Originally posted August 28, 2015 Just got my 12-string Ovie Balladeer out of mothballs to play in a church service. I’m the guitarist they call in when the other three guitarists can’t make it. But I don’t mind, since it gives me most Sundays off but lets me keep my…
Originally posted August 23, 2015 Folks working with traditional music often run into fake copyright notices on the sheet music they buy. One particular publisher often gets credit and even publishing royalties for recordings of songs that were written long before that company existed, only because they affixed a copyright…
Originally Posted August 12, 2015 Added my first YouTube. Mostly, I’m experimenting to see if I can get all the bits and pieces of my “web presence” talking to each other. It’s showing a 5-string beginners version of “Boil That Cabbage Down,” to accompany chapter 4 of my free banjo…
Originally Posted August 9, 2015 I don’t have much personal stuff to post yet, but I will try to get something posted soon. In the meantime, there are a few nice videos from folks I enjoy hearing. For some reason the link software isn’t working right. You may have to…
Originally posted August 8 Just retweaked my “electric-acoustic” Dean Backwoods 6 for the third time this season. Then I played my Deering D6 for about ten minutes. They’re barely the same instrument. I like the fact that I don’t throw my back out picking up the Dean like I do…
Originally posted August 6 Back when I was playing harp all the time, I migrated to Hohner’ “Pro Harps” because of their volume, rich tone, and reliability. Recently, I wanted to play harp-on-a-bracket on a song I’m working up on banjo. Since I’m now going back and forth between multiple…
Originally posted August 5 Just put a Grover compensated bridge on the Samick 5-string that I use backless. it has the tone I want and decent action, but playing “A” on the second fret of the third string was always “iffy,” usually quite sharp. Playing B on the fourth fret…
Originally posted, August 4, 2015. As a musician and a technology writer for an insurance company, I live a double life. Triple life, if you count Linked-In. My musical half (playing and writing music since the 1960s) has been experimenting with some of the tactics recommended by this generation of…
Originally posted, August 3, 2015 If you’ve checked out our music pages and blog before, you’ll notice some updates. Hopefully, the new version won’t look like it was developed in the 1990s like most of my web sites do. Please use the contact link on any page of this site…
Originally Posted, July 29, 2015 As a folk-style banjo player since the 1960s, I was encouraged to hear Mumford and Sons put banjo back on the radio, at least temporarily. However, it’s also led to some interesting conversations as I’ve tried to explain to my musician friends the difference between…
