Each time I go out for a physio appointment, I see that the front garden is greening up more and more. I was a little worried about our Japanese Maple, as the leaves seemed to be appearing on some branches more than others, but as the days go by I see it’s going to be fine.
Good-bye old paint.
Here’s Meredith Axelrod
Also nice on squeezebox, from Sqwzbox…
I also really like this performance by Bruce Molsky, with Brittany Haas and Paula Bradley…
Let’s go out with Tex Ritter…
A few days ago I shared some different versions of the old time tune, Buffalo Gals. As is often the case, I was listening to various versions of the tune because I was learning to play it myself. At a recent practice session I recorded myself working on this one. I like to do that fairly regularly because how I think I play and how I think I sound isn’t the same as how I really play and how I really sound. When I listen to myself recorded it becomes obvious to me where I need to concentrate my practicing. I’m not one of those people who have some kind of natural knack for playing an instrument. To play at all decently, I really have to work at it. Fortunately, I love playing music so practice=fun for me.
This is a really bad video (and I’m not even talking about my banjo picking). I videotaped with a bright light in behind and I managed to cut off part of my head and my left hand. The one highlight is that my cat Shadow showed up at some point. You can see him in the bottom right corner, and he just hung out and watched me. Of all our cats, Shadow self-identifies as my cat. He is usually not far away, and when I first injured my ankle he often chose my cast as a reasonable place to sleep (I usually didn’t agree).
For those who care about these things, I’m playing a Bart Reiter Standard banjo, in open G tuning with a capo on the second fret, bringing it into the key of A. I’ve crammed together two different versions just to add some variety.
So here’s me, working on Buffalo Gals.
Cluck Old Hen is one of my fave banjo tunes. It’s all about a hen, a hen that lays enough eggs for the railway men. The only problem is, truth be told she hasn’t laid an egg since way last spring or maybe way last fall. I stumbled across this fantastic performance on the YouTube by Joel Mabus, recorded at the Midwest Banjo Camp in 2010 at the faculty concert. This performance says a lot about old time music.
Several Amanita chipbowlius have appeared in the front garden. You can see that this one came up among some young sorel plants. The distinctive “chip bowl” mushroom often gravitates toward herbs in the garden. They are easy to identify – woody stalks and broad caps remarkably resembling inverted chip bowls, bright red, with blotchy white spots. Enjoy the spring display these mushrooms bring to the garden, but DO NOT EAT them.
Clawhammer banjo is played by striking the strings of the banjo on the downstroke with the fingernail of either your index or middle finger. If you play a lot, your nails take a lot of abuse, especially if you use steel strings on your instrument. You don’t have to keep your nails super-long. I find that as long as my the tip of my nail extends beyond the pad of my finger, it’s fine. If my nails are a bit longer, I get better volume. Occasionally I have a nail disaster, as happened today while I was out picking some tunes on the porch today.
As you can see in the photo, my nail cracked badly in about as bad a spot as possible. There was nothing to be done but cut the nail down to the crack, which I just did. It will be weeks before this finger is a useful clawhammer tool again.
Fortunately I have a back-up. The crack was on the nail of my index finger, but I also grow out my middle finger nail as an alternate. I can play about as well with my middle finger as my index finger. In fact, I’m not sure which finger I prefer to play with. I also grow out the nail of the ring finger on my picking hand. I do this for achieving percussive effects like clucking sounds.
Usually between my index and middle fingers, I have at least one useful clawhammer nail. Once in a while one or the other of them breaks. Some players are fortunate enough to have really tough nails that simply don’t break even with lots of playing. I paint hardener on my clawhammer nails (that’s what gives them the sheen you see in the picture. I don’t know if that stuff actually does any good or not, but it at least reminds me to be attentive to taking care of my nails.
Some players go down to their local nail salon and get an acrylic nail or two, and apparently this works very well for clawhammer. There are also all kinds of clawhammer picks available, but I haven’t found one I like. I want to feel the contact when I play, and the sound of a nail making contact with the strings seems just right. Quite a few players swear by picks they make themselves with ping pong balls and duct tape. I tried making one of these but it didn’t work out well at all. Maybe I had a poor quality ping pong ball.
For now, I’ll stick with using the hardener trying to keep my natural nails intact. If I break my middle finger nail in the next two or three weeks though, I’ll be in a pickle and I’ll have to resort to either a pick or else venture into one of local nail joints.
Tuffy P took Georgie out for a refreshing morning dip. More Newf pics over at 27th Snaps.
Tuffy P found this huge elephant ear (Colocasia) on sale somewhere or another and has planted it in the barrel planter out front. What an exotic addition to the front gardens. 
27th Street 