the radio. It took a couple years, but I eventually started accumulating tapes via the kindness of Deadheads through blanks and postage, including the famous 5/8/77 Cornell and 8/27/72 Veneta Oregon shows. After I transferred from Longwood to VCU, all my college friends and I did was listen to Grateful Dead music!

I got to see the Grateful Dead with Jerry Garcia live a total of 6 times from 1994 to 1995, however, my first actual Grateful Dead related concert was The Jerry Garcia Band on 11/18/93 at Richmond Coliseum. I went to it as a complete noob (my only companion was a mate from the golf team) but I thoroughly enjoyed the music. Honestly, 1994/1995 Grateful Dead was not that good, but 1993 Jerry Garcia Band could be transcendent! Go back and listen. Later on I would see the John Kadlecik version of Dark Star Orchestra many, many times, as well as The Other Ones and Furthur. None of it was quite the same without Jerry. I kind of closed the book on The Grateful Dead with the conclusion of the Fare The Well shows in 2015 so I didn't ever really get on board with Dead and Co.

I still like to listen to the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Band every once in a while, but it doesn't completely dominate my listening and world view like it once did. I think that's a healthy way to go about it. Jerry Garcia remains my favorite musician of all time. Listening to him sing and play guitar is as good as music can get, in my view.

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My Takeaways After Reading DAILY RITUALS by Mason Currey

I've been reading the 2013 book Daily Rituals by Mason Currey. In the form of mini profiles, the author details the creative habits of writers, artists, composers, and other makers from the past couple hundred years or more. Everyone from Stephen King to Maya Angelou to Beethoven to Frank Lloyd Wright to Georgia O'Keeffe. The author scoured biographies, interviews, magazine articles, obituaries, and other sources to find descriptions of these daily routines. Not everyone was like this of course, but I did notice some common themes showing up again and again.

These artists and creative types...

-Are very routine oriented. They have very consistent and not very glamorous work habits.

-They don't wait for inspiration or the muse to strike. They show up every day and put in the work, honing their craft. Many have personal goals such as 2,000 words a day or three hours of dedicated focus.

-Most keep a strict schedule that varies very little from day to day, even going so far as to eat basically the same meals every day.

-They keep their plate clear so that there are not a lot of other interests or obligations competing for their time. They avoid things that would prevent them maintaining these daily patterns.

-They are often insomniacs or have trouble sleeping and use pills or other drugs to turn their mind off or on. Frequently they are also alcoholics or heavy drinkers. Sound familiar?

-They are totally dedicated to their art. It comes before everything else. Some are even guilt-ridden if they take a day "off".

-Even those who worked a 9 to 5 job on the side found time to be productive, perhaps with a concentrated three hours in the early morning before going to work, or from 8pm to 11pm after being at their day job.

-The repetition itself seems to be the important thing. It creates a pathway for one's mental energies to flow. 

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When I moved to the West Coast two years ago it totally disrupted my daily schedule - in a positive way for music practice and in a negative way for fitness and exercise. When I was living on the East Coast I didn't start work until 9am, and during the years of 2020 to 2024 I would exercise and strength train for about an hour every morning. I wasn't playing much music during this time but I got in the best shape of my life and lost over 40 pounds. 

Now that I am on the West Coast, my "9 to 5" is 6am to 2pm so now I get out of bed and immediately start working my day job. I don't set aside much time for banjo playing during the work day, but having afternoons off means that I've been able to keep a fairly consistent weekday practice schedule which allows me to put in an hour or two of dedicated music practice each afternoon. My practice consists mostly of learning and re-learning tunes while continuing to develop my ear. I don't work on technique or ornamentation all that much, except in the context of a tune. Because I go to a couple sessions each week, I can always think of tunes to better learn, re-learn, or review.

My West Coast Saturdays are actually pretty similar to how my East Coast Saturdays were. I try to keep weekend mornings entirely clear. My favorite way to start a Saturday is get up early and start working on music. I might play or practice anywhere from 7am to noon, with only a few breaks in between. It depends on whether I have any music sessions or jams that day. If I have a session or a jam to go to later that Saturday, I might limit my playing and practice time during the lead up so that I don't overdo it before going to the jam.

Sundays are pretty similar but I often play in a Sunday afternoon Irish session, so my Sunday mornings usually consist of a light practice session where I run through tunes I might want to play if called upon to lead or suggest a tune that day. I'm a list maker so I usually make a list of tunes before going to the session.

I think tune learning practice can be a form of creativity. Especially if you approach it with the routine of listening to an existing tune then creating a tune of your own that sounds like the existing tune. Rinse and repeat. You might start off with a version of the tune that doesn't share many notes with the source recording. Over time perhaps you can eventually match the source recording note for note. Or perhaps you simply trust your ear even though the notes you're playing may not be exactly as the tune is written. Once you have close to a 100% match, then you can veer off again, knowing that at any time you could go back to the original if/when you want to. I think it's as simple as that.

First Time Attending the Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland, OR

This is my third summer living in the Portland, OR area, but yesterday was the first time I had been to the annual Waterfront Blues Festival, which is held each summer around July 4th in South Hawthorne Waterfront Park along the Willamette River. 

The festival got onto my calendar this year because the famous (famous to me) Ethiopian musician Hailu Mergia was going to be there on the 3rd day of the 3-day festival, but I procrastinated on buying tickets. Despite a strong Thursday lineup that included Rose City Band, Garcia Birthday Band, True Loves, and Cymande(!), we hadn't planned on going all three days, just Saturday, July 4th. Another reason for hesitancy was because my wife had major knee surgery four months ago and she wasn't sure until recently whether she'd be ready for all the walking and standing that comes with a music festival, but she was! When I found out earlier this week that Hailu Mergia wasn't going to be able to make it my initial reaction was "oh no!", but we decided to check it out anyway. 

I didn't know what to expect other than to expect it to be crowed, which it both was and wasn't. The festival entrance is a short walk from the Yamhill District MAX light rail stop so we took the train down. Very easy to get to. Not knowing what the food options or lines would be like, we didn't want to show up hungry so we stopped into Paddy's, a great Irish pub just across the street from the MAX stop, and got a late lunch and watched the first half of the France vs. Paraguay World Cup match before going in. Our plan was to just go to the festival from about 3pm to 8pm and be back home before the fireworks and we pretty much stuck to that plan.

There are three stages total and the way they have it set up is pretty cool. The two stages in the primary part of the festival grounds are angled at opposite ends of the same riverfront area, and it's timed so that when the music on one stage ends the band on the opposite stage begins almost immediately. If you position your chairs a certain way you can see both stages and have an idyllic view of the river. There's also a big video screen set up between these two stages. To get to the 3rd stage you simply walk under the Hawthorne bridge and there it is. The whole festival area is relatively condensed and they definitely make great use of the available space.

We saw full sets by Brittany Davis, Jujuba, and Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble, and most of the performances by Ural Thomas and the Pain and Jenny Don't and the Spurs. Due to overlapping stage times we completely missed The Seratones and Orquestra Pacifico Tropical but you can't be in two places at once. Even though it has the word Blues in the festival title, the music that we saw ranged from jazz to African to soul to Grateful Dead meets Motown to honky-tonk country. It was quite diverse. The Waterfront Blues Festival reminded me of the Richmond Folk Festival in Richmond, VA that I used to attend every year.

The weather was absolutely perfect and the overall vibe was very easy going, respectful and relaxed. You can bring in empty reusable water bottles or factory sealed water bottles. You're supposed to bring low-profile lawn chairs but after knee surgery Laura said that ain't happening, so we just brought a couple cheap-oh Dick's Sporting Goods folding chairs and that worked out fine. We were able to position our chairs near the Stay and Sway stage then walk over to the other two stages as needed. No hassles whatsoever. It got more crowded as the day went on but it was easy to get drinks and there wasn't even a line for the porta potties until right when we were leaving. I love a good city center music festival and next year I might plan for all three days. 

A lot of people come down to the Portland waterfront to watch the 4th of July fireworks, so the volume of people was increasing rapidly as we made our way out in the opposite direction of the foot traffic. We don't really care about fireworks, and it was time to get home to our dog, plus we've seen Tank and the Bangas before so I didn't feel compelled to stick around after dark. We got home just as the sun was setting. It was a perfect day.

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The Note D in Irish Traditional Music (jigs, reels, hornpipes, and such)

After a very unscientific observation I've determined that the note D is the most common note in Irish traditional music. I have a sort of half-baked idea built around this note that I'm hoping to flesh out by writing a post about it. Here goes.

First off, you have to know the pattern of the major scale: 1•2•34•5•6•71•2•34•5•6•71 and so on. For brevity, lets think of the major scale as this: 1•2•34•5•6•71.

OK, so the D-major scale looks like this: D•E•F#G•A•B•C#D. In other words, in the D-major scale D is the 1st note of the major scale. However, it is also common in Irish music for D to be the 5th note of the major scale. That looks like this: 5•6•71•2•34•5 or D•E•F#G•A•BC•D (one sharp key signature, also known as D-Mixolydian). Note that the only difference between these two is whether the C note is a C-natural or a C-sharp. D whistles can also play in this key.

A little less common, but D can also show up as the 4th note of the major scale: 4•5•6•71•2•34 or D•E•F#•G#A•B•C#D (three sharps key signature, better known as A-Major). D whistles might have to skip any G# notes in the tune. I've also seen D function as the 2nd note of the major scale: 2•34•5•6•71•2 or D•EF•G•A•BC•D (all white keys on the piano, this is called D-Dorian). Whistle players use a special whistle for tunes in this D-Dorian mode.

I can think of one more place where D might pop up and that is as the 6th note of the major scale: 6•71•2•34•5•6 or D•EF•G•ABb•C•D (key signature has one flat, maybe G-Dorian or D-Aeolian). This one is quite rare though and whistle player might just sit this one out entirely.

You're not going to have a D-natural note in the key of E-major (E•F#•G#A•B•C#•D#E) or the key of B-major (B•C#•D#E•F#•G#•A#B) for example, but those keys aren't really part of Irish trad in my experience. With me so far? I'm not even sure that I am! 

When D is the first note of the major scale, let's call that D-1. 4th note of the major scale = D-4. 5th note of the major scale = D-5. 2nd note of the major scale = D-2. And 6th note of the major scale = D-6.

Now let's add a slash to indicate the tonal center, because in Irish music the tonal center isn't always D. It can also be E, G, A or B. Maybe even F! 

• D-1/D = D is first note of major scale and it's also the tonal center (ex: Lady Anne Montgomery)
• D-1/E = D is first note of major scale and E is the tonal center (ex: Morrison's Jig)
• D-1/A = D is first note of major scale and A is the tonal center (ex: High Reel)
• D-1/B = D is first note of major scale and B is the tonal center (ex: Musical Priest)
• D-5/D = D is fifth note of major scale and it's also the tonal center (ex: Banish Misfortune)
• D-5/G = D is fifth note of major scale and G is the tonal center (ex: Far From Home)
• D-5/A = D is fifth note of major scale and A is the tonal center (ex: Lilting Banshee)
• D-5/E = D is fifth note of major scale and E is the tonal center (ex: Rights of Man)
• D-4/A = D is fourth note of major scale and A is the tonal center (ex: Boys of Malin)
• D-2/D = D is second note of major scale and it's also the tonal center (ex: Julia Delaney's)
• D-6/D = D is sixth note of the major scale and it's also the tonal center (ex: The Sailor's Wife)
• D-6/G = D is sixth note of major scale and G is the tonal center (ex: The Golden Castle, Splendid Isolation)

I think that covers most of the scenarios except for maybe some Liz Carroll tunes!

***

How Ben Franklin Improved His Writing (Putting Tunes Into Your Own "Words")

I recently went to Powell's and found used copies of the following self improvement and learning books:

-Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Rodiger III, and Mark A McDaniel

-Peak: Secrets from The New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool

-Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport

-Mindset - The New Psychology of Success: How We Can Fulfill Our Potential by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.

I'll probably be sharing any tips or points that I extrapolate from these books, starting with something I read in Peak.

When he was a young man, Benjamin Franklin came up with a way to improve his writing. He was a fan of the British magazine The Spectator so he devised a way to teach himself how to write as well as the articles in that magazine.

Franklin's idea was to attempt to reproduce the sentences from an article he had read after he had forgotten the exact wording. He wrote down brief descriptions of each sentence - just enough to help him recall what the sentence was about. After several days of not looking at the articles, he would then try to reproduce the article from memory based on the hints he had given himself. He wasn't trying to recreate it word-for-word, but come up with his own reproduction in the style of the original. Then he compared the original article to his own sentences and made corrections and improvements as needed.  

This sounds like an excellent way to learn fiddle tunes! How would you go about this? Maybe just try listening to the tune for a few days. Then, without listening to it again, try to recreate it on your instrument. Make up your own tune that, phrase by phrase, sounds as close to the original as you can remember. Play your version for a day or two then go back and listen to the source recording and make refinements as needed. Over time you'll develop your own take of the tune! This is probably similar to how it used to be done in the days before recordings.

Bonus points: Franklin expanded upon his exercise in an effort to improve his vocabulary. After recreating the articles in prose he started re-writing them as poems conforming to a certain meter/rhythm and rhyme scheme. This forced him to search for words that he might not have normally used. What would be the musical equivalent of this? Maybe taking something that is in 4/4 time and converting it to a jig or waltz? Or maybe it's taking something that is pentatonic and making it diatonic? Or maybe it's trying to write a harmony line to go with the melody? I'm not sure! 

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Sheet Music is the Answer (Key)

When you're doing a crossword puzzle do you start by looking at the answer key, or do you wait until you've solved as much of the puzzle as possible before looking at the answers? If you're like most people you probably wait to look at the answer key. Solving the puzzle is the whole point, right?!

So why do we treat music differently? Let's say that you're trying to learn a new jig or reel and you have both the audio recording and the sheet music handy. Why not approach this the same way that you would a crossword? The audio recording is the puzzle and the sheet music is the answer key. Try to solve the problem (how does this tune go?) before being shown the solution (the notes on the page).

Take some time to just listen to the recording and find the notes on your instrument. If you're not in any rush, maybe give it a day or two of listening and playing before you cheat and look at the answer key (AKA the sheet music). It doesn't really even matter if you misheard parts of the piece and were playing it "wrong". 

When you try to come up with the answer yourself - what notes are these - rather than having it presented to you it will lead to better learning and longer retention. Maybe there were some measures in there that completely baffled you. When you finally do look at the sheet music and get the answers to the puzzle, chances are you'll later be able to recall how to play those measures because of this struggle rather than by trying to have memorized it through sight reading.

Disclaimer: I had the idea for this crossword puzzle analogy before looking at Peter Brown's book Make It Stick, but reading his chapter titled "Embrace Difficulties" helped me find the words to put this into writing.

To continue this puzzle comparison further and refence something else that I learned in Make It Stick, if someone says to you "wow you're really good at solving puzzles", then you might be inclined to pick easy puzzles going forward so that you can maintain this image of being really good at puzzles. Whereas, if someone says to you "wow, you must work really hard at solving puzzles", by saying you work hard that will motivate you to want to continue to work hard by choosing more and more difficult puzzles.

Now apply this to music. Do you have a natural ability hear pitches and play by ear? Probably not. But are you willing to work hard at solving the puzzle of playing by ear? Hopefully yes is the answer to that! I definitely still like to have the answer key, but I'm willing to follow the advice of this post and delay my looking at it.  

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Learning Music as an ISTJ Personality Type

I’ve done the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) multiple times over the years and each time it comes back ISTJ. Here’s a description I got from Psychology Junkie:

I = Introversion. ISTJs focus inwards before responding to the outside world. They gain energy from alone time when they can reflect on their own thoughts.
S = Sensation. ISTJs prefer taking in information that is tangible, realistic, and concrete. They would usually rather focus on what exists than hypothesize about abstract possibilities.
T = Thinking. ISTJs step outside of a situation in order to see it as objectively and logically as possible.
J = Judgment. ISTJs like having things settled, having decisions made, and having a sense of control or structure to their life. They are typically work-before-play people.

I can see why an ISTJ might be drawn to playing traditional music. ISTJs seek security in the tried and true and what music is more tried and true than traditional music? It’s a form of creative expression that merges an ISTJ's appreciation for structure with artistic output. It rewards discipline and attention to detail.

Traditional music sessions are not really performances. You can kind of blend in. You don’t have to be in the limelight like a lead vocalist or soloist would be. The music itself as well as the session environment adheres to established forms and conventions, providing a sense of familiarity and comfort and a place where you get to put the knowledge and skills you’ve learned to good use. These are all things that would appeal to an ISTJ type of person.

ISTJs are independent learners and traditional music is something you can easily work on on your own, especially if you are melody player since the monophonic nature of the music makes the tune “complete” even when only one instrument is playing the melody. When it comes to practicing, our ability to focus and maintain concentration for long periods of time comes in handy. An ISTJ has the time and dedication to do a deep dive while researching and studying a topic. ISTJs will put their “all” into it.

There’s also the theory and math-like aspect to music. A typical traditional musician may not get into the theory side of it, but I bet an ISTJ could explain what Dorian or Mixolydian are, for example. In terms of creativity, tune writing is not always a big part of the individual experience of learning traditional music, but an ISTJ can use the established framework of traditional music to be adaptively creative and write original tunes that conform to the conventions of the style.

OK. That might explain it. As an aside, I was entirely focused on writing this piece and could not stop until I got it done. Now that it's done I can move on to the next project!

My Favorite Double Stops in Mandolin and Irish Tenor Banjo GDAE Tuning

Disclaimer: I'm no music teacher, just a hobbyist musician. However, I like to "fill out" a tune with double stops and there is one double stop interval that I like the sound of the best. First off, a double stop is like a mini two-note chord. When you're playing a melody you can create a double stop by playing a harmonizing note on the string lower than the one with the melody note. Playing both notes simultaneously helps fill out the sound.

To explain the double stop that I like the most, I'll give an example in GDAE mandolin/Irish tenor banjo tuning. Here it is: Whenever you're playing an F# note on the 2nd fret of the E string, you can also play an open A on the A string. You can't really go wrong with these two notes together. This combination of notes - F# and A - is most likely going to function as a D-major chord because a D-major chord has the notes D-F#-A in it. But since you're only playing two notes, this combination of F# and A could also ambiguously work as an F#minor type of chord. Worst case scenario is if the person actually laying down the chords to the melody is playing a B-minor chord (B-D-F#) at the moment you play that F# + A double stop. To my ears this hasn't really conflicted with the harmony because what you're suggesting with the notes F# and A resembles a B-minor7 chord which is just a jazzier version of a B-minor chord. It'll work there too.

What I'm saying is you don't really even need to know what the chords are to the tune to play this double stop since it's entirely based on the melody. I've never really been able to hear chord changes per se and I have zero opinion on what the chords to a tune should be. I have never been able to just strum chords to a song and know where to change from one chord to another. I'm just a melody player. But by using this system I am still almost always able to add a harmonizing note to any melody note in the tune without even having to think about it.

That same shape or concept works when you are playing a 3rd fret G note or a 5th fret A note. When you're playing a 3rd fret G note on the E-string, add a 2nd fret B note on the A string. When you're playing a 5th fret A note on the E string, add either a 3rd fret C or a 4th fret C# on the A string. I say "either" because most Irish tunes use the notes D, E, F#, G, and A, but they can use either a C-natural or a C-sharp note or both, depending. So you kind of have to have studied the tune or experimented to decide whether you like harmonizing that A note with a C natural (to give it a minor-ish sound) or a C# (to give it a major-ish sound). If the tune is Sliabh Russell then A + C is going to sound better/correct, but if the tune is High Reel then A + C# is going to sound better.

By now you may have noticed a pattern. All you're really doing is taking the note that would be a 3rd up from the melody note you are playing (in the context of the scale or mode you're in) and then playing a lower version of that note. In other words, the note D is a 3rd up from B, so if your melody note is on B then play a lower open D as your harmonizing note. Following that same logic, F# is a 3rd up from D, so if your melody note is on the 5th fret of the A-string (a D note) then play a harmonizing note on the 4th fret of the D-string (an F# note). Note: there's a slight chance that the F could be an F-natural if you're playing a D-dorian tune such as Sgt. Early's Dream or Maids of Mitchelstown.

Chords are made up of stacked notes in thirds, so this interval is completely within that theory. There's a reason that it works almost every time. Below I will insert a picture of this concept in tablature format. 

One thing I haven't mentioned is what about when your melody note is on an open string? In that case, something I hear banjo players such as Theresa O'Grady doing all the time is playing a harmonizing note on fret 2 of the lower string. So if a melody phrase is ending on the open D of the D-string, a good harmony note to add is fret 2 of the G-string which is an A note. And if your melody note is on the open A of the A-string, then a good harmony note that will work more times than not is fret 2 of the D-string which is an E note. 

Give this a go!

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How Long Have You Been Playing?

I hear the question "how long have you been playing" asked a lot. It's asked at an Irish session and might be directed toward a fiddler, flautist, or accordion player. Quite often the answer is surprising. A fantastic fiddler (who is probably in her late 50's or early 60's) might say "about ten years", or the flautist or accordion player - who are very good mind you - might say "3 or 4 years". 

In each case the person has likely been playing music a lot longer than that. It might have been on a different instrument and/or might not have been Irish traditional session tunes, but it probably dates back to when they took piano lessons as a child, or played trumpet in a middle school band, or studied classical violin, or played some instrument in church growing up, or guitar in their teenage bedroom, or bass in a reggae band as a young adult.

What about an Australian actor playing a Chicago cop who learns a Chicago accent for the TV series but then speaks in their normal Australian voice while doing the press for that show? Both the Australian voice that comes to him naturally and the Chicago accent that he learned for the role are the products of mimicry, but in only one case is he speaking with his own voice.

All musicians are practicing some form of mimicry, and I guess it's possible to mimic a style and still speak in your own voice. That may be the answer to "how long have you been playing".

The Wheel is Turning and You Must Hold On

I'm trying to get back into the beginner's mind and remember what it was like to be first learning a musical instrument as an adult. One concept that is kind of hard to get at first, or hard to understand the importance of, is what I am calling "The Wheel is Turning". What I mean by that is if you're actually playing a tune or song you have to play it all the way through without stopping, in time with whatever bpm you have set for yourself. In other words, staying in time with "the wheel". 

Picture a merry-go-round and you're on the horse riding around on it. If you get off of the horse, the merry-go-round keeps turning. That merry-go-round is the melody that you are trying to play. Once the merry-go round starts moving you have to keep moving with it. You can't stop just because you made a mistake or forgot how the tune goes. You have to keep going.

Of course when you are first learning the tune it's OK to isolate certain sections and practice those on repeat until you have it down. What I'm talking about is when you actually sit down to play the tune in its entirety, you should have this wheel concept in mind. The best way to do that is play along with a timing device like a metronome or drumbeat. I find drum beats to be more fun because they are more musical, just make sure you know where the "one" is and/or the down beat of each measure to make sure that you are keeping in time with it.

AI made this image

Practicing this way will improve your sense of time so that when you do play with other musicians you don't lose your place as easily. If you're playing Silver Spear or Swallowtail Jig with a group of other musicians, you don't want the group to have to start/stop/re-start due to your or any other person's glitches along the way. You want the group mind to take over and play the tune in rhythm so that if someone were dancing or clapping along they wouldn't miss a step or lose the beat.

***

Ten Music Practice Ideas

The mood struck me today to see if I could jot down ten music practice ideas in under five minutes. Many of these come from books, podcasts, or videos I've consumed lately, but these are in my own words. Here's what I came up with:

-Play something you know in a different key than you know it in. If you know Lilting Banshee in A-Dorian, play it in G-Dorian. Or if you know Calliope house in D, try it in E. Or if you know Kilnamona Barndance in D or G, then play it in F like Martin Hayes does.

-"Sing" a measure or phrase, then play the next phrase. Alternate this all the way through the tune. Sing, lilt, hum, or sound out. You can even silently imagine the sound of the phrase in your head, then play the next phrase on your instrument. Then do the reverse. The next time through play the parts you sang or imagined the previous time, and sing or imagine the parts that you played.

-Do the opposite. If the tune is normally fast, then play it very slow. If a tune is normally slow, then play it super fast. Play a reel with a very swung, bouncy, dotted feel, and play a hornpipe as ramrod straight as possible.

-Quiet/Loud. Play measures 1 through 4 as quietly as possible, then measures 5 through 8 as loudly as possible. Then play measures 1 through 4 loudly and measures 5 through 8 quietly. Then play from quiet to loud, gradually building to a crescendo. Then play from loud to quiet gradually back down from the crescendo.

-Try playing a tune with the em-PHAH-sis in a different place than you normally play it. If you normally emphasize beats 1 and 3, then emphasize beats 2 and 4. Something like that.

-Simplify/Complicate. Try to simplify a tune as much as possible by removing notes. What is the least amount of notes you can play and have it still sound like St. Anne's Reel or Temperance Reel? Then go back to the original arrangement of the tune and add more notes, like everywhere there's a quarter note insert a triplet. 

-Deconstruct and rebuild a tune. Similar to the exercise above, but in this case you remove every up stroke in the tune and just leave the quarter note down strokes. Then replace the notes you removed with different notes to come up with an alternate version of the tune.

-Approximate a tune on the spot. Find a tune on Jonathan Lay's Trailjams.org site that you don't know that well or at all and listen to it three times through. As soon as the music stops playing, start playing your own improvised version of the tune by making it up on the spot. Try and play it at the same speed with the same number of measures, same number of parts, and so on. 

-Play a tune increasingly fast until it becomes way too fast, then keep going. Use a metronome that can gradually speed up, like the one on Strum Machine, and set it to increase by 5 BPM each time you repeat the tune. Where will you top out at? 120BPM?!!!

-Economy of motion, micro movements, as light as possible. Try and play the tune with as little movement as possible. Keep your fingers as close to the frets as possible, keep your picking hand moving as little as possible, hold the pick as lightly as possible, get all tension out of your body. Just try and play with the absolute best economy of motion you can possibly do.

-Smile, facial expression. Take a video of yourself playing. Are you smiling and engaging with an imaginary group of fellow musicians in a light-hearted and friendly manner, or are you making a frowning and/or "I'm trying too hard/concentrating too hard" type of face? Relax your facial muscles and intentionally smile while you play.

-Play the melodic rhythm of a tune by clapping it out with your hands. Or get some drum sticks and a drum pad and play it that way. What I mean is play the sound of the melody with rhythm only. This will help you get the feel of the rhythm into your body.

-Play a tune you know on a different instrument. If you know it on mandolin, try hammering out the melody on piano. This will get your ear working.

-Play ornaments and embellishments EVERYWHERE. Whatever type of ornament or grace note you might be working on...take a tune you like and try and put this embellishment into the tune in as many places as you possibly can. Way more than you would ever actually do when playing the tune normally. This will help you pick and choose when the time comes.

-25 minute transcription exercise. Set a timer on your phone for 25 minutes. Grab your instrument plus a pencil and paper and find a tune on Jonathan Lay's Trailjams.org site that you aren't that familiar with. Don't look at the notation until the timer goes off. For the first twenty-five minutes just listen and try to play along. Write down the names of the notes you are playing in whatever means you know how to transcribe or write out music. At the end of the 25 minutes check your work. The notation on trailjams.org exactly matches the audio so it's a great way to compare your aural skills to the written notes. This will really help your ear!

-One last one. If you had to play through a piece of music with your music teacher right now, which sections would you be most concerned about screwing up? That's what you need to work on. Identify those problem spots and come up with your own solutions for how to fix them!

That might be more than ten! Sorry.

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What is Irish Tenor Banjo (new version)

In celebration of 20 years playing music and 15 years writing articles on this blog, I am revisiting some old posts and trying to reevaluate them based on how I look at music now while also jogging that beginner's mind.

In 2015 I wrote a post called What is Irish Tenor Banjo. You can read that here. Nowadays I would be a lot more succinct and loose in my definition of this.

I would say that "Irish tenor banjo" is the process of using a banjo (usually a tenor banjo) to interpret the traditional jigs, reels, hornpipes, slides, slip-jigs, and polkas that are commonly played in Irish sessions. It's also a playing style that has some mechanical similarities to the melodic side of bluegrass guitar flatpicking. Norman Blake, for example, would have been a great Irish tenor banjo player. Due to the staccato nature of their chosen instrument, Irish tenor banjo players make liberal use of an embellishment known as the triplet. 

That's really all that needs to be said about it. It doesn't really need to be defined any more than that. 

There's no reason that the variety of approaches to Irish tenor banjo playing can't be as wide as the gap between say Jerry Garcia and Steve Vai. I just hope you would have the good sense to come over to the rootsy, playful, relaxed, swinging, spontaneous, and interactive side of things and favor that over technical skills, flashy technique, and overly precise arrangements.

Playing beautiful melodies is just as important as playing at blazing fast speeds.

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My Three Favorite Music Books

Forgive me if I've already posted this before as I find myself repeating the same things over and over these days. Here are my three favorite music books:

• Learn Faster, Perform Better by Molly Gebrian
• Anyone Can Play Music by Josh Turknett
• Improvise for Real by David Reed

If you have thirty minutes to practice today but don't know how to fill that time, or how to get the most out of that time, Molly Gebrian's Learn Faster, Perform Better will definitely help you with this. Her book is about the neuroscience behind practicing - how to do it in the most effective and efficient way.

If you've ever wondered how a fiddler can remember hundreds of tunes, or if you've ever wanted to play folk music the same way it's been done by traditional musicians for centuries  - by ear - then Josh Turknett's book Anyone Can Play Music will be right up your alley. As both a neurologist and a traditional musician (clawhammer banjo), Turknett's methods apply modern day science and research to old-fashioned methods of learning music that has the potential to free you from being tab dependent.

Lastly, if you are curious about chords, scales, or music theory and would like it explained in a fun, interactive, and non-academic way, then Improvise for Real may be what you need. This book by David Reed changed the way I look at the major scale and modes and freed up my musical creativity in ways that I didn't anticipate.

Those are my three favorite music books!

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Portland Collection Jam Culture

Years ago when I first discovered the Portland Collection books and recordings I never dreamed of playing in tune jams with the people involved in that project. But now that I live near Portland I get to sometimes play in jams with Sue Songer, George Penk, and Betsy Branch. I didn't get to meet Clyde Curley since he doesn't live in Portland anymore. 

The Portland contra jam culture is open and friendly. Each participant gets a chance to pick a tune. You can lead it yourself or have someone else lead it at a tempo comfortable for you. Occasionally there are medleys, but most of the time it's just one tune played many times through. The general rule of thumb is when you think it's been enough times, play it one or two more times! Kind of like how it's done in old-time music.

These are play by ear sessions. They don't actually use the books and instead trust in the folk process to bring the tunes to life as best as can be remembered or interpreted in the moment. The tunes are a mixture of the ones that have been taught over the years at tune teaching sessions and consist of Irish, New England, old-time, Québécois and more, including newer tunes that would have likely made it into Volume 4 if Volume 3 weren't the last book in the series.

I like the variety and it's exposing me to tunes I had either never heard before or forgot that I knew, including Fair Jenny's Jig, William Blake's Dead, All the Way to Galway, Road to Boston, Da Lounge Bar, The Flowers of Autumn, Hut on Staffin Island, Scotty O'Neil's, Shoes and Stockings, McLenon's Reel, and Wilbur's March, to name a few. 

If I may toot my own horn, the format is similar to the fiddle tunes jam I used to host on Saturday mornings in Ashland, VA. Back then I suffered from beginner's naivete which caused me to doubt whether trying to mix the Irish session and old-time jam repertoire was a good idea. You'd have people used to playing Irish music, sometimes on diatonic "D" instruments, interacting with old-time fiddlers and clawhammer banjo players who are used to tuning to a certain key. Going from a E-Dorian jig to a C-tune was tough. But we made it work and always had a good turnout.

We didn't have a piano player comping out chords on the beat like Sue Songer does, though. That piano sound is integral to the contra style and it's wonderful to be able to hear it in person. After two years in Oregon, I'm ready to add more of these Portland Collection type tunes to my repertoire!

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Bradley Overton Music Coaching for Guitar and Irish Tenor Banjo

Bradley Overton

I've been playing tenor banjo for 20 years now and for a lot of that time I've been without a dedicated music teacher. Recently I started looking for a music coach who could help me sound better, whatever that might mean. This search led me to Bradley Overton, who offers personalized 1-2-1 music coaching on guitar and Irish tenor banjo, in-person or online. Since he is in the UK and I am on the west coast of the USA it has to be online, with an 8 hour time difference!

In-person would of course have been ideal, but Bradley is the first online music teacher that I've encountered who really utilizes that platform to its full extent. During my first lesson we jumped right in and wasted no time. Brad shared his screen and ran me through a number of drills to assess where I'm at and where I could improve, utilizing Guitar Pro software to create specific exercises on the spot. This "hit the ground running" teaching style really works well for my ISTJ personality type. I was given clear feedback and assigned homework. The next lesson built upon what we have covered in the previous lesson. 

I like to play Irish tunes and other types of fiddle tunes on a tenor banjo tuned GDAEB (mine has one extra string!) and I play in intermediate to advanced sessions a couple times a week, surrounded by musicians who are often much better than I am. I didn't know what "sounding better" might mean but fortunately Brad could take a listen and know exactly what to address without any hemming and hawing or wasted time.

Brad has me thinking about all kinds of musical things I have never thought of before, which is what a great teacher should do. Since I am actively playing in sessions I can take the things I am working on and try them out in real-life situations. If you are looking for not just a music teacher, but a music coach who is an excellent communicator able to custom tailor their instruction just for you, then I strongly recommend that you check out Bradley Overton!

Musical Success

There's a meme floating around the internet this week about musical success. I have posted a screen shot of it here. I'm so thankful that I chose to start playing a musical instrument 20 years ago and that I found a style of music that I call "unison melody music" that I am capable of playing. I wish I had started a lot sooner. 

I feel like there's a modern day perception that music can only be created by exceptionally talented people and that the bar is so high that it's easier to click play on your phone or drop the needle on a vinyl LP than it is to take the time to learn the trumpet, fiddle, or accordion. Or that music lessons are for children, not adults. 

For me, the tradition part of traditional music is not about what instrument you play or what style you are emulating or where the tunes come from or how you go about learning them. It's not even always about performing or entertaining others. It's about participation and the act of creating music by doing it yourself. It's about getting together with others to play a common repertoire whether anyone is listening or not. Just being able to do this at some level, at any level...that to me is musical success. 

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Hammer-ons, Pull-offs, and Slides

Somehow I have made it 20 years into playing tenor banjo without giving much consideration to the embellishments known as hammer-ons and pull-offs. I have kind of been doing slides, but not that much. This summer I am making it my goal to learn what hammer-ons and pull-offs are [they are fret-hand ornaments that help us play a note that is not picked] and practice implementing them in the Celtic and contra dance tunes that I like to play. 

My first question is why do these embellishments? I guess the answer is that hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides, as well as triplets and double stops, are stylistic tools that can be used as variations to help spice up a tune. It is also said that hammer-ons and pull-offs can create a smoother sound called legato.

I was looking for lessons on how to do hammer-ons and pull-offs in the context of fiddle tunes and found these posts by mandolin teachers Mando Mike and David Benedict. 

Mando Mike uses the well known tune Red Haired Boy to demonstrate where these embellishments can be inserted. https://www.mandomike.com/post/red-haired-boy-with-added-ho-po

David Benedict separates hammer-ons and pull-offs into two separate lessons:

https://youtu.be/wkxLn1OELtM?si=2jGcXTh2VvUm0454

https://youtu.be/W7xQdZ2H8N0?si=SeB-kNBgZsWDm-6r

I find slides to be a bit easier to "pull off". When I say slides, in this case I don't mean the Irish tune type called a slide, which is notated in 12/8 time. I mean the type of slide technique as taught in these videos by Mando Mike and David Benedict:

https://www.mandomike.com/post/after-the-battle-of-aughrim

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apF1Up02HR4

I like the way BanjoLemonade does slides on the tenor guitar in this video: https://youtube.com/shorts/qR0iKNz1l7Y?si=QCxe5V4OSWZzP8dA

And that's it!

Featured Article: How To Learn Any Instrument Using Your Voice

Yesterday I came across an article from 2016 by Benedict Marsh titled "How to Learn Any Instrument Using Your Voice". It may be one of the best music learning posts I've ever come across. You can read the full write up here: https://www.lessonface.com/content/how-learn-any-instrument-using-your-voice

Here are some highlights:

Many people fail to realize that they have already learned how to play an instrument using mimicry once in their lives: their voice.

You learned to make all of those incredible sounds called words in your mother tongue by listening to the sounds around you and copying them through a lot of trial and error. The people around you didn’t show you a picture of the inside of your mouth and say, “put your tongue here”. It wasn’t taught visually. You just mimicked. 

The difference between the students who sing what they are trying to learn and those that don’t is blatant. When someone finally starts singing the part they are trying to play, they figure it out a lot faster. Singing the part connects you to your body, and to your aural abilities in a conscious physical way. It engages you in active listening - so that you are really paying attention to what the part is. You can’t sing a part unless you have really listened to it. This helps you to internalize it. If you have internalized it, it is much easier to bring that out of your body again into the instrument you are trying to learn.

Once I have mimicked my voice, by matching the notes on the guitar, I will notice that the way I am playing it on the guitar, assuming I am a beginner, doesn’t sound quite as fluid as the original. So, then I can start to practice it by singing small chunks of (an) 8 bar phrase and trying to get my guitar to sound the way I think it should sound to most accurately represent the (musical) phrase.

Take some time and connect to your voice. Go slow. Everyone can sing. Pick single notes on a piano or a guitar and try to find them with your voice. Let yourself “suck” and just try to match what you are hearing.

Trying to mimic the sound will change and grow your techniques! If you are playing something and it doesn’t sound like what you are trying to mimic - which you have now learned to sing - then change what you are doing until it does! Stay curious. You will discover new techniques this way; your own techniques.

Try to pick something that will challenge you but is doable for your skill level. It may be hard to navigate these waters at first, but you’ll get there.

Your ears telling you it doesn’t sound right is a good thing! It means you can hear the difference, and soon enough, with tenacity and determination, you will get it sounding the way you want it.

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