Startin up

Well this is more a placeholder for myself. 

After just strumming the banjo like my native playing on the guitar, I buckled down and started learning standard 3 finger picking in july of this year.  Daily I just ran my hands through the basic rolls on everything.  The steering wheel, the arm chair at work the cats head ;) . 

It was frustrating and discouraging for weeks.  But I just kept going.

Eventually I tried Boil Dem Cabbage Down.  And it sounded right!  I then started trying other song chord progressions with the rolls and was having a great time.

That being said I'm posting in this blog to track my progress learning 2 instruments at the same time.  The Banjo and the English Concertina.

Banjo - my speed is getting better with the basic rolls being steady at 120 BPM.  Up to lesson 17, Cripple Creek.  The licks aren't too bad on the basicbasic one of course and it does carry the tune pretty good so its easy to follow with the ear.

I'm going to put frailing on hold until I get more comfortable with the 3 finger method and how it works in the folk time signatures.  Being an ex-electronic rock musician I'm used to all music being 4/4 just various flavors.  Getting my Brain to work in this time is hard.  The concertina actually helps as i can drone and capture the feel without having to keep the count as well.

Concertina -

major breakthrough with chord patterns.  Now feel comfortable with C, Am, Em, G1 and G2, F and Dm.  Was able to Jam with an online video of a group playing Cooley's Reel with the chord progession Em, D then with the guitarists harmonization of Em, D, Am, G

Found that with the Triangle of notes we can think of the arrow pointing toward or away from ourselves.  by moving the point forward (toward or away depending on direction) one button it reliably changes from Major to Minor.  thus:

to

Cminor

----------------------------------------------------

B chords do not follow any semblence of the 3 finger "triangle"chord, so this is my stumbling block currently. and as far as i can tell its the only one wanting to do this.