5 September 2014

This summer, i went to a bluegrass festival and caught a jam camp with Pete Wernic. Pete, if you don't know, is a famous bluegrass guy, president of the international bluegrass music assn since like 1970. He is the banjo picker from the band Hot Rize, which was one of the first newgrass bands, and the other two guys from that band (Tim O'Brian and Nick Forster) have both played with Danny Barnes (so enough said). Pete has been teaching bluegrass music from a jamming, non-tab based method for 50 years. His insights were really valuable.

Pete was kind enough to take a minute and come over and say some words to me about what i was doing, which was on this occasion playing banjo and singing in front of people for the first time in my life. He said    "I have heard what you're doing, and while it's not exactly bluegrass, it's good and I like it". He went on to say, "it pains me however to see you holding yourself back by not using finger picks. Nobody will take you seriously if you don't use picks.".

It took me a couple of days to work out that Pete Wernic had as much as said that if i were but to learn to use picks, people might take me seriously. This is huge: i had never imagined that anyone would take me seriously. Sort of cast my whole project in a different light. So when i got home, i dug out my picks and commenced to practicing with them.

The results have been very rewarding. Once i learned to do my rhythm thing with my leftover two fingers, going for my lead break with the picks was like having a stomp box, or as Danny Barnes put it, switching to the bridge pickup on a telecaster. Totally different sound; and much louder.

The main reason that i had not been using the picks was that they were making the sound so sharp that it hurt my ears so much i couldn't stand it. i put in a lot of years on tugboats, and the infernal din had at length damaged my ears till they have gotten really sensitive to loud noises. Before i could practice, i had to first solve that problem; and the solution came in the mail soon after i got home. I got a set of two John Hartford instructional videos i had ordered, and when he got to talking about tone, and his inspiration for making his E flat banjo, i got an idea.

What i did was, i strung my poor old banjo up (Pete said "that's a pretty cheap banjo you got there" (then he let me play his banjo!) with a set of 11 gauge electric guitar strings for the first four and a 9 on the fifth string. i tuned her up to an F and stuck the capo on the 2nd fret, and voila: mellow tone. Also cool because the first two frets are so worn away as to be almost unplayable, so i get a little more life out of her by shifting the wear two frets up.

Anyway, here's the result. Not intended to be an example of great audio or video recording, certainly not great picking or singing, these videos are just a document of my humble progress as i reinvent myself as a hillbilly singer (formerly a blues and country/grunge electric bassist ya know).

the new playlist is entitled "wish me luck" (cause i'm gonna need it) and this is the link right here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLl11qEsUhMGXrPPF5gf9Pjlc8Nl_9CTmY