I have always wanted to get these thoughts out in writing of some type...for some reason it helps me learn and grow as a person.
Part 1: The Begining
Greetings,
My name is Patrick and I'm a banjo-holic. I started playing roughly 5 years ago.
<Hi Patrick!!> lol j/k
I recieved a banjo for christmas 2003. My mother asked me if I would like a new instrument for x-mas. (we were pretty poor at the time but she ALWAYS made sure I had anything I needed to make music, i have been playing one thing or another since my first memorys and learned to read SN around the same time I learned to read english) Not having any knowledge about banjos other than that my grandmother liked them and I had hung out with Alvin Breeden a few times (for those who don't know, Alvin paints houses for a living,well used too, he is not very well health wise anymore) while we worked on the same house, and heard him play at the fair and stuff like that.
I got online at the library and found TOBS and looked around. I decided that what made the most sense of any post i read, was to play as many as you could, then buy. I went to the music store here in town and bought a Fender 57 i think they call it. The one with the aluminum pot. (it was also the only one I could afford (:-P)
We were living in Crozet VA at the time in a pretty cool old house, and my room was on the second floor. I had always had the ability to learn by ear, I can also reat SN and TAB but more on that later. I bought one of Alvins cds from the local shop, poped it in the player and set out on a 2 month joury to learn one song. Sabryn Rene. To this day it is still my fave song. Along the way was constant lurking on TOBS (i like to lurk...what can i say). icking up stuff here and there: youtube, Janet Book, Banjo Encyclopedia. All with the intent to play that song. Two months later I could play a passable Sabryn Rene.
Once i scratched that itch, I continued on to learning the fundamentals the proper way. I revisited the Ross Nickerson book and started pour over online lesson. I learned the basic rolls, some advanced rolls, started dabbeling in single string work. It is a good thing I got into that VERY early in my banjo playing life, because I could not imagine having to learn that after hours and hours of regular rolls. For me a basic beginners pratice session looked like this:
Upon getting home from work,
1 hour of scruggs/regular rolls..ie playing along with a cd and mimking the best I could/learning from the Ross book/metronome work.
1 hour of Reno style...ie the cd work/ running thorugh the single string stuff/playing lots of keys with NO capo/tripplett work/strum work/note plaement on the neck, knowing your neck!
free jam.ie what ever the h@ll I wanted to do for as long as I wanted to do it. 10 min? cool 3 hours? fine
I never have gotten into melodic save for a few runs and I feel my playing suffurs for it.
Part 2: Life has a funny way of...
I followed along this course, completly infatuated with the banjo. I know you guys/gals can understand. I had no real resposibility at the time and could indulge at my lesiure. The following Autumn I fell in love with a woman and her 14 m.o. baby girl and they moved in with me. She likes banjos and never has once told me to be quiet or move to another room. Not a single time. Another thing happend at that time. My grandmother, that raised me from youth, passed away at the age of 76 due to COPD from smoking ciggaretts. This crushed me and sent me into a spiral of lifestyle that I am just now barely crawling back from. I quit everything, my job, my personal life and I thank my higher power that my woman did not quit me cuzz I sure quit her too, emotionaly. That said.
My grandmother left me $5000 dollars. I wanted to party but had the good sence to lissten to my woman, she said " Your grandmother loved hearing you play the banjo, if your gonna spend it all anyway, buy a good and learn to play good. I think she would be a little more proud of that." That stung, because it was tru. So I decided to put all the money into a banjo. Here is the strange and wonderfull saga of Polly.
I started looking around on-line to see whats up. I had purchased fine instruments before of all types, it was how I made my living for a while, so I knew that 5000 wasn't such an absurd amount for a "really" nice banjo. Around that time all you heard about online was HUBER OMG WTF!!1!! THE BEST EVA. After reading thread uon thread upon thread of huber this and huber that and you can't beat a huber with a baseball bat, I went up to the Acutaboffice in Roanoak VA to meet with John Lawless. If I remeber correctly at the timem Mr. Lawless was one of the only people taking orders for Huber and one of the only people with a Huber to try in the greater VA area.
We got to the office and he let me play his personal Lanaster and a freinds Lexington. This was the first time mind you that I had ever played a tone ring banjo and I could simply not believe how good those things sounded. He had some tone rings and various cool banjo parts laying all around and I had never seen any of this stuff in person before. He played a coule songs for me and his picking was flawless. All in all I had a great visit with Mr. Lawless and have nothing but nice things to say about the man.
He did however change the way I thought about banjos. We had a very long conversation about banjos and towards the end he told me(from memory many years ago but was very similar to) "Obviously Huber makes a great banjo(we had just spent an hour picking them) Gibson can make a great banjo to, but the amount of solid mahogany less puals sold a day makes the number of banjos sold a day look terrible, so they put the majority of their effort into electric guitars, but if you can find a handmade gibson for less than 10,000 grab it."
I left that day knowing I would be buying a Huber but i decided to look on TOBS to see if someone was selling one. Nobody was so I planned to go up to Roanoak the next weekend.
I went down too Richmond VA to visit some kin and while there I decided to go to the Guitar Center to get some guitar and bass strings and a new pedal for my electric guitar. Went into the "Acoustic Coralle" and cound't beleive what I saw. Gibsons, lots and looootttttssssss of Gibsons. I had never played a Gibson, only a Huber a couple days before.
In walks Drew, the sales man. A white guy with dreadlocks to his rear, but a nice personality and a hollywood smile. I asked him what on earth all these banjos were doing in a guitar store and he said that his boss had been getting them from small stores all over the state that were having trouble selling them. I said wow and proceeded to try at least 5 or 6. He let me go into another room where they kept the HIGH end guitars so I could be all alone and he shuttled back and forth. An RB-, RB-250, RB-75, ESS, Granada FE.
After picking all of these fine specimans (they needed set-up but duhh..its the Guitar Center were talking about here) he said "wait man, we got one in the back you should see" He comes back with a 1927 TB-5 archtop with a conversion neck. I was flabberghasted. Cuz on-line those days besides OMG HUBER!!1! was OMG PRE_WAR!!!1!!.
This thing was beat to death. Cracked resonator, broken head, broken hook or 5. However it was 6000 dollars and it was pre-war and quite frankly I didn't know any better. I was caught in te pre-war mystic and I always have liked thigs with a little pattina of wear. So I said "BET! I'll be back friday afternoon."
Friday came and I took the $5000 I had, cash in 20 dollar bills looked like it would choke a donkey, and headed to the music store to see if I could talk them down on that archtop. I figured whynot, if not all i'm out is a tank of gas and I'll go get the Huber this weekend.
I got there and when I walked in I saw high up on the wall behind the register a 2001 flathead RB-5, and it was GLEAMING ya'll. I asked Drew, "Where did that thing come from?" and he told me they had just got it in on commision earlyer that day. they were gonna "Set it up" (LOL yeah right!) tommorow so they put it way up there until then. I told I must play that banjo.
He sets me up in the small room again and it is my gal and I. I'm picking, shes listenin. The head is loose..however even tubby this thing has got a great sound. So I decided to try something I didn't try at huber and play up the nek. When I did the banjo sounded so sweet that I knew there would never be another. So we commence to haggeling. I'll give you 4,500...no way we gotta get 5,300...4700?? He then tells me " I'm sorry man but I can't go under $5,200" I told him that was a shame cuz all I had was 5 and pulled that dang knot of money out of my gals purse and laid it on the counter. He grinned and the deal was done. To this day I swear that this banjo has some magick or smething to it...maybee the haunt of my grandmother, but my banjo, Polly, has teh mojo so to say.
Part 3: Put up or Shut up
Question, how do you get good at banjo?
Answer, join a band and play infront of people.
I joined an aera bluegrass association in southern VA and started attending regular jams. If you are not familiar with VA, I assure you that there are some Bluegrass MONSTERS in this part of the world and you can easily throw yourself under the bus at the advanced/private jams in the area. But that is exactly what I did. I'm not trying to be boastfull in the least but I think I can hold my own in ANY traditional bluegrass situation and here is how I acomplised that in 2 years.
Practice routine. Every day. Litteraly
2 hours scruggs stuff- playing along with cds/practicing rolls with metronome untill you get sick of that thing, that lifeless beep beep be..well you get the point/kick offs/ endings/ creat your own arragments and record them and then add harmony banjo.
2 hours Reno style-cd work/no capo/reno specific rolls (Jason Skinner is my friend and mentor and has helped me more than he may ever know)
Go to a jam or go busk for 2 hours, everyday, cold or hot, cops or not, get out there and play infront of people and be scared/nervous, eventually it gets much better. I have had the honor of plaing for well over 1000 people once and i was nervous but fine once the music started. 4 years ago I could barely give a recital to 100 college kids witout being physically sick.
I joined a band. I will not post the name because those guys like to google themselves alot and I really don't ever want to have to see them again, but I digress.
The band was awesome! We had what I think was the best dobro player to ever play the instrument A decent flatpicker/rythm frontman, and a solid bass player. We would go to festivals and jam in the field, people loved it. The dobro player had contacts in bluegrass and got us on with a decent manager/promoter. We started playing gigs and they would sell, we made a cd and it sold well, but we were the party band of the local bg scene. We made a big deal of drinking corn and being balls to the wall. Our shirts even made refrence that everyone should drnk corn.
We played several festivals and had a blast. Got to pick in the field with some major banjo players. In the year and some change I played with them we went from the field to the stage and were getting record offers. All is well. I was making money so the family was happy, I was happy that for the first time in my like something musicaly was working. It was working! Anyway there was an incident, I will not get into it other than to ssay tat I wish those guys nothing but the best.
Part 4: Exodus
I literally was in fear for my life so I decided I needed to leave town for a while and let it all blow over. I caught the greyhound out to Colorado and spent a few months camping by Manitou Springs with my banjo. I got to write some good songs, think about life and kick some demons. All in all a positive journey that every well may have saved my life.
When I returned to VA I tried to make a carreer out of playing the banjo in other types of music, to little sucsess. I was dissalusioned with bluegrass and wanted to just quit. So that is what I did. I didn't touch the banjo for 6 month, instead playing piano for a small church of radical believers in Rural VA. And that was interestin to say the least.
Well, a couple of months ago I get contacted about maybe playing bluegrass for a local band. Small shows, mostly gospel stuff, playing for free alot, sometimes at great expense. So i went to a pratice and found it peaceful. Now i have a steady gig with those guys. I have a normal family life again and all is well. Getting back to the banjo has been like seeing an old friend. Sure we have some Sh@t between us, but what friends don't.
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