What are y'all up to? # 3 (Current NEW thread)

Hey Scott.  Sorry to hear about all the computer difficulties.  If I could afford it, I'd have a big ol' Mac of some sort.  I think it would run the Presonus better and I think they don't have the slowness and get the viruses and stuff like windows...at least from what I hear.  Of course, I'd really love to go back to the old computerless, phoneless, simple small town society that I used to know...but...don't think we could have it back again unless it was the end result of some great societal tragedy...lol...don't want that.

I've been puffing along with my usual stuff.  Haven't been playing music because my daughter has me working on some tracks for a video project she is doing, just to keep herself from going crazy...lol...sometimes you just have to get something going that takes up all your efforts to keep you from losing your mind, ya know?  So I've been getting her some tracks going although having a difficult time, even though the music she wants isn't hard...lol...just hard for me.  I'll get it eventually, though. Persistance always pays.  Well, mostly.

Other than that just fiddling around with the garden.  Got some heat loving tropical leafy greens going...put some into the ground finally only to see that apparently we are having a cool August for the first time since we've lived here...lol...of course...that's how my luck runs sometimes.  I hope they will do ok anyway...I think anything under 65 or so can hurt them...and we're getting into the 50s at night...which just never happens in August here...so...we'll see what happens.  Fortunately I kept some in a hydroponic, mobile kinda situation so I can put them inside overnight and have them on standby to get enough cuttings so that we get them through the wintertime and ready for lots of good eatin' next year.  We like our greens around here.

Hope everybody's finding time for music and staying safe from storms and viruses and all of that.

 

I'm so sorry to hear that, Fred. I'm glad to see you back on the forum! John

So much 2020 stuff going on everywhere...hope everybody is doing ok here.

Sounds like good times Fred.

I was invited to go jam this weekend but declined going.

I've been playing alone so long now, and have been turned down so many times by people I know well when looking for a unit to play in regularly, that I seem to have become very self conscious and don't feel comfortable playing with/around others anymore.

I think I've gotten pickier on what I want to do with others. I used to pay at the drop of a hat...now I prefer to work things out and have things organised. I care more about being intimately familiar with what i'm attempting to play...this seems to lead toward a more solitary existence music wise...I also wish I didn't feel that way, but it is what it is, and I am living the amount of stuff I'm learning and am still quite excited about playing fiddle.

On another note, I have read up to the little girl getting run over by a train in "The Dollmaker". I loved the beginning, but wasn't thrilled it took the turn it did with the big move...it does continue to be an interesting read though...I just want <strong>someone</strong> to be happy in this story before it ends...

For me, music is a life-long journey.  Each time I pick up an instrument, I learn something.  I am new to the fiddle, but even at this early stage of learning, I can see that it offers me lessons and knowledge that are different from what I bring to, and take from the guitar, banjo and mandolin.

A long time ago, it became clear to me that this process is seriously inhibited by the 'condemning mind'.  It is useful to evaluate my playing, and make adjustments based on an honest and accurate catalogue of skills and understandings that need to be changed.  But, to beat myself up because I have not lived up to a deluded, imaginary ideal is not skillful or useful.

Right now, on the fiddle, simply playing in tune is a major undertaking.  But, the difficulties of finding notes accurately on a 'fretless' instrument is opening me up to a new intimacy with scales, arpeggios and chords that I had lost playing a fretted instrument.  The complexity of bowing and making bowing choices are forcing me to revisit rhythm and time.

There is a Buddhist saying: Before beginning to study, mountains are just mountains and rivers are just rivers.  After studying diligently for a while, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers and no longer rivers.  When deep and thorough understanding has been achieved, mountains are just mountains and rivers are just rivers.

Every time I pick up and instrument, whether it is to play a complex, fully articulated jazz or blues composition on the guitar, or stumble through a scale on the fiddle, my tongue clenched tightly between my teeth, trying simply to play a two octave 'G' scale in tune, I am making music.  That is enough for me.

Bill

Dave, I'm sorry to tell you that the Dollmaker is basically a tragedy...lol...not a lot of happiness in there but a lot to think about.  You're in the region, I mean I don't know how close, but the part where their tragic lives ended up...I was in the area where their tragic lives began...so there oughta be something very familiar in there...but, yes, it is tragic.  If you read the two that came before that...it's kinda interesting, historically, about rural America and especially Appalachia...how things changed with development.  The first one, Mountain Path, and the second one, Hunter's Horn...I believe Arnow's writing skills were improved quite a bit, though, when she got to the Dollmaker.  Still, some lit profs consider the three a sort of unintended trilogy of rural America back through history.

Fred...I don't know what it could be...sometimes when I pick up a fiddle it just sings out...then, sometimes it just screeches ugly and i don't know why.  I don't know if it's my rosin, my bow tightness or looseness, rosin build up on the strings, the humidity, or my ears...lol.  I just wish the fiddle would be my friend EVERY day, not just when it wants to.

Bill...back in college...hate to figure up how long that's been...since I studied philosophy and that kinda stuff...I remember a similar little Buddist expression...Before Zen, a man is a man and a mountain is a mountain.  During Zen there is some confusion.  After Zen, a man is a man and a mountain is a mountain.  And of course, the student asks the difference between before and after.  The answer if I'm remembering it right, is after Zen the man's feet are on the ground...something to that effect...lol.  I have thought about that many times when it comes to dealing with music and musical instruments!

Does it get better? - "now that's a question!"

When I first began to study music, I spent a lot of time working through exercises and drills from books and structured learning protocols.  After years of this, it occurred to me that most of this stuff had been developed to, in the least useful cases, solve problems specific to the author of the published learning material, or in more useful instances, to solve problems encountered by a variety of  his or her students.  The question for me became, "how useful is this stuff to my own needs as a musician?"  In most cases, I was forced to admit that it was of minimal value.  I am sure all of us have had the experience of spending hours, days, or weeks slaving over some arcane musical pedagogy, only to find it of no particular value, or completely unable to find a pragmatic application for it in our 'actual' playing.

One of the alternatives is to pay close attention to our own process.  To begin to understand 'how' we, as individuals, learn - what our process tells us about what we 'need' to learn - and how to 'recognize', what our own playing is trying to tell us.  I think that much of what we do as musicians is like the individual who begins to lose his balance running down a hill and has to run faster and faster to keep from a horrible, bone breaking fall.  Eventually, he is going to crash.

I have found that when I make mistakes, am faced with what appears to be an insurmountable difficulty, feel frustration, disappointment or distress, I am experiencing a clear, pointed message about where I need to focus my effort and direct my study.

At the present, there are so many distractions to learning - systems to learn jazz in one week, master musical theory in an afternoon, play like (fill in a name here) by simply learning this 'secret insight' known only to the guy selling this week's musical snake oil - that, often, we can't tell up from down.  Even when the learning system is legitimate, it can become impossible to differentiate it from all of the inflated, two-for-one, once-in-a-lifetime, one-time-only musical 'slicers and dicers' out there.

One of my teachers told me, "pay attention to the small motion."  When we boil away all of our expectations, preconceptions, and external frames of reference and identify what, precisely, we are having problems with - I think, then, we can begin to order our efforts in a way that optimizes our results and helps us to effectively direct our practice.  As well, that kind of focus changes the nature of frustration and disappointment.  It alchemically translates them from stumbling blocks and sources of distress into an enthusiasm for, and expectation of, new learning.

 

 

I find that the more different tunes I learn the easier it gets , When first learning each new tune from BGD I just try to be a twin fiddle along side Dr. John performance video or mp3 , and copy him , till I can , My Dad always told me to keep going and if you make a mistake , don't stop and next time through , try to get it right and eventually you will get it right  , Then like magic , after I am a carbon copy of the tune I start picking up on embellishments here and there in some of the tunes , So getting comfortable with a tune , you become it , then it becomes you !

I don't know if this makes scents , but works for me !

I can relate...I work 7 mornings/week all Summer at a golf course...so no overnighters.

I've been invited to a couple things to play, but ended up staying home & working at learning. I've just gotten to where I don't feel comfortable out playing around people...weird for someone who performed or played out most every weekend for over 35 years.

I had a great time at the Old Country jam session last night. Instead of playing my usual fiddle numbers, I decided to throw a few different tunes at the fellas each time it came around to my turn. I played "Maple Sugar" (an old Ward Allen tune), "Golden Slippers (this time in the key of D instead of G), "Big John McNeil" and "Bill Cheatum". The guys loved it. I had a great time playing along with so many of the old country songs the folks sang.

Thanks, Peggy.

I've been having a lot of fun on and off fiddling some great tunes. Windy City Rag, April's Reel, Pass Me Not, Daley's Reel, Cheyenne, New Camptown Races, Maple Sugar, Beautiful Dreamer, Blue Violet Waltz, Angel's Waltz, Gardenia Waltz, Big John McNeil, Blue Mountain Waltz, and quite a few others, too. I love it when everything comes together.....although it's not as frequent as it used to be. Fun to slowly be getting back into the swing of things. :)

I'm working on a waltz called "Redeemed" in Eb tonight. Not as hard to play there as one might think...

Dave, I'm of the opinion that Eb is one of the most beautiful keys on the fiddle. That's wonderful to hear you're still playing when you get a chance. ( I had to play "Fulsom Prison Blues" in F# the other night when the singer capoed up two frets on his guitar and played in the E chord shape.)

Beardog, it's great to hear from you again. I figured you were way too busy. Hope you get some time to fiddle.