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Momma Don't 'LowTM is a newsletter to support home-made and roots-based music in general, as well as the readers of our music articles on various web pages, including SchoolOfTheRockTM, Creek Don't RiseTM, and Classic Train SongsTM.
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In this Issue - March, 2015
Spring has sprung, finally. Or at least the snowdrifts in my yard that you could lose a Jeep in have been replaced by mud puddles that you could lose a Jeep in. In the meantime, lots of folks are getting ready for spring and summer playing opportunities, or at least dusting off the old ax in case. Paul's had some opportunites to pick banjo in unusual settings which is a good thing. He's also been adapting his banjo playing to handle songs that are traditionally NOT played on a banjo, just to see if he can get away with it in public performances. (No, "Don't Cry for me, Argentina," is NOT one of the songs he's working on.) We'll keep you posted. Not to mention his eye-hand cordination drills, otherwise known as "trying to learn hammered dulcimer." We'll keep you posted.
In tracking down answers to reader questions, we keep learning more and more about different kinds of traditional instruments and new, non-traditional ways of playing them. Some of what we've learned has found its way into new articles, and some of it has found its way into our new "Buyers' Guide" pages on RiverboatMusic.com. Take the autoharp, for example; none of us is really an autoharp player, so it's not like we're going to be writing "how to play autoharp" lessons soon. But we found out several things about the autoharp that are worth posting somewhere - such as folks reconfiguring autoharps to only play in one or two keys, but to have TWICE the open strings on every chord you DO play. Who really needs that Eb chord on a folk instrument, anyway? No, we don't tell how to do that, but the RiverboatMusic.com autoharp page has links to sites that do.
We have many projects in the works, including tutorials by members and by friends. A new tutorial we have discovered is by a friend in New Zealand, who makes professional archtop guitars for jazz players. Even if you don't have an archtop jazz guitar, and you don't play jazz or blues on a regular basis, his lessons will give you some new sounds and techniques to experiment with.
In the meantime, have a great spring, and here's hoping you get to make music you like with people you like soon and often.
This issue's articles are:
Free Jazz Guitar Tips
Rich Ralston, a jazz guitarist and luthier from Upper Hutt, New Zealand, has created a series of tutorials to help advanced guitar players who want to add jazz tonalities to their blues playing (or vice versa).
If you like jazz or blues and aren't afraid of playing on middle or higher frets, give them a try.
To sign up for Rich's free lessons, click the following link:
Our friends at Kitchen Musician are responsible for keeping many great old songs in circulation, as their custom songbooks and free music pages attest. For St. Patrick's Day, they've added a special feature on their home page - direct links to several traditional Irisn tunes with other links to dozens more.
Click on the following link to see the Kitchen Musician page
If this puts you in the mood for more Irish music, Kitchen Musician also offers a book of "Mostly Irish Airs" for Hammered Dulcimer in standard notion with guitar chords. I have a similar book from them and can attest to the quality of their work. To learn more about this book, please click on the following link.
In addition, they have updated the page for the Jink & Diddle School of Scottish Fiddling, which takes place in late July and early August, at Valle Crucis, North Carolina.
Before the Alliance shuts us down by claiming copyright on something they never bothered to publish, check out the transcriptions of your favorite cancelled science fiction series' theme song. This is especially helpful if you've been trying to figure out the violin and/or banjo solo. Mp3s and MIDIs are available for you to practice with or to pull into a sequencer program and transpose to other keys. Most fun (for us) is an arrangement for 5-string banjo that includes the solos but slips a roll (picking pattern) in between so you can accompany yourself. It's not for beginners, though.
To check these resources out (or to post them on your own site, as our source gave us permission to do), click the following link:
An alert fan of our ClassicTrainSongs.com page clued us into two podcasts that focused on train songs, courtesy of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour.
To check out podcast #45, click the following link:
To check out podcast #46, click the following link:
We spend a lot of time behind the scenes answering reader questions about various kinds of instruments, etc. Within the past year we've found ourselves answering similar questions from different readers multiple times. That's always a sign that it's time to put those answers into article format. But we didn't want to crowd our music sites with instrument recommendations, not to mention that many instruments I recommended just a year ago are in short supply this year, which means I keep going back into the pages where I wrote about them. We figure it will be easier on readers to have that information in one place, and we know it will be easier on us. So we started RiverboatMusic.com. The domain name was, frankly the only Americana- or Folk- or Roots-related name we could find that hasn't already been snagged by squatters offering to sell it for thousands of dollars.
Since we've been answering a lot of banjo questions, we started with a bunch of pages about what to look for in a banjo for various kinds of music. We've since added harmonica, autoharp, and archtop and dreadnought guitar. Yes, we have a ways to go, but it's a start, and it gives us some place to post the answers if we every wind up being asked about pennywhistles or some such.
To check out the pages we have done so far, click the following link:
On a Google search to find a certain classic graphic for an article, I was a little disturbed to find about 600 sites listing t-shirts, bumper stickers, posters, etc. with the "Paddle faster; I hear banjos" message. And a lot of other jokes denigrating one of my favorite instruments. So I figured I'd make a poster/T-shirt pattern that responded to that message. But I didn't have any place to post it, so I added a "humor" forum. Then I had an idea for another poster. Then I saw a cartoon l liked. Then a friend posted an internet video about how to make faces so your audience understands how cool your guitar solos are. You've probably already seen it, but I thought it was funny, and way too true.
To check out the latest postings, click the following link:
More to Come
If you've spent any time on any of our music sites, you know that we have a lot of topics to share about.
Again, if you did not get this Momma Don't 'LowTM newsletter through your own e-mail, and you would like to get the newsletters in the future, please Click Here to sign up.
In the meantime, if you want to see December's newsletter (the one before this), please click the following link:
Keep playing, keep singing, and keep sharing!
Paul D. Race
http://CreekDontRise.com
http://SchoolOfTheRock.com
http://classictrainsongs.com
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Kitchen Musician's Holiday Offerings
Theme Time Radio Hour Train Song Podcasts
Buyers' Guide Pages Added
Humor Forum Added
