Posted by AndyW on Tuesday, August 28, 2018
Well, over the last couple of days I have been using Josh Turknetts Old Time Jam Machine. To my surprise the tunes in the most part aren't played as fast as I thought they would be so I have a reasonable chance of playing along.
I was having a bit of trouble fitting in along with Old Joe Clark. The reason was I was missing a beat. It was a brush strum (almost in place of a rest) at the end of the first four measures in the B part. Obviously my recall after 3 months away wasnt perfect, though to be honest it makes no difference to how good the tune sounds played solo. Easy one to overcome and I can play along with my new non crooked version quite easily.
I've also found a few other tunes almost there or thereabouts, so for the next little bit I am going to be working as many tunes into playing with the 'machine' as possible. I think it's almost a help to going a bit faster and not losing your place.
My wrist can only take so much playing fast, so I'm going to intersperse with attempting to learn to sing along to my tunes, and to that end I've got lyrics at hand for quite a few tunes. Also, I am going to introduce a new tune so I've got a variety of things on the go. I've not quite decided, but as I haven't got many G/A tunes I'm thinking of Breaking Up Christmas.
I've been reading about Classical musicians practice and it seems they seperate into 4 areas. Performance Mterial-Developing Material-New Material(always something new on the go)-Technical training.
My thoughts are:
Performance- Tunes I can effortlessly playalong to the OT Jam machine or can sing along to whilst playing and not forgetting any words.(Currently I thing only Angelina Baker is in this bracket).
Developing- Everything that is memorised but not yet in the above bracket.
New- Tunes that I am learning but have not yet memorised.
As virtually everything I have is currently 'Developing', I will be concentrating on my best tunes to get into the 'Performance' bracket to level things out a bit.(I think I can get 5 or 6 pretty quick). New material as above will probably be Breaking Up Christmas. For technical training I am going to attemt to learn the 'cluck'.
7 comments on “Progress Update”
AndyW Says:
Thursday, August 30, 2018 @2:38:10 PM
Old Time Jam Machine
Playable:
Angelina Baker
Fortune(Had to speed up triplets)
June Apple
Old Joe Clark (Now I've sorted the missed beat)
Cluck Old Hen
Very Close to Playable:
Arkansas Traveller(A couple of lh finger timing issues)
Over The Waterfall(Again a minor timing issue)
AndyW Says:
Thursday, August 30, 2018 @2:43:41 PM
Also - Singing lyrics (from sheet) in my head when playing a few tunes. Attempting to vocalise them at the same time as playing is proving difficult but it's early days. Focussing on Angeline/Little Maggie/Fortune.
Listening to 'Breakin Up Christmas' as much as possible to try and get the tune in my head before attempting to learn. May take a wee while.
AndyW Says:
Friday, August 31, 2018 @3:35:37 AM
Nice this morning to play Arkansas Traveller and find that the two 'missed' notes I had practiced yesterday were now coming in nicely at 208bpm(4/4 time) which is my metronomes highest setting. I should hopefully be able to easily play alongside OTJ machine with that. Over the Waterfall also nicely playing at 208, there were a couple of 'slow' notes that I've speeded up and I'm hopeful to be able to play that one also to the OTJ machine. Kept the metronome at 208 and also easily played Soldiers Joy to it. I think my problems in playing Soldiers Joy to the OTJ machine may be that my banjo version and Josh Turknetts fiddle version may just not merge, but i'll have another go in case I was 'chasing notes'.
Main focus this morning was to slow down Spotted Pony ready to rework up to speed. I've had problems with Spotted Pony from the start, probably shying away from practising it creating a kinda effect of it seeming worse than my other tunes due to their improvement due to practice. This one is gonna take a while as the fiddle fairly clips along.
AndyW Says:
Saturday, September 1, 2018 @1:35:34 PM
After some help from some friendly folks in the forums. I can now play a basic version of Soldiers Joy along to the OTJ machine. The problem with Soldiers Joy was Miles Krassen (who's version I was sort of playing) veered away from the melody at the A/A, A/B, B/B changeover points. He basically changed it to fill a rest period between melody notes instead of bum-dittying. Anyway it was confusing and removing it and going back to core melody made a big difference in my sense of timing.
AndyW Says:
Saturday, September 1, 2018 @1:42:44 PM
So now I am:
Playable:
Angeline
Arkansas Traveller
Fortune
Over The Waterfall
Soldiers Joy
June Apple
Old Joe Clark
Cluck Old Hen
There are two tunes left that I can play and are in OTJ which I have yet to get up to speed. Spotted Pony as mentioned in an earlier comment, and Mississippi Sawyer. I may have to change Mississippi Sawyer slightly as I am playing my own crooked 'changed' version.
AndyW Says:
Sunday, September 2, 2018 @12:06:17 AM
Forgot, I also have Year of Jubilo to bring to OTJ speed.
AndyW Says:
Sunday, September 2, 2018 @2:45:07 PM
And another change to Soldiers Joy....I've inserted an extra beat as after downloading the words and singing the tune I think I had the melody slightly wrong. A quick few plays shows everything to be sounding much better alongside the fiddle now. Hopefully this is my last alteration.
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