I've been sidetracked from my Foggy Mountain Banjo plan, but it's a good thing. There has been a whole lot of music in our house this fall. My wife Mary picked up the fiddle this summer, for no reason other than having heard a lot of it at the festivals and concerts we've been going to. She's been studying with Annie Staninec, an excellent player and teacher who works all over the country but lives, coincidentally, just a block from where we used to live in the Sunset district.

I asked Annie what I could do to support Mary's progress, and she said it was all about playing together. So I've been making a point of practicing up tunes that we can all play together, especially the ones I've been playing with Laura (our 13-year-old, who's been working on fiddle with Annie for about a year now, and also taking up the mando on her own). To wit:

• Angelina Baker
• Red River Valley
• Old Joe Clark
• Hard Times
• Union Maid

To those we've added some of the songs that I used to play around the house with my dad and brother, such as:

• Crawdad Song
• Will the Circle
• Wreck of the Old 97
• Plastic Jesus
• Some more that I can't think of right now

Researching and working up the banjo parts for all that material has taken me away from actual dedicated Scruggs studies. But I'll be back. Mary has asked Annie to help her get started on Sally Anne, so I'll be taking that up too in the next few days.