Bradbury Book 2

[Jody Stecher]

Having played through the entire first volume I now have turned my attention to volume 2. I found the first book to be excellent instructional material sequenced in such a way as to give the student a gentle prod to improve at the same time as building confidence in using what was learned on earlier pages. The downside was occasionally vague instructions and a few badly constructed sentences.  

Will volume 1 be similar?  I expect the music will get harder to play. 

The Norwegian Folk Dance and its preparatory exercise introduces new rhythms and fingerings. The piece is fun to play and  relentlessly jolly and therefore does not remind me of Norwegians. 

The second page of The Sailor's Refrain is  Darling Nellie Gray. Once again the title is a bad fit to the music. The musical arrangement is excellent and not as hard to play as it is to read. There are some tricky position changes. The arrangement and fingering instructions provide the means to play these changes with confidence.

[Jody Stecher]

Pages 30 and 31

Next is the key of G minor.  I had success with the exercises here. I have used slightly different fingering from what is prescribed here so in effect I undertook this as a beginner. In a short time, through dutiful repetition of the sequenced fingering  I went from "huh?" to "why?" to "this is awkward" to "oh, this kinda makes sense" to "I like this" to "this isn't so hard after all" to "oh, there's a pattern on each string" to "got it". 

Then comes a page and a half of Dance Morisco. I had a good laugh imaging English Morris Dancers prancing around to this wide-ranging exploration of the banjo fingerboard in G minor. It's a good review of chord positions and ways of sequencing them. 

At the bottom of the page Bradbury describes the movement between two chord formations as a "Picking Pattern".  It is not. It is a left hand pattern. Picking is done with the other hand.  Once again he has good advice to give but is limited in his ability to give the advice in words that accurately represent his intended meaning.

[Joel Hooks]

Dance Morisco is a total mystery to me.  Knowing what I know about the general obsession many historic banjoists had with race, I believe it is more likely related to "Moors" rather than English dancers with sticks, bells and ribbons (yes I am aware of the claims of "Morris Dancing" history and also the evidence that it is not so old as claimed-- I have no opinion on the matter only that I enjoy when they hit sticks together and leapfrog, also #swordstar).

Bradbury credits his teacher Fred Bacon for the piece, but I have scoured every piece of Bacon related music I can get my hands on and have not found it.  The late Eli Kaufman told me he had also tried to find it and could not. I hope that at some point some Bradbury manuscript turns up with it the original title or some clue to where it came from. 

It is a nice piece and when played at a brisk clip is a bit unnerving (so I like it). 

[Jody Stecher]

 I'm sure Bradbury did not have Morris dancers in mind. Because Morisco means Moorish and the other word in the title is "Dance" my mind connected the syllables with Morris Dance.  It was an amusing pun that briefly crossed my mind. The tune is supposed to sound Spanish. Does it? I dunno. It well might.  There is actually a lot of variety to Spanish folk music  

Joel Hooks said:

Dance Morisco is a total mystery to me.  Knowing what I know about the general obsession many historic banjoists had with race, I believe it is more likely related to "Moors" rather than English dancers with sticks, bells and ribbons (yes I am aware of the claims of "Morris Dancing" history and also the evidence that it is not so old as claimed-- I have no opinion on the matter only that I enjoy when they hit sticks together and leapfrog, also #swordstar).

Bradbury credits his teacher Fred Bacon for the piece, but I have scoured every piece of Bacon related music I can get my hands on and have not found it.  The late Eli Kaufman told me he had also tried to find it and could not. I hope that at some point some Bradbury manuscript turns up with it the original title or some clue to where it came from. 

It is a nice piece and when played at a brisk clip is a bit unnerving (so I like it). 

[Jody Stecher]

Pages 32 through 35

These next pages were fun and surprising. I also found some incomprehensible instructions, which by now is not surprising. 

At the top of page 32 is a section on producing harmonics followed by a waltz using harmonics as the downbeat. I found this to be a delightful device for providing context for harmonics. I've always used harmonics at end of phrases, never at the start. I don't know why. This old dog loves learning new tricks. 

Then comes the section on producing "artificial harmonics".   Not only is the description of how to do it hard to understand, the technique did not work. I can easily produce right hand harmonics but I contact the string with the thumb and pick with a digit, not the opposite, which is what seems to be prescribed here.  The instructions included "...picking the string back of the second finger".   I have never seen a string with a back and my second finger does not have string and if it did how would I tell the front from the back?  I think he might mean "behind" the second finger. I really don't know.

The poor description is followed by an exercise. One plays a G major scale entirely  in false harmonics. I found it a bit tedious since the technique did not work. I applied the technique that has worked for me for half a century but it was still tedious. I have been enjoying all the exercises until now so maybe I was just grumpy.

Page 33 begins with an exercise in ascending and descending arpeggios.  Beneath the heading is written "Position shifts on the inside strings".  I played the exercise and liked it. But I don't know what was meant by the subheading since some of the passages between the arpeggios included the first and fifth strings as well as the inside ones (presumably 2,3 and 4).

Further down the page is some chromatic scale practice using ingenious fingering. This was fun to play. Again the old dog learns some new tricks. 

The next  page introduces the keys of A major and F# minor. I'm now starting to catch on to Bradbury's left and right hand fingering logic. There is always a reason. I don't always see the reason at first but after playing each passage exactly as Bradbury indicates I soon understand the logic and appreciate it.  

And then on page 35 is a very banjo-like arrangement of the Marines' Hymn.  As a kid this was a close second to my favorite Home On The Range. Once again I was not disappointed by Bradbury's arrangement.  By the way in the book the title has no apostrophe and as a kid the title had no final s. All the kids on my block called it The Marine Hymn. We were wrong. 

[Joel Hooks]

From a Marine:

[Jody Stecher]

From St Johnsbury? I thought he was from Bethel. I've spent time in both places. Been snowed-in in St Johnsbury and flooded-out in Bethel. 

Joel Hooks said:

From a Marine:

[Joel Hooks]

I have to admit that I have not really spent much time on "artificial harmonics".  Even when I have heard them done well they seem to be lacking.  Spanish guitarists have an advantage in that they have fingernail to pick with.

So last night I had a closer look at the Bradbury page on harmonics.  I have played the waltz many times.

I don't have a problem with "picking the string back of the 2nd finger"- what was meant is clear to me but I also have previous knowledge of the method.  I also understand this based on the early instruction "thumb being so that it strikes the strings at least one inch in advance of the first finger.  The thumb must always strike the strings in advance of the fingers."  Because I remember this instruction, "back of" is different than "in advance"-- both are clear instructions to me. 

That said, a bit of photography would have made things much clearer. 

For reference, here is the page from the 1926 Method. 

For fun, here is the page with woodcut from Frank Converse's 1865 method:

[Jody Stecher]

I still don't understand. Is the instruction  to sound the string with thumb placed between the second finger and the lower frets? I was trying it with the thumb placed between the 2nd finger and the bridge. Neither produces a clear harmonic when I try it and both are contorted positions for me, producing discomfort on the edge of real pain.  The way I have always seen it done is to lay the thumb lightly on the string and to pluck the string with the index. In this position there is no contortion and the thumb is "in advance" of the index in the usual way.

I agree that the sound produced by this technique is weaker than that produced by left hand harmonics. I am at a loss to explain this. 

[Jody Stecher]

Pages 36 through 39

Pages 36 and 37 take up the keys of Eb major and C minor.  The exercises are all instructive and useful and each is designed to develop and strengthen specific skills.

The next two pages contain "Ballad in Eb",    It contains many shifts between positions and chord formations, not all of which were pleasant to my ear.  For me going through this was not worth the trouble. For me the mood is similar to being in the presence of a stranger in an alcoholic stupor who is veering between maudlin self-pity and aggression. I know there are millions of people who like this kind of music, I don't.

[Joel Hooks]

RE: Ballad in Eb,  check out the piece “Reverie in F” by C. Hind, this is in the Barnes and Mullins method found on this site.  They are too similar to just be a coincidence.  Despite giving Parke Hunter credit, I don’t believe he had anything to do with this piece.