The oldtime banjo blog from Kiel

This could be the place of the Kiel Weekend in September: Größere Kartenansicht Villa Falkenhorst

It depends. But for example the price for one person with Ryan Air from London(Stanstead) to Hamburg(Lübeck) -return flight- is 48,46 GBP including taxes (maybe there´s an extra charge for the banjo). There should be other companies offering this trip too. Worth thinking it over?

Well, I thought about this before. There is a house (see above) near the sea at the outskirts of Kiel which offers bunk-beds, kitchen, two (or three?) rooms where we could make music. We would do our own cooking etc (or we order the pizza sevice). Not comparable to our comfortable home in Sheffield, but we would have a house of our own. (No draught beer though, only six-packs :-). There are rooms with three bunks and six bunks (details on the plan at the Villa´s site ). Sleeping bags advised. We could rent this house during a weekend in September from Friday night till Sunday, i.e. September 18th to 20th the upcoming year (no other spare times there). Costs will be shared per capita. I think I could organize some sort of shuttle service for a few people to and fro the Hamburg airport (one hour drive). The only question is: Will there be enough participants? Including me I count on three to five Germans (maybe more, but insecure) but I´m not sure if this is interesting enough for the U...

MERRY CHRISTMAS to my dear readers - especially to all those whom I met this year for the first time through music. No time to practice a new christmas tune (although I had a try with "Fairytale from New York", but it´s not ready to be published), so here´s an old one: Very german, very banjo . Let´s take our time during these holidays to share some music!

As we all know one of the most important skills of the REAL FRAILER is every morning after having had a closer look into the wardrobe: To choose the ultimate shirt - as this really will help the bump ditty on it´s way. As luck would have it we all were properly dressed at the Sheffield weekend: Thank you very much indeed, Roland, for lending us this excellent frailer´s tool and Bill, for helping the "UK Folkies Patrick Costello Tribute String Band" into this red thingy. Sorry, DoD, I know you would prefer other clothings, but this had to be done!

When I began my first frailing tries I was quite insecure how to hold my right hand while hitting the strings - i.e. while frailing the banjo. Now I know that there are many ways to execute the bump-ditty. Here you can see some of the participants at the UK Folkies Weekend frailing Cripple Creek. You may notice that not two of them are moving their right hands in exactly the same way - everyone has found his own way. I´d like to know if Patrick is satisfied with our right hands...

James put a video on youtube. Hopefully banjohopeful will add one or two more videos?

You can find lots of fotos from this weekend´s meeting in Sheffield at Carlos´Flickr set and at Dick´s Flickr account .

That´s how it sometimes went in Sheffield: Someone started a tune (I think it was James on this file), some others did recognize it, then - after a few lines - joined in, soon the rest of us came familiar with the tune and joined in also and by such the the band played a tune , which half of us never had played before. Could we have achieved that without Patrick´s and DoD´s teaching?

Dunno, enjoyed frailing together with (almost) 20 open backs - "they shook the rafters and the floor" had the courage (oh boy!) to sing in front of 20 listeners - phew! stole Danny´s guitar - sounded fine even played together with a piper: Dick had brought his small pipes and allowed me to accompany him with the banjo on "Blue Eyes" (no, not "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain", although we did this about 4 times this weekend :-))) Here is "Blue Eyes" with pipes and banjo.

The UK Folkies Weekend is over. It was a blast! Music and banjo talk from morning til late after midnight (on Friday night it ended not before 3 a.m.). First reviews and fotos are on Tangiersound More later - have to catch the plane.

Going over to Sheffield, skip to my loo! ... The UK Folkies will meet at Sheffield this weekend - and several non-UK guys will join in: Two from Spain, one from Irland - and me! Looking forward to see you all, guys. I will be happy to meet Camilo, Carlos, Colin, Dick and Keith again (who all were at the Crisfield, Maryland, retreat too) ... Going over to Sheffield, skip to my loo Keith did the arrangements, skip to my loo Happy to meet you, skip to my loo Skip to my loo my (well, ok, let´s better say ) friends

If you like to hear bluegrass music, presented by a German radio station, you may visit www.kielfm.de this Tuesday Nov. 25th 2008, 10 pm (GMT) and this Wednesday, 26th, 10 am. There´s a life-stream. It´s presented by Uli, Scruggs-style banjopicker from Kiel.

Es ist wieder soweit: Die aktuelle Sendung BYRON's BARN ist am Dienstag, 25.November 2008 um 22:00 Uhr und am Mittwoch, 26.November 2008 um 10:00 Uhr zu hören. Und zwar 1. Im Hörfunkbereich des Offenen Kanals Kiel auf UKW 101.2 und 2. weltweit im Internet unter www.kielfm.de zeitgleich als life-stream (Einfach im linken Menü auf "Hören" klicken, und schon seid Ihr nach einer kurzen Ladezeit ( Die Sendung macht Uli, unser Kieler Banjopicker (zu schade, dass er selber hauptsächlich Scruggs-Style pickt :-) Seine Sendung ist aber umfassender).

Got a new PC. Installed Windows XP-Home, three service packs included. My old PC had the same OS. But when I plugged in my Creative ZenTouch mp3-player at the old PC, I could see it as a new drive there and drag and drop my mp3-files from the PC´s harddisc to the player. Now with the new PC I cannot even see the new drive. Seems to be a driver´s problem. The USB port doesn´t work with this device. I tried to install the Creative software from the CD which went with the player, but that didn´t help. I tried to actualize the driver (from the Creative web site), but that didn´t help either. Did anyone have this problem before and knows what to do? (my external harddisc works pretty well with USB.)

Finally I managed the upload to youtube. The song I (was trying to) play is called O Kaimos (The Grief) and is of course about love and woe. It will be the only greek song that I play on the banjo, promise! (At least this year ;-)

I wanted to upload a movie clip to youtube. My camera makes *.mov - files. Usually Youtube accepts mov, but this file seems to be too large, the upload doesn´t work. I would like to cut the file and upload just a part of it, but don´t know how to do the cutting. Moviemaker doesn´t accept mov-files, and changing the mov-file to another format didn´t work with the different tools I downloaded. Does anybody in the whole wide world know how to edit mov-files USING FREEWARE? Is the only way to transform it to another format and then work on it with Moviemaker? Can I cut the file into pieces with Moviemaker? Any help is very welcome. As a reward I promise to upload part of the Greek movie I did on Crete. Or would this refrain you from helping me? :-)

Last Friday I was happy to attend Hamburg´s well known monthly "Bluegrass Session". Luckily there were enough guys who were willing to accept me trying to play with them a set of three tunes: Sandy Boys, Shady Grove and "The Flower from the Wild Wood" - no , not Wildwood Flower, but the same melody with rather different lyrics. We had lots of fun. In fact it was one of the rare moments, when two clawhammer guys played together (with double bass, two guitars and one fiddle - may be there were even more instruments on this set, but I was far too excited to realize :-). I then learned that the next Banjoree in Hagen will start on Friday May 1st 2009. For details concerning the last Banjoree (in 2007) visit Banjoree.com . Soon they will update this site. Hope to see you in Größere Kartenansicht Hagen/Berchum

You know why children don´t go to the house of a bluegrass banjo player on Halloween? They are afraid he would give them a roll. And why don´t they visit the frailer? He could drop his thumb.

Shortly before we traveled to Crete, I came over this lovely song, maybe of Irish origin. I´ve heard it in 3/4 and in 4/4 too. I prefer 3/4, so it sounds more sad to me ;-) I tried to play it very softly on the banjo. Didn´t imagine how hard this can be. I would be happy if some of you transcontinental guys could join in - and make the song even more sad ;-) The chord progression is G D7 G G (melody note on first string, 5th fret, double thumbing with 5th string) D7 D C G D7 G Capoed up two frets (5th string too). Take out your Kleenex: Coast of Malabar .

Holiday´s over :-((( We were in Paleochora, Crete, and it was wonderful as ever. The banjo surely is no genuine instrument there. But the idea of meeting Yannis there - "the headless frailer" from Patrick´s blog - pushed me to take my banjo to Greece. Yannis is a great guy and we had two jams there. The second one until after midnight :-) (Yanni: Our neighbours did talk to us the next day, so it wasn´t too bad for them, I think). We even made some videos. Yannis posted them to youtube. You may have seen "Wolfgang and Julia" at Patrick´s blog . We also did "Worried Man Blues" but had to accelerate speed in the end of the song as our recording staff gave us signals, that the camera will not have enough recording space (or was it a problem with the batteries?) :-) Anyway: a little raki helped us to finish nearly in time. Here is "Worried Bellies", performed by the "Pot Bellies Band" following the greek tradition of headless frailing: Thank...

Well, not really on the "road", but I´ll post when I´m back.

... ist leider sehr gefährdet. Der Raum im Flintbeker Bahnhof steht nicht mehr zur Verfügung. Wir müssen uns deshalb dringend nach einem anderen Ort umsehen. Wenn jemand eine Idee hat, bitte gleich an mich mailen. Ich hör mich natürlich auch um, aber es ist nicht so einfach ... :-( Jetzt kommen ja erst mal die Ferien, aber im November sollten wir uns doch wieder treffen, oder?

I must admit that my recording of the "Irish Washerwoman Jig" was of bad quality. The room wasn´t ok for recording I´m afraid. But Pat W. ("from the other side of the Chessapeake Bay") ran the bad file through a special programm and now we can hear that it´s guitars what they are playing ;-)

Got some good advice from my "transcontinental friends". Amongst those were repeately: Don´t format the SD-card with the computer, only use the built-in option in the H2. Good to know, but I didn´t use windows for formatting. So this wasn´t the fault. I returned the SD-card (it was a "Sandisk") to the shop and bought another one (now its a 2GB "Formel1"). And everything is ok. So I can use the H2 again. The card must have had a bug.

Till the day before yesterday I was happy with my handy recorder. Then I bought a 2 GigaByte SD-Card. The manual says, the recorder works with 2 GB-cards. So I wanted to record a concert of classical guitarists (among them my daughter! pride, pride) (joined by percussion, as you will realize). I thought of recording the whole concert and afterwards editing the music to publish one or two pieces here. BUT: the %&$§?*# thing didn´t work. After about 2 minutes the recording stopped saying: "Card is full". Nonsense, it should have lasted 33 hours with this card (and settings to "mp3, 128 kbps"). But their was no more space on it. I thought of some mistake on the card. But when I put it into the card reader of my compute at home, Windows told me, that there were more than 1,8 GB free space on the card. So the Zoom H2 couldn´t read or write this card. Anybody knows what to do next? Here is my only recording of this evening: "Irish Washerwoman" , played by 20...

... and summertime ´s gone. But Pat W. from Maryland, a true friend of our TCJS added his banjo to George Gershwin´s "Summertime" (remember the post from July 29th ). Thanks a lot, Pat.

My computer is running again. If I ever get hold of that *#§&"#*! guy who sent me the virus, I´ll sentence him to seven years of Scruggs Banjo. Photo by www.highland-piper.de To my joy and pride at last I can announce a new piece from our Transatlantic Jam Session. Dick from Scotland threw in his small pipes. Here is the beginning of "Raglan Road" with pipes. As soon as we completed the song, I´ll post it. Just couldn´t wait ... By the way: The Zoom-H2 tool really helps.

My computer crashed :-( But my banjo is ok :-) Also treffen wir uns wieder zum Jammen am Donnerstag, 18.9.08, 21:00 Uhr im Flintbeker Bahnhof. Kommt haufenweise!

A musicschool from Kiel organised an afternoon festival of music in a small village called Wrohe. The music had a wide range from (amongst others) Nicolo Paganini to George Gershwin, Flamenco, Astor Piazolla, Carl Orff and German songs from the roaring twenties. Unfortunately I forgot my Zoom H2 :-( But I had the camera with me. You may see some photographs on flickr . The place is not far away from Kiel and is beautifully situated above a wonderful landscape with lake, cows, forests. Great place to hear music! Great musicians too! Here is Wrohe (I´m sorry, embedding doesn´t work, you must copy the link into your browser): http://maps.google.de/maps?f=q&hl=de&geocode=&q=Wrohe&sll=51.151786,10.415039&sspn=12.251242,28.300781&ie=UTF8&ll=54.268131,9.959579&spn=2.84915,7.075195&t=h&z=7

(it´s pronounced like "fur") In case someone wants to see what holiday on Föhr is like, you may see my photographs at flickr .

Always loved this beautiful song. With my new Zoom H2 I screwed up my courage and tried singing it. The banjo head is stuffed with a pillow. Since not before long I like the sound of the stuffed head more than the open head. If my voice sounds like having stuffed my head too, I beg your pardon. I have no other... But it was fun to sing it anyway. Raglan Road I play it in 3/4 time in the key of A, that is G-tuning, capo up two frets and G-chord fingering - of course the 5th string is capoed two frets too. If you are interested I can send you the lyrics with some chords. Just write a comment or drop me an email. As I said it was fun to sing it, but it would be even better if someone jumps in with banjo, guitar, tin whistle or what you like. The Transcontinental Jam Session is opened again - for everyone. Btw Danny in the UK: There is no need any more for me to use the small microphone, now that I´ve got the H2. If you´re interested, drop me a line.

Back from our holidays on the island of Föhr: Größere Kartenansicht We had wonderful days there - even some rain... "My good lady" gave me a Zoom H2 as a birthday present! So there will be some recordings soon. Till then, keep on frailing. And join the Transcontinental Jam Session.

Elton John hat mal - lang ist´s her, man achte u.a. auf die Haare - einen Song geschrieben: DANIEL - Elton John - MyVideo Aber aus gegebenem Anlass heute für den anderen Daniel ein banjo-tune: Happy Birthday

...what do you feel? ..........SUMMERTIME!!!.......... So here is my guitar-only rendition of this all time classic. If you want to play it yourself, you may want to join in -with your banjo, clarinet, moothie?- to my "only-chords-version" . There are many rather difficult ways to play this song. The chord progression which was good for me is: Dm...Am7...Dm...Am7 [solo begins at "4"] Dm...Am7...Dm...Am7...Dm...Am7...Dm...Am7 Gm [continued].........A...A7...A...A7 Dm Am7 Dm Am7 Dm Am7 Dm Am7 Dm Am7 Dm Am7 F...Dm...Gm...A...Dm...Am7...Dm...Am7 ....... The count is 1,2,3,4. In the beginning I play Dm at 1 2 and Am7 at 3 4 (with 4 the solo begins). Hope you understand what I mean :-)) If you are interested I could send you the lyrics with chords on top of them. Have fun!

Am Donnerstag, 17.7., ab 20:15 Uhr treffen wir uns wieder im Flintbeker Bahnhof . Let´s jam together!

The Transcontinental Jam Session has struck again. Neil sang one of his favorite John Prine songs and we joined in: "Let´s Talk Dirty in Hawaiian"

Pat W. from Maryland (the author of "Jane´s Island Serenade") sent me an email and wrote: "I finally got around to putting some autoharp, mandolin and vocal on Wildwood Flower." So he found a "male way" to sing about waving black hair ;-) Here is our small "Transcontinental Jam Session Band" with Wildwood Flower .

On Saturday night I drove all the way down to Mölln (took me nearly two hours) to visit the "10th Mölln Folkfestival" . Unfortunatly I couldn´t join the Klezmer workshop. It began in the afternoon and I couldn´t get there that early. But after the "Klezmer Alliance" (which was really good and enjoyable) came The Barnstormers . Great American Old Time Music! This music is fun! Tom Jolin and Slim Harrisson where joined by two cloggers Rock Howland and Candy Ranlet who danced like hell! Rock Howland just had his 72nd birthday and swept across the dancefloor like a tornado. And instead of cooling down after one dance he began to fiddle - till the next dance. Unbelieveable. Tom Jolim played banjo (clawhammer) and hammered dulcimer, Slim Harrisson played banjo, fiddle and guitar. Candy Ranlet not only clogged like hell but played double bass (between their dances). It was a great event! I was lucky to talk to Tom Jolin and Slim Harrisson about banjo, Crisfield, Lübeck, Kl...

... of Ireland (where this song is from) - or Scotland, where Dick added the whistle - or Maryland,USA, where Pat added the mandolin: Carrickfergus , played by three members of the "Transcontinental Jam Session Band". I´m proud to know such musicians!

And Pat really was diligent: Here´s his addition to the "Wreck of the Old 97" .

Pat from Maryland added some percussion and jaw harp on my version of Cluckin´Hen . He mainly used bones for this one . Our small Old Tyme Band sounds great t.m.h.o. Now we´re waiting for a fiddler to join in ;-)

Recently I ordered the "Banjo Gathering" set consisting of two CDs "100% pure old-time banjo". Various artists play their banjers unaccompanied. It´s astonishing how many different sounds can be produced with 5strings. Great stuff, and: for every tune there are informations about the tuning - as real old-time banjo means to retune the instrument whenever you start a new tune :-) So I tried to learn one of the them. It´s in double C-tuning gCGCD. Here is "Hook and Line". The pictures were taken on my journey to the retreat.

Ok, this song needs female vocals. I definitly will not sing about my "waving black hair" nor my ringlets in it. But the melody is so beautiful that I cannnot resist to offer it to our Transcontinental Jam Session. I played sort of melody during the first round, then just chords, then again melody and so forth. Thought it would better suit to a banjo this way. So the frailer may begin with vamping the chords then frail the melody, then vamp and so on. And if anyone dares to sing about his waving black hair, he´s very welcome. Wildwood Flower (chords are G, D, G, D, G, C, G, D, G).

Some weeks ago Neil sent me his recording of the Wreck of the Old 97 as an mp3-file. It is pure wonderful banjo frailing. But it turned out to be difficult to combine it with my guitar-mp3 which I had made before (see post on May 18th ). I found it kind of difficult to match them properly. So I postponed the task for a while - and asked Pat how I could manage this. He sent me some good advice: I had to open the first mp3 with audacity, then import the second mp3 and afterwards take the tool in the left above corner at audacity which looks like two arrows to match the two tracks. Thank you very much, Pat. Nevertheless its not as easy as it sounds but I think I (nearly?) succeeded now . I´d welcome some vocals to this! Anyone has the guts? When continuing the "Transatlantic Jam Session" it seems to be the easiest way that everyone who records a piece to an existing file combines the two tracks ("export to mp3") after recording and then sends it to the other guys (or g...

Austria / Germany 0 : 1 From now on the family sticks together again ;-) (But I like the melody of the German anthem better. It´s from an Austrian composer. Such is Europe.)

For my non-German friends: This is a German-Austrian-Thingy: Tonight German and Austrian soccer teams will meet in the European Soccer Championship. It´s not a great step in history but in football history. Although I´m half Austrian through my mother, tonight during 105 minutes I´ll know no relatives any more ;-) Ich denke, dies ist eine angemessene Gelegenheit, ein trotz allem schönes Lied auf dem Banjo einzuspielen. Mögen die Yogis harmonischer sein! (Und es gibt keinen Grund, "Land der Berge, Land am Strome" zu frailen!!!)

Once upon a time, when my mind and soul wasn´t filled up with banjos and anglo-american folk music, I had - and in fact I still have - a passion for Greece, it´s people, it´s landscapes, it´s architecture, it´s food, it´s language - and it´s music. One of the most well-known dances in Greece is the "dance of the girl Evdokía". I think no Greek can hear this tune without at least clapping his hands to the 9/8-rhythm. Bum-ba ba-bum ba, bum-ba ba-bum ba-ba. Just now I stumbled across a mp3-file which I recorded about one year ago sitting in my living room, playing the percussion set (mp3 from the internet) through the hifi-rack, picking my bouzouki live and recorded both in one with a microphone and a minidisc recorder. It was before I knew how to use my PC with Audacity to record music ;-) I combined it with a slide show of some photographs (which I took during several journeys to Greece) and uploaded it to youtube. Have fun with the "Zeimpékiko Tis Evdokías" :

This is (or should be) a banjo blog. So I added some banjo to the guitar and here is "Carrickfergus Up Speed" .

This beautiful song plucks every Irishman´s heartstrings, as Patrick told me when we played it in Flintbek. I tried to record it at 80 bpm - as a training for me to keep the rythm and a chance for you to join in at a given speed. Here is the audio file . And I tried to make my first movie with moviemaker. Ok, this may not deserve a price as an action movie but I wanted to give it a try (Thank you James for your prototype!).

Am Wochenende 10. - 12.7.2008 werden in Mölln "The Barnstormers & The RockCandy-Cloggers" auftreten und einen Workshop veranstalten. Die Barnstormers spielen Old Time mit clawhammer banjo und fiddle!!! Eigentlich ein Muss für jeden Frailer aus Norddeutschland - und darüber hinaus. Einzelheiten s. unter Folkfest Mölln .

In Old Time Banjo Playing there's a technique called "the cluck" which is done by hitting the strings not over the head or anywhere over the fretbord but more or less exactly over the 19th fret. By doing this the "old men" produced some clucking sound which is really old timey to my ears. Mostly this is done on a banjo with a scooped neck. Mine isn't but I tried it anyway. Here is my rendition of "Cluckin' Hen" . If anyone would like to add some guitar (or else) to it, feel free to do so. (Audacity will help you).

Wer hören möchte, wie ein echter Könner solche "Transcontinental Jam Session"-mixes zusammenstellen kann, der möge mal reinklicken bei Patrick´s blog . Pat Willis hat in Maryland, USA, den ersten Track mit Banjo und Gesang sowie ein wenig Gitarre aufgenommen. Die Zuarbeiter haben aus England, Schottland, USA und Kiel ihre Anteile als mp3-files an ihn geschickt und er hat sie zu diesem - wie ich finde toll gelungenen - Mix zusammengestellt. Dass Text und Melodie die Stimmung beim Retreat von Jane's Island einfühlsam wiedergeben, wissen alle, die dabei waren - und können die Hörer dieses Songs hören und fühlen (Musik ist halt - auch - ne emotionale Sache).

For those who are not familiar with winamp, plug-ins and that stuff, I recorded two versions of the Wreck (in the same manner, only 10string) at 150 bpm and at 200 bpm (more or less). If this is of any help for you, I would be happy if you write a comment (just click at "Kommentare"). And it really would be great hearing you accompanying this on your banjo.

Way back then, when I first managed to frail three chords in a row I always wanted to find someone who could accompany my practicing on guitar - but didn´t find any. Not even in the internet I could find mp3-files with just one instrument for which I could play the accompaniment. Now thinking of the Transatlantic movement ( so to speak) I had the idea to record my 10 string for those who would like to accompany it with their banjo. As I know that I'm always tending to become faster while playing, I took my earphones and switched them to a metronome which I set at 110 bpm. So my playing is - more or less - this speed. Here is "The Wreck of the Old 97" . Anyone may play - and sing - to it. You may find lyrics and chords here . I would be very happy, if you could record your playing (Audacity) and send me your mp3 or publish it in the internet. Have fun! If 110 bmp is too slow for you, you may use winamp with PaceMaker as a plug-in. Thus you can change the speed without alt...

According to my local newspaper, scientists did some research on music and drinking at Heriot-Watt-University in Edinburgh. As a result the psycologists recommend red vine (Cabernet Sauvignon) for "All Along The Watchtower" (Jimi Hendrix), "Honky Tonk Woman" (Rolling Stones), "Live And Let Die" (Paul McCartney and Wings) but Chardonnay for "Atomic" (Blondie), "Rock DJ" (Robbie Williams), "What's Love Got To Do With It" (Tina Turner) or "Spinning Around" (Kylie Minogue). I would recommend Scotch with the pipes and Bourbon with the banjo - or earplugs against pipes and banjo (Dick, please forgive me).

Am nächsten Donnerstag ist wieder der dritte im Monat. Also: Am 15.5.08 ab 20:15 rocken äh folken wir wieder im Flintbeker Bahnhof. Come on, let´s pick!

For those who didn´t read Steve´s comment to my last post, here is the song with him on harmonica . It seems to me that this version is a bit faster than the others. Maybe that´s only an idea caused by the "lots of" new instruments. I should compare the versions closely. Anyway, I like the song when it´s slow.

Pat added his wonderful dobro sliding to "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain"! So the "Transcontinental Jam Session" now consists of Father Keith on banjo, Pat on dobro and vocals, the author of this blog on guitar, banjo and vocals. Here is the song. And we are waiting for the next participants - what about Dick and his pipes?

After a family holiday in the "Wendland" we´re home again. We did some biking, watching, listening and cake eating at the "Kulturelle Landpartie" . See my photos on flickr . There were apple trees in full blossom, blue sky, artworks of every kind (from photographs to paintings to sculptures to wood carving to pottery to music). Yes, even music. Amongst others we enjoyed very much the klezmer band "A Glezele Vayn" . And I attended a harp workshop. No, not bluesharp, but celtic harp. Three visitors including me (there were bigger groups too, we just were lucky) were taught the very basic of harp playing by Thomas Breckenheimer . We started with "Alle meine Entchen" (German childrens song), then did a song about apple blossoms (a German traditional which I didn´t know till then) and ended up with "Mairi´s Wedding", a Scottish song. Unbelievable that it was possible for me to play (with mistakes but play) songs on this instrument which had...

As the English speaking readers of this blog tend to win the majority, I will post in their language from now on (except news which only refer to regional issues).

Father Keith from Sheffield joined in. Please hear our take of "Blue Eyes": Thank you Father Keith. All others may feel free to join in too - or post your own file either on youtube or send it to me. I will continue this way of sharing music. As Fr. Keith wrote: "great practice for keeping time with someone else."

Pat from Maryland wrote me an email how he worked on "Blue Eyes": "I used the Amplify plug-in in Audacity to lower the guitar in the break by about -5db, then I increased everything else by about +2db. After that I used the Compressor plug-in to compress the whole file about 2db to help smooth out the peak levels. There is also a Noise Removal plug-in that can help get rid of some of the background noise. Other than that I used the Normalize plug-in to balance the left and right sides. All of these are available for free at the audacity site and may already be loaded in your software. You can see what is loaded by checking the Effect pull down menu. They will be grayed out until you select an area in the file to apply them to." So hopefully I can have a try next time. Otherwise I will ask him ;-)

The transcontinental thing begins to work. Pat from Maryland edited my "Blue Eyes"-song and worked on the levels of the original file to balance out the guitar level a little. Now you don´t have to reduce the volume of your speakers when the guitar solo sets in. (I really hit my Santa Cruz for achieving the crisp "bang" on the "one two three four" of the beat. And I liked this sound so much that I didn´t realize that the recording would be too noisy at this moment. After the recording I couldn´t adjust the level anymore. But Pat could. Thank you very much indeed.) Here is the remastered version of "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" .

Not before long I made a proposition about this, now Father Keith has the same idea: Why not joining in a transcontinental jam session? So here is how it may work: Install the freeware audacity on your computer. Buy a small microphone (like those used for recording with a minidiscplayer for example). Tune your instrument to 440 hz=A. Record a song with let´s say banjo. Save it as mp3-file ("export to mp3"). Send it to me - or someone else who joins in. The addressee records his instrument or voice and forwards the file to the next. I never did this before but don´t know why it shouldn´t work. Come on guys, send me an email with attachment as mp3. Or feel free to take my "Blue Eyes" or some of the other songs on this blog (like "Memories") and add your take.

Diesen Titel von Willie Nelson habe ich vor einigen Wochen in Hamburg gehört, gespielt von Novisa bei einer Bluegrass Session im "Live" . Mir kam der Song bekannt vor, irgendwie war die Erinnerung aber verschüttet. Jetzt habe ich die Blue Eyes mal selber versucht einzuspielen. Guitar Capo 1st fret, chords fingering A, D, E, G; Banjo Capo 3rd fret, chord fingering G, C, D7, F, 5th string tuned up 1 semitone to G#, capo 7th fret. Ich habe mit Audacity aufgenommen (freeware). Da war es möglich, Gitarre und Stimme etwas nach links zu legen und das Banjo etwas leiser zu machen und nach rechts zu rücken. Anscheinend bietet das Programm ne Menge Möglichkeiten. Es wäre besser gewesen, Stimme, Gitarre und Banjo jeweils einzeln aufzunehmen, dann hätte ich die Gitarre stellenweise etwas leiser gespielt. Ok, beim nächsten Mal. Here you are . (If the "play"-button doesn´t work, you may "download" the file. Sometimes box.net goes crazy...)

Auf seinem neuesten Post (s.u.) führt Patrick ein Longneck Banjo vor. Wenn ich bisher eines gesehen habe, wurde es immer mit dem Capo im dritten Bund gespielt, also genau in der Stimmlage eines üblichen Banjos. Der Klang ohne Capo ist wirklich Geschmackssache. Es ist drei Halbtöne tiefer gestimmt, als ein normales 5-string Banjo und klingt naturgemäß etwas voller, tiefer. Deshalb ist es vielleicht nicht so geeignet für reine Instrumentals. Pete Seeger hat es ja auch gewählt, weil es besser zu seiner Stimmlage passte, als die normalen Banjos.

Dick , so this is how we hopefully will play together at one of the next retreats in either Crisfield or wherever. The difference from these Uilleann pipes to your Scottish small pipes is not so big, is it? I will work on the difference between Bruce Molskie´s way of playing the banjo and mine ;-) Fred Morrison - Uilleann pipes Bruce Molsky - Banjo

In Flintbek gibt es eine Initiative zur Unterstütung der Projekte Karlheinz Böhms . Mich hat dazu folgende Nachricht erreicht: "Für Freitag, 18. April um 19.30 Uhr ist im Gemeindesaal der Ev. Kirche zu Flintbek, Dorfstr. 5-7. eine Veranstaltung mit Vortrag und Benefizkonzert geplant. Als Referent wird Joachim Gröger zu Gast sein, der Mitbegründer der Hilfsorganisation und langjährige Weggefährte Karlheinz Böhms. Der Vortrag steht unter dem Motto „Hilfe zur Selbstentwicklung“ - und stellt die Arbeit und verschiedenen Projekte in Äthiopien vor, wobei bewusst auf Elendsbilder verzichtet wird. Anschließend wird sich Joachim Gröger den Fragen des Publikums stellen. Danach wird afrikanische Atmosphäre in den Saal gezaubert, lasst euch überraschen! Nach einer kurzen Pause wird dann Irish-Folk vom Feinsten geboten, denn die Chancers - fünf furiose Musiker, die sich 2005 auf dem legendären TØnder-Folk-Festival zusammenschlossen und durch sprühende Spielfreude und ausgefeilte Arrangement...

Am Donnerstag, 17.4.08, ab 20:15 Uhr jammen wir wieder im "Flintbeker Bahnhof" . Ich erzähl auch gerne was über das Retreat. Dick aus Schottland hat übrigens eine - sehr freundliche - Zusammenfassung auf seinem Blog geschrieben, die die Stimmung dort sehr einfühlsam wiedergibt.

Auch wenn der Titel dieses Posts vermuten lässt, dass hier die Erinnerungen an das Retreat gemeint sind: nein, nicht direkt. Mehr so stimmungsmäßig. Derrol Adams hat vor vielen Jahre diesen Song geschrieben. Und wir, d. h. Klarinette und Banjo haben jetzt mal unsere Version eingespielt: "Memories" von Derrol Adams , Banjo-Capo im 4. Bund, Akkord-Griffe: G, C, D7; dazu empfehlen wir eine A-Klarinette gespielt in D-Dur (was das jetzt wieder bedeutet, weiß ich auch nicht so genau). Have fun - bzw. Taschentücher bereitlegen! Es klingt so schön traurig.

... die Fotos von Pastor Roy .

meine Fotos von Philadelphia, Chrisfield und dem Retreat

Hier eine erste Liste der Links mit Fotos zum Retreat: Patricks Fotos Kens Fotos Carlos´ Fotos Weitere werden folgen.

That's it. Das 2. Crisfield Folk Musicians Retreat ist beendet. Der Abschied ist allen sehr, sehr schwer gefallen. Adressen - natuerlich email-A. - wurden getauscht mit der Hoffnung auf ein Wiedersehen- und hoeren. Gestern (bzw. heute) habe ich um ca. 2:00 a.m. das Handtuch geschmissen, aber mancher hat es noch laenger durchgehalten. Z. B. Darth Vader mit seinem Banjo "Von der Dunklen Seite der Macht". Jedenfalls war die Gruppe im ersten Stock um die Zeit noch ziemlich munter - um nicht zu sagen noisy. It's the good old mountain dew... "Shady Grove" hat (erstaunlicherweise) nicht so lange gedauert wie in Flintbek, aber "Jesse James" haben wir ganz schoen ausgereizt. Und richtig Spass gemacht hat "Illegal Smile" und "Plastic Jesus". Bin neugierig, ob ich die lyrics googlen kann. Heute morgen um 8:00 a.m. ("oh man"...) hat Pastor Roy mit Unterstuetzung von Father Keith einen Gottesdienst abgehalten (Somebody got touched)...

Hier nur ein kurzer Zwischenbericht: Fotos werde ich erst mal keine bloggen koennen, das Handy findet hier in Crisfield kein Netz. In Philly (so sagen "wir" Amerikaner)hats noch geklappt, aber Crisfield ist das Ende - von Maryland. Ich sitze grad an Patricks PC um das Hotel in Philly zu buchen, in dem ich am Sonntag die letzte amerikanische Nacht verbringen werde. Gleich gehts runter zum Hafen, um den Sonnenuntergang zu bewundern (Motto: "Chesapeake Bay in Fire"- und danach wieder zurueck zum Retreat. Wir sind 20 Leute, einer netter als der andere, vom Anfaenger bis zum echten "Banjo Man". Die Jams dauern bis in die Nacht, mir tut schon der Daumen weh - der ja bei meiner Art zu spielen besonders beansprucht wird. Aber die Leidenschaft besiegt den Schmerz :-) Amerika, soweit ich es jetzt kennengelernt habe ist mal so wie ich es mir vorgestellt habe, dann aber wieder total anders. Auf jeden Fall begeisternd. Wenn ich wieder zurueck bin, folgen ein paar Fotos...

haben wir den folgenden Song eingespielt. Bitte beachten, dass ich trotz ziemlich starker Erkältung so laut wie möglich singe (nicht unbedingt so schön wie nötig...)

Nachdem wir den Winter über keinen Schnee hatten, jetzt das hier:

Wisst Ihr, was Diaspora ist? Schleswig-Holstein ist Banjo-Diaspora: Einige verschworene Herren "mittleren Alters" lieben das Fivestring, aber man bleibt eher unter sich. Woanders ist das anders. In der Heimat dieses göttlichen Instruments gibt es naturgemäß ein paar Fans mehr. Und mein Banjolehrer veranstaltet sogar ein "Folk Musicians Retreat" Anfang April in Crisfield, Maryland, USA. Ca 15 Banjos (plus Gitarren, Harmonicas, Kazoos, eine fiddle, eine bagpipe und die dazu gehörigen Herren) treffen aufeinander und wollen miteinander und voneinander lernen - und Spaß haben. Und ich auch! Ich fahr auch hin, eine Woche USA mit Banjo! Es gibt eigentlich nur einen Ausdruck für sowas: GEILE SACHE! Ein Engländer, ein Schotte, ca. 12-15 Amis und ich. Gaudeamus igitur! P.S. Google übersetzt "geile Sache" mit "geile matter". Nicht schlecht :-)

Die beiden werden am Sonntag, dem 18. Mai in Eckernförde spielen, "zum Borgy-Gilde-Fest" (keine Ahnung, was das ist). Die dann folgende Woche haben Sie noch Termine frei. Wer Ihnen einen Gig hier im Norden anbieten möchte (die finanziellen Fragen dürften unkompliziert lösbar sein) möge mir schreiben. Ich leite es dann weiter. Oder ihr schreibt direkt an ihre website .

Dass man mit dem Banjo wirklich jede Musik toll spielen oder wenigstens begleiten kann, habe ich inzwischen gemerkt. In Hamburg gibt´s zum Beispiel Novisa , die unter anderen ein Banjo und eine Tuba erklingen lassen. Da steppt der Bär! Aber die Kombination, die Andy aus Jena zusammengestellt hat, ist wirklich herzerfrischend: Sousaphon mit Federboa und Banjo mit Stetson . Verbreitet eine irre Stimmung!

Aus Backnang hat mich die folgende Mail erreicht: "Ich bin immer mal wieder auf der Suche nach offenen Jam Sessions und so auf den Blog gestossen. Das wär' für mich sehr interessant, aber leider Wohne ich im Süden und unsere Gegend ist diesbezüglich ein weisser Fleck auf der Landkarte. Selbst im Internet bin ich bislang nicht fündig geworden. Habt Ihr Info oder kennt Ihr Links von Gruppen die öffentliche Sessions (Banjo oder Gitarre, aber nicht nur für "Profis") veranstalten (insbesondere interessiert mich der Raum Backnang, das ist nordöstlich von Stuttgart)." Wenn ein Leser dieses Blogs einen Tip hat, bitte mir melden. Ich reich ihn weiter.

Am 20.3. (dem Tag vor Karfreitag) jammen wir wieder im Flintbeker Bahnhof . Weil am nächsten Tag Feiertag ist, könnten eigentlich auch mal gewisse Leute aus HH, die schon länger mit dem Gedanken spielen, dort vorbeischauen. Bringt das Banjo mit. Meine Gitarre bring ich zusätzlich. Und am kommenden Freitag, 7.3., ist in Hamburg wieder Bluegrass-Jam . Schaut die nächsten Tage mal wieder auf diesen Blog. Ich werde bald eine Neuigkeit posten...

...muss ich die Jam-Session am Donnerstag, 21.2.08 im Flintbeker Bahnhof absagen. Einige "Leistungsträger" können nicht kommen. Weil es nicht genug zusätzliche "Anmeldungen" gab, muss das Treffen leider ausfallen. Würde Euch ein anderer Wochentag als Donnerstag besser passen? Mailt mir - oder schreibt nen Comment.

Am kommenden Donnerstag, 21.2.08, wollen wir uns um 20:15 wieder im Flintbeker Bahnhof treffen. Für die, die noch nicht dabei waren, aber mit dem Gedanken spielen: Wir machen gerne anglo-amerikanische Folk- und Bluegrassmusik, sind aber auch offen für andere Klänge. Vom Anfänger, der nur ein paar Akkorde beherrscht, bis zum fortgeschrittenen Spieler ist jede/r herzlich willkommen, der/die ein Instrument mitbringt. Der "harte Kern" ist vertreten mit Gitarren, Mandoline und Banjos. Ich werde ein Heft mit Bluegrassongs mitbringen und Patrick´s Outlaws and Scalawags Songbook , das die Texte einiger bekannter Songs enthält (und für die am frailing interessierten die dazu gehörigen Tabulaturen). Wenn Ihr Lust habt, kommt einfach vorbei. (Jörg´s Küche macht auch leckere Flöten)

While lots of Patrick´s pupils from all over the world are posting their videos with their songs, Patrick´s composition came to my mind. I always wanted to post it. So here is (only soundfile, I´ve got no webcam) "Wolfgang and Julia" , a little piece Patrick wrote for us when he was at our home and watched and listened to my daughter doing her practice on the classical guitar.

After Patrick published a song by Dave from Michigan at his blog , I couldn´t overcome the temptation of throwing in my 5-String. So I tried the open source software Audacity for it. You may hear it at box.net . I hope Dave agrees in mixing his song with my 5-string.

Die Bluegrass-Session am Freitag lief zwar wie üblich recht gemächlich an. Es dauert halt jedesmal seine Zeit, bis die ersten auf die Bühne gehen. Aber je später der Abend desto mehr Gäste - und desto besser die Musik. Es gab schöne Gospel-Songs von (hauptsächlich) zwei Damen, Blues (ohne -grass) von zwei Herren mit virtuoser Gitarrentechnik, immer mal wieder Harmonika und natürlich jede Menge Bluegrass. Leider kennen nur die richtig Eingeweihten die Namen der Auftretenden, eine Vorstellung findet nicht immer statt, so dass ich hier nicht den Interpreten auch namentlich Ehre erweisen kann. Als mir bekannte Band waren einige Leute von novisa dabei, die durch mitreißende Spielfreude begeisterten und zeigten, dass sie nicht nur Bluegrass beherrschen. Dank Nichtrauchergesetz war die Luft gut und die Stimmung sehr gut. Als ich mich gegen 1 Uhr zum Aufbrechen entschloss, war noch kein Ende abzusehen...

Morgen ist wieder der erste Freitag im Monat, also Bluegrass Session im "Live" in HH, Fruchtallee.

Die Jam-Session gestern abend hat allen viel Spaß gemacht. Wir haben uns an den Bluegrass-Klassikern wie Shady Grove (ja, ja, ich weiß, es heißt nicht Shady Groove; aber warum heißt es denn Shady Grove???), Cripple Creek, Old Joe Clark und einigen anderen versucht. Und dann sind wir auf Wayfaring Stranger gekommen. Nach meiner Erinnerung ein wunderschönes Lied, das nach einem guten Sänger verlangt... Mit viel Seele - äh Schmalz, nein doch Seele. Ok, wir werden bis zum nächsten Mal die Instrumental-Version einüben - vielleicht findet sich ja bis dahin ein Sänger.

...tonight! Patricks Songbook mit Liedern "about villains, assassins, hobos, bad boys, badder girls and other folks you wouldn't want to bring home to meet mom arranged for frailing banjo" ist übrigens rechtzeitig angekommen. Ein Quelle der Inspiration. Ich werde es heute abend mitbringen. Also bis nachher.

...habe ich ein paar Bluegrass-Songs mit Noten, Texten und Akkorden zusammengestellt. Damit dürften auch die zurecht kommen, denen Bluegrass oder American Folk nicht so vertraut ist. Also habt Ihr - wenn Ihr Euch zu den Anfängern zählt - jedenfalls nicht mehr die Ausrede: "Das Lied kenn ich nicht." ;-) Ist (fast) alles 4/4 Takt (also Bump Ditty Bump Ditty) und sehr häufig in G-Dur (mit C und D), getreu dem Motto "If it ain´t G it ain´t Bluegrass". Hoffentlich werden dadurch einige Neulinge angezogen. ;-) Donnerstag, 24.1.08, ab 20:00 Uhr im Flintbeker Bahnhof Natürlich können wir auch was anderes spielen. Aber Shady "Groove" wäre schon schön...

.. gibt es auch interessante Musik. Muss ja nicht immer Banjo, Folk, Bluegrass sein. Darf auch mal rocken. Oder bluesen -blüsen? - Oder Country. Hier ein Hinweis auf solche andere, auch mit der Hand gemachte - wenn auch elektrische - Musik: Ein Freund eines Freundes hat ein "House Concert" organisiert mit Kevin Montgomery und Al Perkins . Karten zu 19 € an der Abendkasse oder mich kontaktieren, die Karten werden dann für Euch zurückgelegt. Wann? Sonnabend, 26.1.2008 Wo? In einem Autohaus in Wentorf bei Hamburg (kurz vor Bergedorf) Autohaus? Ja, tatsächlich. Ein Event im Autohaus, hier . Michael, der Freund des Freundes, hatte schon seit längerem geplant, die beiden Musiker in seiner Heimatstadt auftreten zu lassen. Und nun hat es mit Hilfe des Autohauses endlich geklappt. Michael ist kein Konzertmanager, sondern hat einen sehr zivilen Beruf. Musik ist sein Hobby, Konzertveranstaltung bisher noch nicht, aber anscheinend jetzt geworden. Dies ist keine Kommerzveranstaltung. Di...

... treffen wir uns um 20:00 Uhr wieder zur Jam-Session im Flintbeker Bahnhof Letztes Mal hatten wir ein ausgewogenes Verhaeltnis von Anfaengern bzw. Wiedereinsteigern und erfahrenen Pickern. Hoffentlich wird das jetzt wieder so. Also hier mein Aufruf auch an die Neulinge: There's no wrong note as long as you are in the chord progression. Und ueber die chord progression werden wir uns schon einig. Wir seh'n uns!

Nachdem durch Patricks Verlinkung jetzt Leute buchstäblich "from all over the world" auf meinen post vom 15.12.07 klicken, beginnt mir diese Interpretation doch etwas peinlich zu werden. Deshalb hier meine Soloversion ohne Gesang, nur mit Banjo: Honky Tonk Woman

Allen geneigten Lesern wünsche ich ein gutes neues Jahr und allen Mitspielern und denen, die es sich fürs neue Jahr fest vorgenommen haben, wünsche ich erst recht ein gutes neues Jahr. Mögen Eure Finger geschmeidig bleiben und Eure Stimmen immer gut geölt sein! (Oder umgekehrt?) Hier in S-H gilt ja jetzt ein Rauchverbot in öffentlichen Gaststätten. Wollen wir nicht unsere Solidarität mit den gebeutelten Kneipenwirten dadurch zeigen, dass wir uns mal wieder im Flintbeker Bahnhof treffen? Die Raucher unter unser dürfen bestimmt mal kurz auf den Bahnsteig treten... Und wir anderen haben jetzt keine Ausrede mehr, dass wegen der verrauchten Luft unsere Stimmen so kratzig klingen... Was haltet Ihr davon, am Donnerstag, 24.1.08 um 20:00 Uhr wieder dort eine Sessin zu machen? Wenn ich Glück habe, ist bis dahin auch das bei Patrick bestellte Liederbuch "Songs from Outlaws and Scalawags" bei mir eingetroffen. Wenn nicht, spielen wir eben mal wieder eine Stunde lang "Shady Groove...