Author: timothy.hagler

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A Closer Look at the Magic Fluke FIREFLY 5-String Banjo

A little Get-Cha Started Background:

For some time I have been envious of great clawhammer banjo players. I love how “Clucky” and mellow their sound is, how they deliver simple bit elegant melodies that get stuck in my head, and of course that wonderfully woody, percussive sound of their chosen instruments. A great clawhammer banjo is often a simple design that doesn’t layer complex tones and structures together, but rather hands the player the basic quality of tones and lets the artist craft the colors and shapes of sound into something of beauty.

All of that sounds great… However, I am missing the “bum-ditty enzyme” and I seem to be physiologically and spiritually unable to play clawhammer (even a little) convincingly – certainly not “well.” Understanding my “limitations” I started looking for an instrument that would allow me, and my three-fingery ways, to mellow down and assimilate some of those clucky tones for myself. Along the way I acquired another terrific bluegrass banjo that tempted me beyond my ability to resist it, a fun and rambunctious folk banjo that gets me closer to what I was seeking, but the search for a mellow clucky fiddle tune banjo remained elusive.

Then, while I was working in Alaska, my wife ordered and received a gift for me… The Magic Fluke Firefly banjo. She had it waiting for me when I returned home to South Carolina. Buying the banjo is a simple build-to-order process of choosing from a handful of options (nylon string vs steel string / drum frame and fingerboard wood choice / head selection / position markers / frailing scoop / electronics / etc.). She thought this instrument would check off few of the boxes for me, and she was right. This is a delightful banjo, that is just what I was looking for. I had originally looked past the Firefly because I thought it was more of a “banjo-uke” but the model and configuration that I received is a serious banjo player’s banjo.

Before I go into my personal application of the Firefly banjo, let me tell you a little more about Magic Fluke and the design of this specific banjo.

The Magic Fluke company:

Magic Fluke, in Hartford Connecticut, is a purveyor of American Made instruments, using domestically sourced woods, and unique, affordable instrument designs that just work. They have several product lines and a great website that walks you through the company, their design philosophy, their build approach, and the retail plan for how you can get your hands on an instrument. See them at https://magicfluke.com/.

The Banjo:

The 5-string banjo that I am reviewing was built to order. This instrument features steel string construction, an engraved walnut drum frame and finger board, and a fiber skin head. The Gotoh geared 4:1 tuning machines for first through fourth strings are mounted in a unique single slot headstock. The nut design features a zero fret which allows very easy action on the first few frets. The thin skirt maple rim and the single coordinator rod deliver simple, effective adjustment for the full action of the instrument. An experienced banjo player will have no problem when setting the action to their preference.

The head tension comes from a top-tension type system that essentially pulls a tension form with a floating wood tone ring up and into the head, mounted under the stationary drum frame (versus, a floating tension hoop that is pulled down against a bead of the head that is stretched over a stationary tone ring.) While I have seen this general approach before, the Magic Fluke design is elegant and effective.

The entire banjo is on a smaller scale than any standard bluegrass or old-time 5-string banjo. The fret scale, head, and over-all pot assembly. The banjo is light and can be held comfortably while playing. The sound is woody and “clucky” while the over-all playability is outstanding.

My modifications:

I added a Shubb 5th string capo. I know there are a couple of “religions” dealing with 5th string capoing, nails, spring and rail, elastic, and clip on, but my preference is for Shubb. I used to use the spring and rail type, but I just got used to the reliability and workability of Shubb. Plus I met Rick Shubb and once the man himself talks about his innovations with me, and it kind of stuck. I purchased a custom Nechville a whale back and the factory nearly insisted that I get nails instead of a Shubb. My Nechville banjo has really well-installed nails for capoing, AND the fifth string pip is actually a spike that holds the string down against the fifth fret. They work great, and as far as capoing is concerned they are “as advertised.” Most of all, and I can’t stress this enough, I hate them (sorry Tom), and my beautiful Nechville banjo is ultimately destined for Shubb as well (I will likely keep the pip-less design and that will come up again in this review – stay tuned). Also please understand that I enjoy my Nechville banjo, I just don’t like the fifth string capo schema. I fret the 5th string all the time, so how this system works for me is actually quite important and makes me a real fussy customer when approaching it.

I am planning to replace the bridge. Well, maybe. The Firefly bridge works. I would love to explore having a Katz Eye, pegged, McCormick factory floor bridge made for the banjo. Fingers crossed on that. More to come.

I am not altogether fond of the metal 5th string pip that comes installed on the Firefly. It came with unusably high action on the pip and a distractingly “tinny” sound. I have a passive plan to replace it with a bone pip, but a strange thing happened when I got the action set where I like it. The darned thing mellowed out, and to my ear it sounds – well – “OK” now. Maybe it has something to do with “break angle” or thinning out the amount of bulk metal in the pip itself… I dunno, but I may just not follow through with my plan to replace the pip. Another thought is to go the “Nechville” path and put a spike behind the fifth fret and see how that works. My concern is that the fret wire on the Firefly is about the same gauge as you would expect on a mandolin, so it may not be hearty enough for that design. But we will see, enough “advice” from my picker friends and it could sway me one way or the other.

Another “was gonna” replacement was the 4:1 tuning machines. I was going to replace them with 20:1 butter bean tuning machines. But I have actually grown to like these tuners. I think I am sticking with them unless a “deal” comes along. Maybe. I guess. But you gotta see this headstock slotting system with these tuning machines… It’s inspiring and just “cute.” It’s a feature that makes you wanna pick the darned thing up and pick for a hot minute.

As far as playability I decided to take advantage of the short scale and “up-tune” the banjo a full step to make it a fiddle tune machine. The banjo is really responsive to standard G-Tuning, and you certainly don’t have to up-tune if you don’t want to, but I gotta tell ya – it works. I will say that after setting the action and head tension I am impressed with the bass response of this mighty mite, and the Firefly handles G or C tunings like it’s many bigger cousins in the folk banjo family.

I don’t really have a good “Strap Plan” yet, but so far so good with just holding it without a strap. Yeah – no kidding – it is THAT light. It’s like holding a uke w/o strap. Am I gonna get tired of the “hold it and pick it” strategy and turn all “old guy cranky?” Of course I am, so I will need to think through the strap plan a little further, but it will be an adventure, so I am looking forward to it.

Recommendation:

Yes – Recommended! For an instrument in the $700 range, it is a more serious consideration than a banjo-uke… But this is not a banjo uke (don’t make the same mistake I did when I first saw it online and write it off as such).  

The musician that would benefit from owning this banjo is a 5-string player with at least a reliably fluent ability on the instrument, and a good working knowledge of banjo set-up and maintenance, who is looking for a cool banjo with a unique and distinctive voice to add to their playing collection. To that player I fully recommend the Magic Fluke 5-string banjo.

I should mention that if – by some chance – you are a musician that is indeed looking for a banjo uke, check out Magic Fluke for that too. They make baritone and tenor versions of their “banjolele,” but make sure you look at their cute little 3-string banjo uke called a Friendly Banjo that would be great for kids.

Below is a link to my YouTube demonstration of the Firefly banjo that my wife custom ordered from Magic Fluke and gifted to me. I am sure you will see this banjo more on this blog and on my YouTube channel.

LINK TO YOUTUBE Video Review:

FREE stuff!

I would like to invite you to subscribe to my blog. That way you won’t miss any of my acoustic and traditional music ramblings. When you subscribe to the NekkidMusic.com blog, you get a FREE get started e-guide to learn the 5-string banjo! You will learn the basic blocking and tackling to get you started playing chords, rolls, and fun old tunes on the instrument that launched the ship that Earl sailed upon. (I hear angels singing.) Please subscribe!

Take a leisurely look at my general store where I keep some links to important things that you can buy to help your pickin’. >>> Link to NekkidMusic.com general store <<< 

Thanks for stoppin’ by today! Ya’ll come back and we’ll do some pickin’.

TH

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4 Good Reasons to Tune Your Soprano Uke in 5ths, and 1 Great One

Fun factoid…. Avocados are not a vegetable. They are a berry. A single seeded berry. So if an avocado ain’t gotta be what it (obviously) is, then a ukulele can be a mandolin! That is to say that a soprano ukulele can be tuned in 5ths, just like a mandolin or violin with some help from a custom-gauge set of strings.

BUT HOW?

Since a ukulele isn’t specifically engineered to be tuned with the tension required for 5th tuning (E-A-D-G) you absolutely have to get your string gauges perfect to adapt the machine that is your ukulele to a more high-tension tuning. Aguila is one of the companies that makes a custom gauge set of string for 5th tuning, and they are fairly easy to find. SO please start by restringing your uke. As a note, it really doesn’t work well to tune the 5th tuning gauges to a standard tuning, so… you hear it coming… maybe you need to get another uke just for this experiment. I have a couple soprano ukes so I was set to go.

BUT WHY? (Here are 4 good reasons and 1 great one)

1: It gives you another voice to layer into your ukulele playing. This sounds nothing like a uke, more punchy like a mandolin, but kinda harsh like plucking a violin with a pick.

2: You will get to explore learning something new. If you don’t know anything about a mandolin, you should grab a chord chart, and maybe some tablature for some old fiddle tunes. Mando lin tablature is written on just four lines, so you wont have any trouble using it for a 5th tuned ukulele.

3: Very few other musicians, especially folk musicians, take this approach… So that means you aren’t copying ANYONE! That also you can’t do it wrong… In fact, you are the trendsetter. Getting on at the ground floor is pretty cool.

4: It is really fun to be the unique musician in a jam session, and this will a but assure that will be the case. Just before writing this blog is the first time I have tried tuning a uke in 5ths, and I can’t wait to give it a more public premier.

5: You will develop new techniques that inform and influence your playing on other instruments. This could be the best reason of all. I found that when tuned in 5ths, my soprano uke would kind of “wolf note” on any open string when soloing. So I tried to palm mute everything. This ended up sounding pleasantly “pizzicato” (when a violin is being plucked instead of bowed). After doing this I started trying to incorporate the pizzicato effect into playing the mandolin. I have always palm muted the mandolin, but not so much that the notes sounded super plucky. So, my mandolin playing evolved as a result of playing the uke tuned in 5ths.

MOVING FORWARD

If you would like to try this approach, please please please visit your favorite local music store first and pick up a set of ukulele strings designed for 5th tuning. Shopping local first is the best default strategy anytime! Please support your neighbors.

If you need to shop on the internet your favorite string shop probably has them available, and if you are an Amazon shopper, I have a link below to the strings I bought.

Also, I have a little YouTube of my 5th-tuned-uke experiment below. If you watch the video please watch through to the very end… I just really like the little cartoon of me on the very end of video – no other reason – just want to share the funny.

https://youtu.be/WADAwqm-bGY

FREE stuff!

I would like to invite you to subscribe to my blog. That way you won’t miss any of my acoustic and traditional music ramblings. When you subscribe to the NekkidMusic.com blog, you get a FREE get started e-guide to learn the 5-string banjo! You will learn the basic blocking and tackling to get you started playing chords, rolls, and fun old tunes on the instrument that launched the ship that Earl sailed upon. (I hear angels singing.) Please subscribe!

Take a leisurely look at my general store where I keep some links to important things that you can buy to help your pickin’. >>> Link to NekkidMusic.com general store <<< 

Thanks for stoppin’ by today! Ya’ll come back and we’ll do some pickin’.

TH

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Pickin’ in Open D and DADGAD Guitar Tuning

Spice it up a notch

Sometimes, my guitar pickin’ all sounds the same, and sooo… “predictable.” At least it sounds that way to me, and that ain’t no fun. A quick way to spice it up is with a new tuning. I often turn to the open D tuning and DADGAD to add the flavors I have been missing.

Open D Tuning

Drop your first string to D, second string down to A, third down to F#, leave the fourth as D, the fifth stays at A, and the sixth string tunes down to D. At first, it’s fussy with all the button turning on your tuning machines, but it’s worth it. And since you are taking tension off the strings and the neck it is a very stable tuning. I use open D to add something fresh-sounding to my repertoire without having to learn something new. For instance, I can take a song that I play in open G and directly translate that to open D by moving my fingering up a course of strings. (A melody line played on the third string in open G is played on the fourth string of open D tuning) With very minor modifications, I have a great old familiar song, in a new key, and in a fresh-sounding timbre.

DADGAD Tuning

DADGAD – named for the notes of the open strings, is only different from open D by how you tune the third string… An open G note versus an F# is open D. This makes the open strum a D sus 3rd. This change in timbre and tuning ‘plays’ more radical than the simplicity of the tuning would lead you to believe. This is a great tuning for composition and experimentation.

Below is a diagram of how the simple 1 – 4 – 5 chord progression compares between the open G, open D, and DADGAD tunings.

Below is a link to my video where I am demonstrating my approach to the Open D and DADGAD tunings.

Can I gitcha some FREE stuff?

I would like to invite you to subscribe to my blog. That way you won’t miss any of my acoustic and traditional music ramblings. When you subscribe to the NekkidMusic.com blog, you get FREE get-started e-guides to learning the 5-string banjo AND the ukulele! You will learn the basic blocking and tackling to get you started playing chords, rolls, strums, and fun old tunes. Please subscribe!

Also – take a leisurely look at my general store where I keep some links to important things that you can buy to help your pickin’. >>> Link to NekkidMusic.com general store <<< 

Thanks for stoppin’ by today! Ya’ll come back and we’ll do some pickin’.

TH

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B-Flat Tenor Uke Set Up

Just a quick note about my tenor ukulele set up that I thought y’all might like to try…

Y’all ever head the old axiom, “when you are a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail?” Such is the life of a banjo player. Now, I learnt the uke long before I ever touched a banjo, but I really took to the banjo. Then when my joints started giving me peedoodles I discovered slack key tunings for uke and guitar as a bit of a compensation. It was easier on my hands AND I could translate a ton of cool banjo stuff since the fingering closely resembles open G tuning on a 5-string banjo.

Tuning

Today, my go-to set up for tenor uke is to tune the uke a step lower than standard, drop the first string another step, and use a wound 4th string. So my tuning is F (wound 4th string), B-Flat, D, and high F. That slack key pattern makes an open B-Flat chord. Tuning down a step from standard also gives me another voice between my soprano, (as well as concert, and my-dog-has-fleas tenor) and my baritone ukes.

Strings and Action

One of the issues with some uke strings is that the plain strings are often quite a bit more mellow than the wound strings, and sometimes using a drop 4th (wound string – tuned an octave lower than the “my dog has fleas” standard) exacerbates this issue. I love the tensile and string-to-string consistency of the Aguila Red strings. Also they feel much like higher tension strings so the need to have just a tab higher action to compensate for three strings being tuned a step low, and one string two steps down, is mitigated just a bit. So I just need to nudge the action a bit from where most uke pickers keep it. I am at a slight 2.0mm on the 4th at the 12th fret with a capo on the 1st fret. I keep the nut action as low as I dare so the capo really doesn’t make much difference. Today my drop 4th tenor has a flat fingerboard, so that makes it feel even more “banjo-like.”

Demonstration

Below is my YouTube video demonstrating this set up with a few great old standard tunes, as well as a link to the kit with some of the products I mention in this blog…

https://kit.co/NekkidMusic.com/tenor-uke-kit

Y’all come back and we’ll do some pickin!

Timmy

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Installing the Bridge Doctor? READ THIS FIRST!

A sure-fire way to address mild to moderate belly bulge on a 12-string guitar, is the JLD Bridge Doctor. There are lots of great blog posts and YouTube videos that walk ya through the installation of the Bridge Doctor. I want to give y’all a little heads-up on the common issues you run across when installing the Bridge Doctor, so to keep your cussin’ in check and you can stay comfortably ‘within spec’ for Sunday-go-to-meetin’.

Ya ever had a cat that just couldn’t quit scratchin’ furniture? In every other way, kitty was an affectionate and welcome participant to the nuclear family unit, but the cussed critter couldn’t keep its claws out of the couch! THAT is a perfect simile to life with a 12-string guitar. They-just-have-issues. Maybe they break the forward X-braces loose and get a sunken spot twixt the soundhole and the bridge, or excessive neck relief, maybe the bridge comes loose or the dreaded belly bulge that can contribute to all of the above!

My latest bellied guitar repair

My wife has this one specific 12-string that she loves. It’s a Takamine with a solid Sitka top, a solid Sapele back, and stacked Sapele sides. It has great action, full dreadnaught presence, and the electronics are very true to the acoustic sound. In the last year or so it started developing a belly. We have always kept our 12-strings tuned down a step and we capo them to pitch… You already know a 12-string will belly at some point, so knock it down a whole step first thing and reduce the tension a bit. Yet, alas… this one was getting a belly pooch like I do after my wife puts the fire to a mess of ribs.

The bridge Doctor is EASY!

The quick and effective way to take care of the belly was to install the great JLD Bridge Doctor. The single bolt option is super easy requiring only minor drilling in the bridge and the guitar top, and the brass pin version is even simpler and does not require drilling. The bolt-through-the-bridge model costs about the same as a good set of strings, and the brass pin style is more-less the same as a set of chrome Power Pins.

When you have your ninja luthier skills working, the Bridge doctor can be a 10-minute job.

  • To manage expectations = I set aside an hour.
  • Realty = Two hours later the guitar was ready to play.

Here is a list of everything that slowed me down… This is offered, not s a complaint to JLD, but as a series of “learning moments” to help out any brothers and sisters tackling this effective repair process.

To start with,  I should level-set a bit. I decided to use the style of Bridge Doctor with the six little brass pins. This is mostly because there wasn’t enough room to comfortably drill the bridge for the bolt and to place the pearl cover dot in a way that would look aesthetically correct. That also meant that a string change would be in order since the brass pins would replace the current bridge pins with six of the 12 strings threading through them. Lastly, I have always hated the bridge pins in this guitar. So the remaining six white plastic pins were to replaced with rosewood pins with little abalone dots in them. This would match the bridge, match the position markers, and hold much more reliably than those slippery little devils that came with the guitar.

To familiarize yourself with the general installation of the JLD Bridge Doctor please see their website: https://www.jldguitar.net/

The JLD Bridge Doctor with brass pins, as it comes in the package and installed. These are images from my repair.

Lessons Learned

Oops = Laying out may tools. I needed to find a safety pin to use as a wrench to bolt the brass pins in place. I finally found one that was being used to take-in my wife’s shirt (sorry sweetie). This is simple, but a real “for want of a nail” kind of moment.

The holes in the brass pins, that associate with any of the unwound strings, are teeny. So you need to bend flush the trailing end of the string (that works it’s way around the ball-end then winds around the string). That is work that is mostly done with your fingertips. It’s like trying to teach a minuscule crab how to use his claws.

Lesson = When laying out your tools you will need the safety pin. As sturdy as you can get that will fit in the micro-holes in the little brass pins. You also need two (count ‘em TWO) needle-nose pliers. One to hold the unwound string securely on the wraps just past the ball end, while the other pliers help you crimp down the left-over winding the sticks up. It ain’t-a-goin’ through those holes in the pins.

Oops = A mirror. I used a book light to see what I was doing inside the guitar, but I couldn’t locate my dental mirror.

Lesson = You can use your cellphone’s back-facing camera. It does a great a great job, but it took me a while to figure out that it was a functional equivalent of the little mirror on a stick.

Oops = Cutting the tension rod wrong. There is a wooden dowel rod that that goes through the system block of the bridge doctor and gently pushes against the tail block of the guitar. You just have to do a trial fitting and cut it to length – EASY! However, I had it up against part of the end pin electronics jack. Oopsie! I cut the rod a full inch too short. (No matter how often I recut it – it was still too short! I’m kidding about that.) Fortunately I bought a Bridge Doctor system with the screw, and one with the pins as well. So I had a second dowel rod to fit the right way.

Lesson = You should buy a dowel rod at the hardware store and have it as a spare before you start your repair. I am not the first person to admit that we needed a second one. Just make sure to shape the end that engages with the tension screw the same as the factory dowel rod.

Oops = Bridge pins, and strings. I had to fit the six rosewood bridge pins by reaming the bridge and sanding the pins a bit. That takes quite a bit of time. Also the little brass pins that come with the system are a challenge for large hands to install. Many – many – many – dropped lock nuts and fumbled pins.

The strings. There are 12 of them. And that cat that I mentioned that likes to claw the furniture, also loves to play with the strings, and bridge pins, and the little plastic winder… It’s just all a great old time for him!

Lesson = Any additional work you need to do while working with the Bridge Doctor needs to be considered when budgeting your time. For me, it was bridge pins and strings. For someone else, it might be re-gluing a bridge or a brace.

If you own a 12-string guitar, you should be ready for the eventuality of a belly bulge repair. Thankfully, installing a JLD Bridge Doctor is a straightforward and rather simple process. The efficacy of this repair is remarkable, the product engineering is exceptional, and the cost of the materials is very reasonable.

If you have a well-stocked guitar workbench, this could easily be a 10-minute repair. If you are setting up to work from the kitchen table, like I was, it is going to depend on how well you have anticipated all the little foibles that an instrument repair can deliver.

Please take some time and look at the JLD Bridge Doctor at these links…

Pin/Bolt-Mount Version (the one I used):

Single Bolt-Mount that uses original bridge pins:

Please visit the NekkidMusic YouTube Channel to hear the guitar after the Bridge Doctor repair.

I would like to invite you to subscribe to my blog. That way you won’t miss any of my acoustic and traditional music ramblings. When you subscribe to the NekkidMusic.com blog, you get a FREE get started e-guide to learn the 5-string banjo! You will learn the basic blocking and tackling to get you started playing chords, rolls, and fun old tunes on the instrument that launched the ship that Earl sailed upon. (I hear angels singing.) Please subscribe!

Take a leisurely look at my general store where I keep some links to important things that you can buy to help your pickin’. >>> Link to NekkidMusic.com general store <<< 

Thanks for stoppin’ by today! Ya’ll come back and we’ll do some pickin’.

TH

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Creole Cross Mandolin Tuning

My Dad’s friend Baptiste was a fiddling wizard. This feller was old! He remembered when Methuselah had a paper route, and he knew every alternate tuning that was ever sawed across a fiddle. My favorite was what he called the ‘Creole Cross.’  

Baptiste would tune the fiddle down to 4th G /  3rd C / 2nd G / 1st C  explaining that Cajun and Creole musicians love to play in the keys of C and G. The he would perpetrate a little bowing magic he called “palming the frog.” He would take the frog completely off the bow and he would rock the bow under the fiddle’s back while holding the frog in his palm, and loosely running the hair over the top so he could bow across all the strings at once.

Baptiste said that the “Cajun” just wouldn’t come out of his fiddle until ‘old Scratch’ hopped out of a paper bag (presumably with a rum bottle in it), and taught him ‘the Debbul’s notes’ (drone), to slide into double-stops, and put a distinctive syncopated lope in his bowing rhythm. He said Cajun fiddlers also need to know, that for ‘le bon Dieu’ to redeem ‘ya im-motal soul,’ ya gotta fiddle on the Creole Cross.

I ain’t much of a fiddler (in fact I am painfully awful at it), but from time to time I tune my mandolin in Creole Cross for a tune or two. After all, I am fond of le bon Dieu (the good Lord), so I ain’t a-takin’ any chances!

I invite you to take a lingerin’ listen to Bonaparte’s Retreat played on the mandolin, in what I was taught to be Creole Cross tuning.

FREE STUFF

I would like to invite you to subscribe to my blog. That way you won’t miss any of my acoustic and traditional music ramblings. When you subscribe to the NekkidMusic.com blog, you get a FREE get started e-guide to learn the 5-string banjo! You will learn the basic blocking and tackling to get you started playing chords, rolls, and fun old tunes on the instrument that launched the ship that Earl sailed upon. (I hear angels singing.) Please subscribe!

Take a leisurely look at my general store where I keep some links to important things that you can buy to help your pickin’. >>> Link to NekkidMusic.com general store <<< 

Thanks for stoppin’ by today! Ya’ll come back and we’ll do some pickin’.

TH

Posted on

Oofda Glass Worry Stone Pick

Of all my whiney personal trials, I think having broken a couple of fingers, then developing chronic tendonitis and arthritis in my hands to be amongst my most well-attended pity-parties. I am a bluegrass musician, and when my hands can’t kick in an’ pick like the mill tails of Hades, I am just not livin’ a full and thrilling existence. (I know – ‘real drama’ right?) 

One thing I had to forgo a long time ago was holding a flat pick. For a while, real thick picks like the great Blue Chip would do the trick if I used fiddle rosin or Big Sexy Hair Powder Play to add some grip-factor on my fingers. The hair stuff was my favorite. It would grip a pick and got even stickier as my hands started to sweat a bit. My pickin’ buddies did call me ‘Big Sexy’ for a while, but I have had worse nicknames.

Eventually I gave up flat-picking altogether and started fingerpicking everything. To flat pick you have to grip like you are trying to smush bugs at a picnic with a toothpick. To fingerpick, you make a gentle, non-grip, motions like you are tickling a kitten’s belly. Much easier on crampy hands.

Then the day came when my wife bought some glass jewelry from Oofda Stained Glass. The jewelry came with a heart-shaped glass worry stone. It is smooth on one side, a little rougher of the other, with beautifully smooth edges, really thick, and it is quite heavy. It felt great in my hand, so I tried it out as a pick… Yup! I am back holding a flat pick again. Hello old friend!

A nice lady at Oofda sent me a heap of worry stones in various thicknesses for me to try out, in the meantime she is working up a passel of pick-shaped picks. Now I just need to find where I put my ‘Big Sexy.’

BTW – take a trip over to the Oofda Stained Glass’ Facebook page, and tell ‘em Big Sexy sent ya, and you wanna do some pickin’ with glass. They will set you up right nice.

>>> Link to Oofda Stained Glass facebook page <<<

Here is a quick demo of the Oofda Worry Stone Pick, on a nylon string folk guitar as I take a turn through the ol’ Wildwood Flower.

Try this cool stuff so ya’ll can get a grip on that flat pick! If you try the hair stuff, just dab a bit of powder on your pick-holdin’ thumb and index finger. To use rosin, you should just take your jack-knife or sandpaper and scuff up a bit of rosin powder and apply it the same way. Re-apply as needed. The hair stuff washes off pretty good, the rosin is on your fingers for the long haul.

FREE stuff!

I would like to invite you to subscribe to my blog. That way you won’t miss any of my acoustic and traditional music ramblings. When you subscribe to the NekkidMusic.com blog, you get a FREE get started e-guide to learn the 5-string banjo! You will learn the basic blocking and tackling to get you started playing chords, rolls, and fun old tunes on the instrument that launched the ship that Earl sailed upon. (I hear angels singing.) Please subscribe!

Take a leisurely look at my general store where I keep some links to important things that you can buy to help your pickin’. >>> Link to NekkidMusic.com general store <<< 

Thanks for stoppin’ by today! Ya’ll come back and we’ll do some pickin’.

TH

Posted on

The Beautiful St. Anne’s Reel

Kierkegaard once said that ‘grits are not a problem that needs to be solved, but the only true Southern way to experience corn that doesn’t get ya drunk.’ He was the father of ‘bubba-level existentialism.’ Not Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th-century Danish philosopher, but my ol’ pickin’ buddy, fair-to-middlin’ fiddler, and deep thinker, Enis Kierkegaard from Beaufort, SC.

This post is highly ‘bubba-stential.’  

I finally came to terms with the mandolin! The mandolin was demanding that she play rough and loud with chopping vamps and lick-based solos in rousing bluegrass songs. And I would be forced into compliance! I had to confront her. I just wasn’t that good at it. The mandolin taunted that perhaps my hands weren’t as nimble as they once were, or maybe my mind was slowing and solo improvisation was out of reach for me.  But it was something else… I experienced the mandolin as a beautiful, ancient instrument, the deliverer of the literal siren’s song. Then she said, “so you want to play beautiful melodies on my four courses?” I said that I did. The Mandolin then said, “I will allow fiddle tunes, reels, and waltzes, but that’s as soppy as it gets!” I struck the deal!

I have only given a human name to one instrument in my life, but I regularly give a name to the essence of an instrument. The spirit of the mandolin, to me, is Hannah, the canonical derivation of Anne. Because the mandolin’s essence gave us ‘St Anne’s Reel,’ as a blessing of a lilting melody and an ancient story for our hearts to dwell on.

When I play this great old tune, I daydream about a blind youth in Apt France leading Charlemagne to the hidden entrance of the relics of the grandmother of Jesus, Saint Anne herself. For a good ol’ boy like me, drifting away on an apocryphal quest is something significant enough to write about! 

Tracing the origins of old fiddle tunes can be pretty dicey. For St. Anne’s Reel, we started calling the song by that name en masse, when Canadian fiddler Joseph Allard recorded it in the 1930s. But the melody goes back for a couple of centuries before that. Likely a French a-a-b-b dance tune that translated well to an Irish reel… Just like the story of the blessed St. Anne translated well to the Vatican when granting her patronage of grandmothers with wayward grandchildren, miners, and equestrians. (That’s right, The Good Lord’s Memaw watches over the horsey set. I reckon everyone needs a blessing from time to time, even those who are uppity enough to wear jodhpur breeches in public.)

If you share my affection for beautiful old-timey fiddle tunes, please consider St. Anne’s reel as one of those songs that mature along with you over time. Not just a tune you learn so you can jam with your crew, but something that will develop with more and more sophistication year over year. Just like my friend Gene. He retired as a Major in the US Army, a Ranger, and an honest-to-taters warrior. Over time, Gene matured into a right successful Georgia bee farmer and, I wouldn’t say he is a hippie, but he has a ‘deliberately organic spirit’ about him. I just like that feller! He is not afraid to embrace his personal evolution.  Such is St. Anne’s Reel. She came to me as a bluegrass reel, then evolved more of an Irish traditional melody, and now she sports some contemporary chord structures. Just like Gene, she is refining with the passing of time.

Below is a link to my video demo of St. Anne’s Reel.

FREE stuff!

I would like to invite you to subscribe to my blog. That way you won’t miss any of my acoustic and traditional music ramblings. When you subscribe to the NekkidMusic.com blog, you get a FREE get started e-guide to learn the 5-string banjo! You will learn the basic blocking and tackling to get you started playing chords, rolls, and fun old tunes on the instrument that launched the ship that Earl sailed upon. (I hear angels singing.) Please subscribe!

Also please take a look at my general store when I keep some links to important things that you can buy to help your pickin’. >>> Link to NekkidMusic.com general store <<< 

Thanks for stoppin’ by today! Ya’ll come back and we’ll do some pickin’.

TH

Posted on

Two Fun Banjo Songs I Learned To Play WRONG

Not how J.D. played it

Being an individual is a beautiful thing. Yet it seems that being a banjo picker has one overriding motto. “Always be yourself, unless you can be J.D.*, then always be J.D.” *Actually, you can insert any icon’s name for ‘J.D.’ – Earl, Ralph, Sonny, Bela, or Allison, so on.  It always hurts a bit to hear “that ain’t how J.D. played it”  as a commentary to your carefully crafted, totally unique, jazz fusion solo to ‘Old Home Place.’ In this post, I am actually headed somewhere else, though. I learned these songs “wrong” because I picked them up on the wrong instrument, but then ended up loving to play them.

I’ve looked at  bluegrass from both sides now

I picked up an LP copy of ‘The Earl Scruggs Review, Live at Kansas State’ and heard Randy Scruggs play a wonderful version of the Joni Mitchell classic ‘Both Sides Now.’ I had to learn it… Like ‘right now!’ I didn’t have a guitar available, but there sat my trusty old banjo. An hour later, I had a fun little version worked out. Inspired by, or better an homage, to a foundational folk/pop songwriter and a late great guitarist. Both true favorites of mine. Hats off Joni, and Randy. It was all wrong but really felt right. That was years ago and I have never forgotten a lick.

But what does it all mean?

OK, I am a huge fan of the viral video from Yosemitebear. For the Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg classic, ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’ I immediately knew the answer to the question, ‘but what does it all mean?’ It meant that I needed to learn it on the banjo. In fact, I learned it as an instrumental version of a standard crooning ballad, and breakdown style. My friends would ask me, “Have you heard Tuck Andress? Have you played it on your ES335?” The answers, yes of course, and no – I don’t wanna. I wanna play it as I learnt it… “WRONG.” 

Being musically unique

I do enjoy learning the note-by-note versions of banjo solos from the masters. In fact when a friend shared the TAB for a note-by-note transcription of Allison Brown’s mind-blowing ‘Leaving Cottondale,’ I thought I would wet myself with joy. (I didn’t, thank goodness, but it was close, very close.) But I have to say, I find the better angels of my instrumental covers to be found dwelling in the versions that are more uniquely… ‘me.’

How to catch a one-of-a-kind rabbit… Unique up on him.

So be yourself. Pick up your banjo, and figure out that swing-chord version of Sally Goodin. I swear Earl will smile down on ya, and J.D. will at least give ya an approving wink. And – ‘I’ WANT TO HEAR IT! Sally Goodin is doggone hard to play, and western swing fiddle versions are my favorite.

Listen up

Below is my video so you can give witness to nekkidly true confessions about my song learnin’ wrong-doin’.

Also, do yourself a favor and crane an ear to these great albums that influenced me, and so many of our contemporaries. These are really different genres, but as my old Dad used to say… “it will stretch your ears out somethin’ fierce, but it’s good for ya, we call it growth.” 

Amazon links to: 

Live At Kansas State / Earl Scruggs Revue / Rockin Cross The Country

Tuck Andress… Over The Rainbow / If I Only Had A Brain


FREE stuff!

I would like to invite you to subscribe to my blog. That way you won’t miss any of my acoustic and traditional music ramblings. When you subscribe to the NekkidMusic.com blog, you get a FREE get started e-guide to learn the 5-string banjo! You will learn the basic blocking and tackling to get you started playing chords, rolls, and fun old tunes on the instrument that launched the ship that Earl sailed upon. (I hear angels singing.) Please subscribe!

Also please take a look at my general store when I keep some links to important things that you can buy to help your pickin’. >>> Link to NekkidMusic.com general store <<< 

As always, ya’ll come back and we’ll pick a spell.

TH

Posted on

Two weird banjo mutes to get your mellow on

The banjo can be a drunkin, loud-talker.

Banjo playing is a blast! That hard-driving, joyous sound is great fun and quite addictive. Everyone should try it. There will come a time however, that a song requires subtlety and finesse. Suddenly having a banjo hung on ya is like trying to have a subdued conversation with a hard-of-hearing, loud-talking, kinda drunkin’, friend. Y’all have one of those friends don’t ya? Anything but subtle. Not to worry, maybe your banjo just needs a voice with a tad more diverse inflection and dimension available for your pickin’.  I have a little trick with a hole in it, that I have used for years, and I am more than happy to share it with ya.     

Discovering the internal banjo mute

I was in my dad’s workshop studying a beautiful Bacon and Day plectrum banjo with a knee mute, mentioning how, with modification, that is something a bluegrass player might really be able to use to control any harsh overtones and helping the instrument play and record with a sweeter voice. My dad told me about Bobby Thompson’s muting technique of wedging and taping a towel to the underside of his banjo head. I immediately began experimenting.

Mellow-Yellow-Muting-Method

Over the years, I have settled on cutting a thick grout sponge to the basic silhouette of my tailpiece and wedging it under between the head and top coordinator rod (see below). If I place it in the “Y” position, up close to the neck, as Thompson did with his towel mute, it took away too many overtones and with them some of the personality of my instrument (at least to my taste). Placing the mute under the tailpiece, it trims some overtones from the trailing end of any sustain and also hides the strange, industrial yellow color of the sponge under the profile of the tailpiece.

The internal overtone sponge mute

Muting the tailpiece (didn’t see that one coming didja?)

I had just received my custom Greenbrier banjo from Sullivan, and it was by a full pound and a half the heaviest banjo I had ever owned. My wife bought me a Gold Tone cradle strap as a gift to help hoist the beast across my belly a bit better. With the strap, she included a great Gold Tone “ultimate” banjo mute. It just pinches onto the bridge. It works great as a bridge mute, but I discovered a little surprise… When I slid it over the tailpiece just to hold on to it while gigging, it really helped to control tailpiece overtones, with similar impact of putting little gromets between the strings of a mandolin twixt the bridge and tailpiece. It worked on the Fultz, Presto, and even the two-hump clamshell tailpieces I had on my banjos. What a cool thing to discover!

The Gold Tone Ultimate Banjo Mute as a tailpiece mute

If you would like to take a closer look at the Gold Tone Ultimate Banjo Mute that I use, and maybe pick one up for yourself, just click here > Gold Tone Ultimate Banjo Mute < and you will be taken to the Amazon sales page for the mute. I love these things, take a look.

Voice Coach

I found that applying these two weird muting approaches leaves me with the full personality of my banjo, without the harsher overtones. Other “Sulli” banjo owners know how much crack, volume, and projection these expertly constructed instruments have. A little “strategic muting” has really given me a more diversely voiced instrument, that can slow dance like my daughter’s weddin’ on the beach, then shift down and drive like the Dales at Darlington. 

Give it a spin

If you give these weird mutes a try please share how they worked out for you. 

Peek-a-boograss

Please take a look at my video where I give y’all a peek and my weird, yet effective, mellow muting method for the banjo.


FREE stuff!

I would like to invite you to subscribe to my blog. That way you won’t miss any of my acoustic and traditional music ramblings. When you subscribe to the NekkidMusic.com blog, you get a FREE get started e-guide to learn the 5-string banjo! You will learn the basic blocking and tackling to get you started playing chords, rolls, and fun old tunes on the instrument that launched the ship that Earl sailed upon. (I hear angels singing.) Please subscribe!

Also please take a look at my general store when I keep some links to important things that you can buy to help your pickin’. >>> Link to NekkidMusic.com general store <<< 

As always, ya’ll come back and pick a spell.

TH

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