The oldtime banjo blog from Kiel

Yannis showed us how to play Norwegian Wood on the banjo. As I read his remark that it could sound good with a guitar I could not help but give it a try. I took my little Martin and played exactly Yannis´chords but with a C at the end of the long first run in D. I capoed the 5th string of my banjo up two frets so that it sounded as an A. As the A is part of a D chord that should fit (my thought). Then I added my banjo (with Audacity). By the way the chords are: D........(C) D dm G dm em A A7 And here we go. Now we need a singer... Maybe if I take some of Yannis´raki he gave me during our last meeting?

The guys from Hagen Banjoree sent me this mail: "Zu unserer großen Freude können wir am 03. Januar in Hamburg einen Workshop mit dem herausragenden Clawhammer Banjospieler Andy Rubin aus Sacramento / Californien anbieten. Titel des Workshops ist „Clawhammer Klezmer Banjo“." Clawhammer - Clezmer - Fusion ? A must have! Andy Rubin will come to Hamburg and have a workshop on Sunday (very friendly to the working class) January 3rd 2010. They promised, there will be tabs for beginners too. I am very curious about it and can´t wait.

Our friend Uli is on air again: (I write this in English as there´s a web-stream too). You can hear BYRON's BARN at Tuesday Nov. 25th 10 pm and Wednesday Nov. 26th at 10 am on the radio FM 101.2 (Offener Kanal Kiel) and as a lifestream on the Internet www.kielfm.de at the same time (klick at "KielFM Livestream" on the left menu) Uli told me that this time his broadcast will be about Charlie Poole: White House Blues I ran along CP at the Kiel Retreat through Hartmut who seemed to be a fan. Thank you very much again, Hartmut! Maybe Uli will tell us about the great Loudon Wainwright III "Charlie Poole Project" too.

Alway was curious if nylon strings sound "better" on my Saga open back 5-string banjo. So I recorded "Soldier´s Joy" (and I´m sorry for the mistakes) with nylon and steel strings alternatingly . Recorded with ZoomH2, using the freeware Audacity. Video made with Windows moviemaker. The result for me: I like the frailing feeling more with steel strings. They are harder and more resistant to the frailing finger. Nylons want to be hitted very hard to give the wanted response. But played by a non-expert like me, the acoustic difference is less than I would have predicted. Ok, the recording is not professionally done, so this may be the reason why the different parts of the audio file sound very similar to me. Not so in "real life". The nylon strings sounded a little muffled to my opinion, in particular the 3rd and 4th string. So I will keep the steel strings on the banjo - at least as long as I don´t have a second instrument.

Chris´ Soldier´s Joy really is hard stuff. If that´s the way they play old time music in Virginia, I will take the emergency lane and let them take the fast lane. I must confess I thought of downgrading his terrible speed with audacity. But no cheating! Here is how we duet over the big pond: Soldier´s Joy as fast as I could . PS Chris, please don´t tell me you slowed down just for me. That would kill me :-))) As it would take months for me to learn the exact phrases you use - and at the same time follow your speed - I just played my stuff. Hope you like it anyway. PPS These are nylon strings on my Saga banjo.

At the Banjoree in Hagen Blacky and me decided to give it a try: Not banjo + fiddle, but banjo + melodeon / concertina. At last we had a jam yesterday evening. As he is a keen squeezer on his instruments it was no problem for him to accompany my playing (or was it me following him?). We had lots of fun with Soldier´s Joy . Banjo tuned in Double-C, no idea what he did on his melodeon. Then we tried You are My Sunshine . Banjo (in open G-tuning) with concertina. Hope you like it. Now I am waiting for Chris Via´s fiddle with Soldier´s Joy so that we can revitalize the Transcontinental Jam Session :-))) PS He did it !. Thank you very much, Chris. As soon as possible I´ll join in...

Yesterday I screw up my courage again and took my banjo to the open stage in Kiel´s Statt-Café. Lucky me I met an experienced fiddler who let me accompany him. Before the jam we did a short rehearsal for just five or ten minutes in an adjacent room. It turned out that he (of course) knew "Ragtime Annie" and "Cripple Creek". So we did this on stage. Second time ever for me to play with a fiddler. It was lots of fun - especially when his microphone began to turn gradually and then flipped off totally, so that we had to make a break to fix it. :-( So we had a second try with "Ragtime Annie". But "Cripple Creek" went (pretty much) perfectly - to my humble opinion. As these seemed to be the only tunes which both of us knew and all the other gigs had three pieces of music before, I had enough guts to play "Sandy Boys" solo then. I think it was ok, anyway I was happy when I finished it. This time again there was this red curtain behind me. Bu...

Once in a month we´ve got open stage in Kiel: Am nächsten Montag, 9.11. um 20:30 Uhr öffnet wieder die Folk-Bühne im Kieler Statt-Café. Der stolze Autor dieser Zeilen hat ja schon mal den Sprung nach oben gewagt. Wer weiß, vielleicht schafft er es am Montag ja wieder. Und sei es nur, um am Dienstag endlich wieder ein paar Zeilen hier in den blog zu schreiben. Wird ja mal Zeit. Due to my visit to Crete, the banjo led a shadowy existence the last weeks. Time to put it back to live. But greek music had conquered (parts of) my heart. Heard a lot of Tsitsanis then, e.g. see here: