The oldtime banjo blog from Kiel

... to all Banjo-Lovers on both sides of the pond. Hope to  see some of you on Jan 5th in Hamburg for "Breakin´ up Christmas".

Just now - when I should be up practicing Christmas tunes instead of strolling through youtube - I found this short tutorial by Steve Baughman about his (or other´s) "California Roll". This really is an artisan´s piece. Some day I will invest hours in finding out how this works. In the meantime I am happy with his   "Jesus approach" to clawhammer banjo: "What profiteth it a man/woman to gain a note but lose the groove?"

Friedhelm hat zum Glück auch noch das Finale des Bluegrass-Jamborees in Hamburg erlebt (wegen meines Fußabdrucks war ich da leider schon weg) und uns auf youtube geteilt (Ach, und höre ich da etwa M.H. aus dem Hintergrund?😁) Hier sind weitere Videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC567ODd7oRfN5wCPlPxt6aw/featured

Wo ich grad schon mal auf Youtube bin, finde ich doch das hier 😍

Gestern machte der Tourbus des  Bluegrass Jamborees  in Hamburg fest. Die Nochtwache auf St. Pauli war proppenvoll und die Bands (jedenfalls zunächst) nicht - aber musikalisch super drauf. Exzellente Leute spielten und sangen meist eigene aber auch klassische Bluegrasssongs. Oldtime kam ein bisschen kurz - aber es war ja auch das BLUEGRASS Jamboree. Nur "Hoot and Holler" brachten  ein packendes Clawhammer-Stück . Die "Price Sisters" überzeugten mit Mando und Fiddle - und ihrem Banjopicker (nicht zu vergessen der offensichtlich super gut gelaunte Bassist und der  versierte Gitarrist). Eine echte Sonderklasse waren Chicken Wire Empire , die sich nicht einfach in Bluegrass einordnen lassen (angekündigt als Progressive Grass) sondern ihr eigenes Ding machten - zur Begeisterung der Zuhörer. Ein Super Abend! Leider musste ich auf dem Höhepunkt der Stimmung das Konzert verlassen, weil ich mir vorgenommen hatte, einen möglichst kleinen ökologischen Fu...

When browsing through those tablatures which lay on my desk quite a long time untouched I found Dwight Diller´s version of Waynesboro. This could be a perfect tune for my 13 inch fretless Minstrel-like banjo - if I could manage the fretless... I recorded it anyway and hope some strange notes might be tolerated.

Since years I use "Audacity" to record my banjo playing (usually to disclose my mistakes and to become despair of them ...). But every now and then Audacity doesn´t work because either Windows made some update or the hardware on my PC changed or whatever. It´s really annoying to then change it´s settings again and again - without even knowing what e.g. "Host: Windows WASAPI" means. These names all sound greek to me. So I usually change one setting after the other and after every changing I try the recording and the playing again, trial and error. Sometime I find out a movable way, mostly without effect - or coming to the result that nothing works any more. I am so fed up with Windows. But as I don´t want to change my running system (my other programs are working with Windows10)  I now came to the point to look for another recording software. Here´s what I usually did with Audacity: Recording mp3-files or just music which is running on the computer (like Yout...

Just learned that Allison De Groot and Tatjana Hargreaves are touring England. Everybody who lives close to these venues MUST visit them! Drax Arms Folk Club w/ Tatiana Hargreaves Bere Regis, United Kingdom November 12th , 2019 Concert w/ Tatiana Hargreaves Margate, United Kingdom November 14th , 2019 Concert w/ Tatiana Hargreaves Steyning/ West Sussex, United Kingdom November 15th , 2019 The Cellar Upstairs Folk Club w/ Tatiana Hargreaves London, United Kingdom November 16th , 2019 Concert & Workshop/ Tatiana Hargreaves Clacton, United Kingdom November 17th, 2019 Reading Room w/ Tatiana Hargreaves Great Gransden, United Kingdom November 18...