Phew!

Back, unpacked and rested!

Tremendous day yesterday, our new choice of venue exceeded expectations.

Great turn out of familar faces, nice to see Sully and Richard Ineson back in playing form.

The Community playing has improved a lot - Richard weilding the might contra bass, Tony P on bass, massed 1st and 2nds and Brian on mandolin banjo and my self on piccolo. Carolyn got down mid afternoon and took some pictures that I've uploaded. There is some video to come as well. No doubt Paul will be putting his photos up. We also had a visit from the local press photographer - something should be going on their web site soon.

Tom did a brilliant job with the catering - pork sandwiches for a week or two?

Also thanks to must go Richard and special thanks for service above and beyond to Sue in the kitchen and my Dad on the door.

Needless to say we will be booking the venue for next year.

We even found a good pub ! The Rose and Crown in Barlborough - brilliant food but who asked him to put Duelling Banjo over the house PA!

 

 

  

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It looks like a great day out there. Thank you for posting all the pictures and details. Sorry I couldn't make it, but pressing family commitments got in the way.  How on earth does Richard get the Bass on the bus?  Does it get its own seat?  :-)

I would love to see videos, particularly of the group bash. From experience 30 years ago , they were dreadful! But we didn't have electronic tuners then! I am glad that you say they have improved.  Do you announce group playing pieces in advance?  I would need 12 months to practice.  What did you play?

 

I will try my best to get there next year so that I can put faces to the names.  Save me a pork sandwich and I will start work immediately on Dueling Banjos   :-)

 

Ian

Blaze Away! as semi community then Gold Diggers.

Solo/group spots then Rugby Parade/Ladbroke/Sunflower then more solo/group

and to finsh Man the Guns/Park Crescent/Whistlin' Rufus

We have books available, including piano/top line/chords.

No excuses, no messing about!

 

  

Well you know, when I attended the Banjo Rally in Backwell last year the massed banjos were anything but dreadful. It was a glorious sound and also in tune (and in time). Ian, I know you and I share a distaste for tab but I think there is another "modren" device that has impeded the quality of string music even worse than the damage tab has done and that is the electronic tuner. It's fine for a pitch reference but those who began playing in the electronic tuner era often never develop a fine enough ear to actually know for themselves whether or not their banjo is in tune. I have studied the matter and have found that different brands of tuner (and different models within a brand) sometimes disagree as to what is in tune. So how can they each be "correct"? Music is for people to listen to. The pitch needs to please the ear, not agree with a machine. I disagree with most electronic tuners. Most are pretty good for C major but just try playing in another key and you get some pretty bizarre pitches. But that's not all. Now it's considered cool and fashionable to "wear" an electronic tuner on the headstock of one's banjo. I don't think it looks bad or good. My problem is that it makes the banjo sound bad. It cuts down the volume and it makes the banjo sound like it has a cold. It's like singing with a clothes pin on one's nose. 

thereallyniceman said:

It looks like a great day out there. Thank you for posting all the pictures and details. Sorry I couldn't make it, but pressing family commitments got in the way.  How on earth does Richard get the Bass on the bus?  Does it get its own seat?  :-)

I would love to see videos, particularly of the group bash. From experience 30 years ago , they were dreadful! But we didn't have electronic tuners then! I am glad that you say they have improved.  Do you announce group playing pieces in advance?  I would need 12 months to practice.  What did you play?

 

I will try my best to get there next year so that I can put faces to the names.  Save me a pork sandwich and I will start work immediately on Dueling Banjos   :-)

 

Ian

Tuner on headstock: guilty as charged. Can't tune by ear: second offense, also guilty.

OTOH, I've only played with one person (over 30 yrs) who actually complained. She was a concert-trained pianist cursed with perfect pitch (no, not able to hurl a banjo into a dumpster). I could tune my banjo to suit her but it didn't intonate well enough for her to stand me playing it. Well, perhaps it was just my playing. ;-)

I think the electronic tuner is a blessing. Leaving it on the headstock is simple laziness. I generally take mine off when playing. However, when I'm at a jam, it stays on all the time. I can't hear any difference when it is on or off the banjo, so...

I do have to say that I have found the Peterson strobe tuners to be excellent. The new ones have 'sweetened' tunings for specific instruments and I actually think I can hear the difference...although I am generally a little insensitive to pitch deviations. I tested myself years ago and IIRC, I can't tell +/- 3 cents from "spot on".

I am looking forward to seeing the video of the ensemble, David. Looks like y'all had a great time!

 

 

Hi Jody,

My comments were a little tongue in cheek about being dreadful !  There were some fantastic concerts at BMG rallies here in the UK.

 

In the good old days we all learned to tune the instrument by ear and I still do, but using the electronic tuner as a reference for pitch, then listening to the "beat" frequency and then a final check across the strings when playing all the Gs on all strings  reachable from the 5th fret.

The problem in the good old days what that everyone tuned their banjo perfectly using pitch pipes for reference so often we had a room full of players all in perfect tune, but not in tune  with each other due to the rubbish pitch pipes :-)

This was particularly dreadful when bluegrass players were nearby as their volume drowned everything out and you couldn't hear yourself think, let alone tune up a nylon banjo!

That is very odd because as I have seen demonstrated countless times, a nylon/gut strung banjo produces a louder sound than the same banjo strung with steel. It's counter-intuitive. One thinks a soft string would produce a soft sound. Not so.  So it must have been all Stelling banjos in the bluegrass corner. Those are *loud* banjos.

thereallyniceman said:

 

This was particularly dreadful when bluegrass players were nearby as their volume drowned everything out and you couldn't hear yourself think, let alone tune up a nylon banjo!

You misunderstand Jody.....

 

  200 bluegrass banjos vs 1 classic banjo   No contest, not even with nylon strings :-)

It's the cold steel Mr Ian, they don't like it up 'em!

I detect a trend

You misunderstand, Jody.....

 

 

 

 

Jody, We both fully understand and agree that TAB is a curse on musicianship and should be condemned to the furnace along with electronic tuners.

Of course many, many banjoists use it and I hope that Marc S will help out in the up coming Beginners Page on the site with tutorials utilising TAB.

I say, bring back the tuning fork!  I still have a set of forks, but recently discovered that they were tuned to a scientific pitch where A = 426.6 Hz, not concert pitch where A = 440 Hz.

 I often wondered why everyone else  was rubbish at tuning and playing in the wrong key  :-)

Well Ian, don't forget that electronic tuners have the advantage of making time travel possible!

 

I read notation myself (many years of playing the piano and other instruments before taking up the banjo) but I don't mind tablature with notation, especially if I'm unfamiliar with an instrument. I would hardly say that the likes of John Dowland or Luys de Narvaez lacked musicianship; tablature does have its uses, even though it isn't a substitute for notation.

The "curse on musicianship" reference had a context. Ian and I had been discussing (off this forum) how students who learn tab before learning to hear and listen tend to become crippled in the area of rhythm and phrasing. As a teacher I have seen this many times. It wasn't a comment on the quality of the music represented in tab. That is another story and actually is often true (a tab is as good as the ears of the tabulator) but that was not the topic here. Ian and I were also agreeing that banjo staff notation with its indications of left and right hand fingerings, 5th string symbol, and barre and fret position chord an note indicators already has all the info that tab presents but in a system that includes a map of the melody. Staff notation "looks like" the tune. Tab doesn't.  But yeah, lots of great music was successfully stored and reproduced by means of tab. Not only lute and other european string instruments. The great tradition of the Guqin of China has been represented only by a tab system for centuries. But as with lute etc, there is a context. The context is a culture of listening and hearing. One has heard the piece or similar pieces from teachers and others and the piece (or its type) is active in the mind and heart. Then the tab is useful. 

Mike Moss said:

Well Ian, don't forget that electronic tuners have the advantage of making time travel possible!

 

I read notation myself (many years of playing the piano and other instruments before taking up the banjo) but I don't mind tablature with notation, especially if I'm unfamiliar with an instrument. I would hardly say that the likes of John Dowland or Luys de Narvaez lacked musicianship; tablature does have its uses, even though it isn't a substitute for notation.

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