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!

***

Be a Fan