General Music Chat

i had two fried eggs on a piece of rye toast for breakfast.

Cold and rainy in Phoenix. Not unusual, since it's the middle of winter. More updates to follow.

Went to Hinckley Grand Casino last night and at the 777 Silver Club inside the Casino was "Robby Vee" son of Bobby Vee was jamming out with some old 50, 60 and 70's tunes.

Robby Vee ~ Rock-n-Roll Ringmaster, "King Creole" Bryan Williams ~ Upright and Electric Bass, Jeff "Crash Boom Bang it Up!" Bjork ~ Drums. Brandon Petron ~ Guitar

robby vee 1.jpg (85.37 KiB) Viewed 4452 times

robby vee.jpg (106.82 KiB) Viewed 4452 times

Jeff the studio guy, that this fake memphis1 talks about will not respond to questions about 'The Fake Memphis 1"

I suspect they are one and the same.

Hey, you know what's pretty funny about NotReady 'blocking' us so he can't read our posts? He won't know what we're saying about him - and if he responds to any of our posts, then we'll know he unblocked us. Meanwhile, anyone else who happens to come across this thread WILL see the posts.

I thought someone else would notice NotReady's mastery of the English language condemned himself:

You're right. The piece was noise, period. I tried to use it as a way of proving I had real talent. Instead, I exposed lack of professionalism but lack of class and decorum.

Yep, that pretty much describes his lame attempt to 'Cm7 blues' - lack of professionalism, and his subsequent responses to critiques - lack of class and decorum!

True.

and True, Mike.

looks like i have a new banjo in my future.

my buddy mike, the trkstop drummer's dad recently passed leaving him a bunch of instruments. and mike is like most drummers....he's a fella who hangs out around musicians!

and knows plenty about drums... i think he has EIGHT sets of drums!

but he doesn't know much about things w strings on 'em.

he asked me to give his late dad's banjo a look over and see what i could find out about it so he might sell it.

well, it hadn't been played in yrs and had it's nut replaced (terrible job) w a cheap plastic P.O.S.

after having it sit around here for about a month, i did some work on it...it's branded as a Hohner but has no model or serial number anywhere on it. I did some research and found out there were a bunch of these "masterclone" banjos made in the 70's in japan that all rcvd different "brand names". this thing is a PLAYER.

well, after a little set up work on this thing...it is absolutely KILLIN' !!!! intonation is perfect up to the highest fret and it's playing like the proverbial butter we all seek. loud. great even and well balanced tone.

mike asked me if i got it sold yet when i saw him last night! he's gonna let me have it for $200 which we're both pretty happy with. i think he's happy it's going to someone he knows who's gonna play it and appreciate it.

now....who wants to buy my old '60's HARMONY Res-otone 5 string banjo???? genuine bakelite body and resonator!!!! hoo-ah!

but duuuuuuude...it's GENUINE Bakelite!!!!

none of that FAKE stuff!

if I got a banjo, I'm afraid it would have to be an electric banjitar. Borrowed a 5 string from my neighbor and It was fun to jam on, not fun to mess with some alien tuning or a high pitched string where you expect a bass string.

if I got a banjo, I'm afraid it would have to be an electric banjitar. Borrowed a 5 string from my neighbor and It was fun to jam on, not fun to mess with some alien tuning or a high pitched string where you expect a bass string.

it is indeed a different beast. but schmed... you don't want to go the banjitar way.
duuude, you WILL lose all your hard accrued street cred playing a banjo tuned like a guitar!

i had a best buddy back in the day who played gtr.

around the end of 10th grade we decided i too needed to play. i went out and bought my first gtr....a Madeira A-12 twelve strng. Damn, do i wish i still had that one!

but anyway, we amused ourselves playing folk rock tunes of others and of course....stuff we came up with. this was the beginning of the whole big '70's Country Rock thing hitting it big back then w Eagles, Poco, Burrito Bros, etc....plus we were also hip to some bluegrass stuff...so though we lived in Queens NY...yeah, we knew what banjos were!

so, there's this old mom and pop music store back then that was sadly closing it's doors and they had two identical mid range banjos...can't recall the brand....damn old age!....but my buddy and i both bought one at firesale prices and we enjoyed messing around on them.

and go figure...i'm a screwy kind of guy...sometimes i like to use that lump on top of neck to try to get my brain around something fun....and we're talking about a musical PUZZLE??!??!?! what could be MORE fun????!

i got to the point where i could get around on the instr a little bit, but i only barely scratched the surface of what the instrument can do.

as i sees it....as much or maybe more than other instr.....as a string inst, it's most important part of the equation is your right hand (if you play right handed that is)......whether you're frailing or pulling off a bunch of different rolls (which are really nothing more than very interesting rhythmic patterns played by thumb index and middle fingers)

since these rolls are usually very syncopated they have an incredible sense of frwd motion to them well played well. they often involve hemiola like 3+3+2 combinations. they're fun to play but it kicks me in the a$$ trying to get them wired!

then of course there's frailing or claw hammer style which can sound like a small orchestra accompanied by a percussion section!

i'm recently reacquainting myself now w it and what i'm really enjoying the most is not moving block chords around, but getting these syncopated rolls going w some drone action that IMPLIES the chord or the chord changes while at the same time doesn't always use all or even most of the notes of the chord.

that little drone is usually tuned to a G note that's equal to the "g" note found on the high E string at the third fret.

then low to high it's D G B D. do those four strings look a little familiar?

yes?

this IS open G tuning, but it's also easy to see that it's the same as the top 4 strings of a gtr w the high string tuned down to D.

so...a lot of gtr geometry and geography resides there.

now, with that droning high open G running thoughout (very much like the drone of a bagpipe...BIG connection there) you have some choices how might outline a GMaj to CMaj section.

yeah ya could just finger those chords all spelled out....but if there is another instrument laying out the changes .....then why not find a unison high 'G" on another string ( that's a unison w the open G drone) and then maybe play the open G string which is one octave down.....

find a cool syncopated roll that uses just those three strings and now you've got this cool thing going on! yes kids...it's HOURS of Good, Clean Fun for Everyone!

but duuuuuuude...it's GENUINE Bakelite!!!!

none of that FAKE stuff!

Let me guess, you've glued it back together several times and a chunk of it is missing cause it got lost one night when you were playing around a campfire!!

don't be silly, nothing is missing...merely a little melted from when we were cooking Smores on it over the campfire.