The Energy of Excited

Going on tour is always an exciting prospect and, after it's all said and done, I'm also excited to come home as well. Variety is truly the spice of life for Sagittarius and it sometimes makes me do crazy things. Like last night, after The Pub Thang and Simon Time Trivia at McWell's - I packed up my gear, put it in Buster, went home, unpacked, re-packed, said goodbye to Jae and hopped in for a ten-hour drive to Nashville. Normally, I'll break up anything over eight hours into two days, but for some reason, I figured that I could do this without getting any sleep. I was right.

It's currently 4 p.m. ET and I've now been up for a consecutive 31 hours and showing no signs of fading. Too early to knock off now - better wait until later in the evening. Got a long day at NAMM tomorrow.

Met up with Richard and Nick from Folkcraft - got my exhibitor badge, heard some music at Tootsie's and checked into the hotel room, which is niftily within walking distance of Broadway. Hopefully, this time around, I'll get a chance to see 16th Avenue.

But for now, I'm thinking "pool." Pool, and maybe a nap.

Tradition

The annual 11th hour prep of songbooks.

Mountain Dulcimer Blues 101 at Mel Bay Dulcimer Sessions

Dulcimer Sessions » Blog Archive » Mountain Dulcimer Blues 101

peace in the garden

Showers of summer foreshadowed

Weather Conditions from The Weather Channel

Now for Orlando, FL (32805)

Temp: 98F
Feels like: 100F
Fair
Humidity: 31%
Wind: CALM at calm mph
Updated: 6/14/10 6:05 PM EDT

Dulcimerica 163 - "Key West Dulcimer Fest Pt. 5"

The Cool of future

More like Project: Next Thursday

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Good News and Bad News

I know, when someone says that to me, "I've got good news and bad news", the heart starts to racing a little faster. Since there's more timely news to present here, I'll actually save the bad news for last. If you simply can't stand it anymore, you can jump to the end of this post. But be sure to come back!


TONIGHT! Earth Trivia and The Pub Thang at McWell's Restaurant (6/9)


We're trying something new with the Wednesday nights at McWell's in Orlando. Throughout the summer, I will be there on the 2nd Wednesday of each month and then we'll boost it to every week. However, starting with last week, every Wednesday will be Earth Trivia with Simon, starting at 8 p.m. On weeks that I'm there, the music will begin at 7 p.m. and continue until trivia starts. Then, I'll be performing during breaks in the trivia until it's over at 10 p.m. and then the music continues on until 11 p.m. More details are on the site at http://mcwellsrestaurant.com - tonight will be the first evening where we try the new format, so please come out and have some fun with us! Besides the usual drink specials and .50 cent wings - you can also compete with other teams to win a $25 bar tab and more!



CHANGE OF SCHEDULE AT DICEY REILLY'S



I'm still performing this Saturday, June 12th, at Dicey Reilly's, but will not be performing on June 11th due to a scheduling mishap. The show will launch, as always, at 7 p.m. and if it gets even half as wild as the last time I was there, better bring your dancing shoes.


NASHVILLE Next Week


I will be in Nashville, Tennessee next week for four days, demonstrating at the Folkcraft Instruments booth during Summer NAMM Show. Actual dates of the show are Friday, June 18th - Sunday, June 20th and I'll be arriving on Thursday, June 17th. Though the music trade show is closed to the general public, you may be one of those folks who actually has a badge to get in. Folkcraft will be at booth #907 on show days - come by and say hello! If you're interested in getting a private lesson while I'm in town, just drop me an e-mail and we'll set something up. The show runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. I will not be available for private lessons on Sunday due to an immediate departure time after the show - destination: Kentucky Music Week in Bardstown, Kentucky.


MORE NEW DATES!


Besides Kentucky Music Week (if you're going, you probably already know what I'm teaching by now), I'll be swinging back through Tennessee into Townsend to perform again on The Pickin' Porch at Wood 'n' Strings Dulcimer Shop. June 26th is the date and I'll also be teaching three workshops that are geared towards all skill levels. The schedule looks like it might roll this way:


Noon - 1:30 p.m. - Mountain Dulcimer Boot Camp (90 minutes)

1:45 p.m. - 3:15 p.m. - Get Rhythm (90 minutes)

3:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. - Jamming Without A Net (90 minutes)

(90 minute Workshops) - $35 per person ($30 if taking more than one workshop)


Concert will be at 6 p.m. and workshops will take place in the lower level of the building behind the dulcimer shop. This info may change - so please check with Cherith at the shop before heading out on Saturday, June 26th.


OHIO and PENNSYLVANIA Folks!


I just booked two more events today, so the details are still being assembled, but if you're interested - I've got contact information for you.


Thursday, July 1st will be a day-long event in Columbus, Ohio organized by Doug Snapp (614 313-6424 - dmsnapp@wowway.com) I'll be teaching a number of workshops and also performing in concert as well as offering private lessons to anyone who'd like. If you're within driving distance of Columbus, be sure to contact Doug if you're interested in attending and he'll give you the details!


Saturday, July 3rd will likewise be a day-long event; Portage Dulcimer Day, organized by JT Taylor (814-659-8254 - jt@jttaylor.net) Once again, I'll be doing a handful of workshops and also an evening concert as well as private lessons. Be sure to contact JT if you're interested in attending.


Common Ground On The Hill



Which all leads to Westminster, Maryland for Common Ground On The Hill. This is an extraordinary event, unique, and it's my first time attending so I'm very excited! I'll be teaching mountain dulcimer as well as Native American flute.



These dates are all listed above and you can also click on the "Tickets" link for more information. There's much more to come this summer, of course, with the Indiana Dulcimer Festival just around the corner in Woodburn, Indiana as well as the Bayou City Music Festival in Houston, Texas. There will be some additional new dates popping up in the south Texas area, so be sure to check my schedules on the websites (one easy place to look is http://tinyurl.com/bingcalendar)


AND NOW.....THE BAD NEWS.....



With the economy continuing to wear away at everyone's reserves and an environmental disaster looming off of the Florida coast, we have decided to cancel the 2nd Annual Key West Dulcimer Fest. We managed to squeak by earlier this year, though we had plenty of cancellations credited to the eroding state of finances in the U.S. and overseas. As we did lose money this first year, it seemed prudent not to move forward with the festival for next year until we can ascertain whether the times will improve for everyone. We sure hate to give in - but tough times call for tough calls. We do expect to continue the festival at some point in the future and, of course, you will hear about it here first.



Speaking of "first", if you skipped down to the bottom to read this - please return to the top of this message and read the rest - it might cheer you up. It had that effect on me. : )



I'm looking forward to seeing many of you on the road soon. Everyone travel safe and get ready for a fun, musical summer!



Me ke aloha,



Bing

Dulcimerica 162 - "Key West Dulcimer Fest Pt. 4"

Well, Oh Well, Oh 'Wellyn'

Click to hear "Wellyn"

Okay, so this started off as a "testing one-two-three" and turned out to be a not-bad knock-out of "Wellyn" by Robert Force.

What makes this track remarkable is that both dulcimer parts were recorded, E.Q.ed and mixed on my iPhone.



As many of you know, I've been an iPhone owner for about three weeks or so after a long courtship with the Blackberry Curve 8310. Jae and I both upgraded at the same time (we're with AT&T) but figured we couldn't both afford to get the pricey Apple gadget, so I took the bullet and initially figured that the split would be fine. It didn't take long to begin silently envying and likewise coveting her iPhone.

Now that I've got one, it's quite clear why. It rocks. In ways the Blackberry could only dream about.

Take, for example, this app called Four Track.



This is pretty sick stuff. You've got a basic four-track recorder which uses the iPhone's built-in microphone. You'll need a set of headphones, with or without the microphone. You lay down track one, then track two while track one plays back. You add some percussion and bounce it over to track four and then begin filling up tracks one through three with other instruments and even some vocals. Just like the real thing only you're doing it on your iPhone.




Once you've recorded your tracks, you can do a number of things, from post-recording equalization to mixing down or copying to a clipboard for use in other applications. Then, when you're ready to do something more with it - you can sync via Wi-Fi to any nearby computer with a browser, download the mix or all of your single tracks in .wav format to use in your digital audio workstation (DAW.)

People are creating entire albums with this app - and, as you can hear - the sound quality has an unmistakable "you are there" sense about it. Just incredible. It's not a .99 cent app by any means, but considering what you're getting in this sleek-yet-powerful package, eight additional bucks is a small price to pay.

Jot down musical ideas, create arrangements, lay the groundwork for your first or next album. Sure, there are a few things wanting (like lack of a metronome or quantize feature), but apparently those are fixes that have probably already been worked into the next version. I've got some pretty cool apps in the past three weeks, but I'm gonna have to say that this one is just the coolest of them all.

Dulcimerica 161 - "Key West Dulcimer Fest Pt. 3"

More, Please...

Quite a rowdy time was had at Dicey Reilly's Irish Pub this past weekend, thanks to all who came out and participated (loudly) in the evening's music. From "Seven Drunken Nights" to "The Time Warp" from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", it was a sing-along, dance-along, get the beer steins and pint glasses swaying kind of an evening; just the way we likes it.

There is the hint of making this happen a lot more down there at Dicey's, which comes right on the heels of a suggestion that it may also happen a lot more up at McWell's in Orlando. Which simply means that you'll have more opportunity to come out, raise your glasses and sing until you're hoarse, dance until you're sore and have lots of great stories to tell over the weekend as you recuperate.

I'll have more info about that as the details develop. In the meantime, I'm buried under a moving wall of video right about now and won't be surfacing for at least a week, so I'll take this time to wish all of you a blessed Memorial Day and we'll see you on the flipside!

Dulcimerica 160 - "Key West Dulcimer Fest Pt. 2"

Dulcimerica 159 - "Key West Dulcimer Fest Pt. 1"

This Week's Shows and A CHALLENGE!

Two out of three gigs this week are passed and it's been quite a lot of fun! First, The Pub Thang at McWell's for Cinco de Mayo and then last night at The Plaza Theater with K-G & the Band. Great grooves - two big nights of music, you'd think my fingers would be worn out, but I'm ready for more jamming and will do so tonight at Fresh Aroma Bistro Cafe in Deerfield Beach, Florida.

It's a unique show, sort of what we used to do with Open Mic Extreme; have an open mic with also featured performers. The open mic begins at 7:30 p.m. and I go on at 9 p.m. with the open mic continuing after that, I believe.

After this, we're back at McWell's for The Pub Thang next Wednesday, the 12th on our regular night, second Wednesday of each month.

Interval Ear Training Contest

Many of you are familiar with the Interval Ear Trainer that I blogged about here at some point. Understanding, and being able to recognize, intervals is one grand step towards building better melodies, playing chords on-the-fly and generally becoming more at-ease with your instrument. I typically will test myself on 100 to 200 intervals every day. The more you keep at it, the better you will get.

Starting something new here, occasionally I'll issue a challenge to equal or beat my interval score, which I'll post here. In order to participate in the challenge, you must be able to take a screen capture of your score from the Interval Ear Trainer site:



Here's my first challenge:

1. Score 100% by correctly identifying 50 intervals.
2. Be one of the first three to post a comment to this thread.
3. E-mail your .jpg proof to me at bingfutch@yahoo.com
4. I'll send you your choice of CD from my store.

Sorry about the perfect score for a starter. : ) Trust me, it's not always the case, so some of these challenges will be a little easier to match or beat. Anyway, have fun with it and do it every day - you'll find that not only do you get better at it, but you'll start to "hear" the music in your head before you play the notes on your dulcimer, making for lots of magic!

Chord Voicings - "Figure Eight"

One of the best ways to get acquainted with your mountain dulcimer, diatonic or chromatic, is to figure out songs on them, trying as hard as you can to perfectly match the chords. As many dulcimer players well know, this can be pretty difficult with a diatonic dulcimer, as there are notes missing.

That's one of the reasons that I got into chromatic dulcimer - wanting to maintain a relative ease of play (the chord shapes for dd-A-D tuning are the same, you just have to adjust for an additional fret space here and there) but eager to perform and write songs without having to do a whole bunch of "leaving out" or "fudging" of chords. I'm currently working on a method book for the chromatic dulcimer which will include examples of how to discern not only standard chords (Majors, minors and sevenths) but also so-called "extension" or "color" chords (the term "chromatic" comes from the latin root "chroma" which means "color") like 6ths, 9ths, Major and minor sevenths, minor sixths, augmented, diminished, etc.

This is yet another very simple look at figuring out chords on chromatic dulcimer, in the same vein as our looks at "Wichita Lineman" and "Her Diamonds." Chords for both of those songs are readily available online as guitar tablature. Trouble with that is sometimes the author of the tab gets it wrong. Another problem with that is if it's anything more than chord symbols, you're going to have a time transposing guitar tablature to dulcimer tablature due to the different tuning. One of the best reasons for coming up with your own chord charts, lead sheets and tab is that if you trust your ear, you're bound to come up with the truest version of a tune that anyone could find.

That certainly goes for this tune, beloved by many, which has haunted me ever since early childhood. "Figure Eight" is the somewhat dark and classical ditty that has helped millions of kids learn their 8 timetables through that bastion of whimsical and entertaining education "Schoolhouse Rock!" "Figure Eight" and "Little Twelvetoes" were two of my favorite songs due to their complex chords, beguiling melodies and nifty arrangements. As I learned while sussing out the chords for "Figure Eight", this tune's a real workout when it comes to the changes.

Figure Eight
Music and Lyrics by Bob Dorough


Cm                        C#
Figure eight as double four,
          G                Cm

Figure four as half of eight.
                               C#

If you skate, you would be great
              G               Cm 

If you could make a figure eight

           Fm               G             Cm 

That's a circle that turns 'round upon itself.

Cm                            C#
One times eight is two times four.

           G                 Cm

Four times four is two times eight.

                       C#
If you skate upon thin ice,
 
         G                   Cm  
You'd be wise if you thought twice

Fm              G              Cm
Before you made another single move.


C                  G/B   Gm/Bb               F/A
One times eight is eight, two times eight is 16,
Fm/Ab               C/G  Am6/F#              Fm6

Three times eight is 24, four times eight is 32,
    C/E        Cdim    Dm7  G    C

And five times eight is 40, you know.

C                  G/B Gm/Bb                F/A
Six times eight is 48, seven times eight is 56,
Fm/Ab               C/G  Am6/F#              Fm6

Eight times eight is 64, nine times eight is 72,

    C/E        Cdim    Dm7  G    C

And ten times eight is 80, that's true.

Em                     F      D7/F#                 G
Eleven times eight is 88, and twelve times eight is 96.
               D   

Now, here's a chance to get off
         G    
On your new math tricks.
           D          

'Cause twelve times eight is the same as
 
           G
Ten times eight plus two times eight

                  G7

80 plus 16 ... ninety-six!

C                  G/B   Gm/Bb               F/A
One times eight is eight, two times eight is 16,
Fm/Ab               C/G  Am6/F#              Fm6

Three times eight is 24, four times eight is 32,
    C/E        Cdim    Dm7  G    C

And five times eight is 40, you know.

Cm                        C#
Figure eight as double four,
          G                Cm

Figure four as half of eight.
                               C#

If you skate, you would be great
              G               Cm 

If you could make a figure eight
           Fm               G             Cm 

That's a circle that turns 'round upon itself.
  
Ab                                        Fm           C
Place it on its side and it's a symbol meaning         Infinity...

As with the other two songs (and many other arrangements you'll want to explore), one of the most memorable aspects of this tune is its descending bass line that runs through all of the chords in the chorus. Starting with the root note "C" at the bass of a C Major chord, the descending notes are:

C - B - Bb - A - Ab - G - Gb - F - E - Eb - D and then a resolution with the chords entering G and then C.

The trick in listening to the tune (no tablature for this tune on the web, at least not where I looked) and figuring out the chords is to maintain that bass line structure or the song just doesn't sound the same. I've done the hard work - now can you figure out how to play these chords? Can you see the pattern? Can you discover which inversion you would need in order to play these chords so that they sound correct?

Let's revisit the concept behind inversions or "slash chords":

A basic 1-3-5 or 1-b3-5 chord is going to have the root note on the bottom, the middle note in the middle and the fifth at the end or top. Using different chord voicings can change the fundamental sound of a chord, even though it uses the same notes, by rearranging the order of the notes. For example, changing the order of notes so that the third is on the bottom, acting as the bass or root - it becomes a first inversion.

So, a C major chord: C - E - G would become E - C - G.

Now, make the fifth the bottom or root note, and you have a second inversion.

G - C - E

When you write out a chord symbol for an inversion, it's often called a "slash chord." You'll see the chord symbol and then a slash and then another note. The note after the slash indicates that this is what the root or bass note should be. So, a first inversion C chord would look like this: C/E

A second inversion C chord would read: C/G


Here below are some chromatic chord shape charts. What I've done here is simply laid out the shapes for chords coming out of the key of D. By moving these shapes up and down the fretboard, paying close attention to the location of the root, you can play in any key. I keep the chromatic tuned to dd-A-D for the time being.

If you haven't already, it's a good idea to learn where all of your notes are on the fretboard. Once you've got that and the fundamental chord shapes, you can play anything!

A key to reading these charts, if you're not familiar with them. First, the number on the left side represents the fret number that it's sitting next to. For this purpose, I'm counting frets like a guitar, numbering 1-12 for an octave, no half-frets here. The numbers on the notes themselves reflect the scale degree of the note (R = root, b3 = flat or minor third, etc.) Sometimes you'll see a chord shape that doesn't include the root, in which case there's normally a trick to suss out what the root is (in the case of the minor 6th, it's three frets up from the "6th" note.)

Have fun!

Dulcimerica 158 - "Dulcimer Blues Pt. 2"

Catching Up With Myself (and the rest of the world)

Dulcimers On The Green in Central City, Kentucky was the very next stop after a rowdy night of "The Pub Thang" in Orlando. I whisked up Interstate 75 and stopped overnight in Signal Mountain, Tennessee at the home of Dan Landrum, editor of Dulcimer Players News. We then set out in the afternoon of the next day and got into Central City with enough time to have some Mexican food at El Bracero and get checked into our rooms.

This first-year festival was quite a joy - great music and jams, lots to see and do. But what made this different was the entire teaching staff was given a key to the city during an opening night welcome party. Here, Mayor Jerry Mitchell is pictured presenting me with the first key. It's never happened before and who knows if it will happen again? All I know is, it was pretty darn cool.



(pictured above l-r, Stephen Seifert, me and Dan Landrum) After Saturday workshops, we had a break for dinner and then the concert at the Merle Travis Music Center.

All in all it was a lovely time - Dan and I headed back to Tennessee right after the concert and then I switched horses in Signal Mountain and continued on home to Orlando where I was greeted by my lovely wife, Jae. We then headed out to meet our dear friends from McWell's over at Epcot and proceeded to zip around, having fun as you do.

Finally, a week later, we met those very same friends on board the Royal Caribbean Monarch of the Seas to help celebrate Andy Weller's birthday (it had been a surprise cruise in the making for a number of months - hard to keep this secret!) We set sail for Nassau in the Bahamas and disappeared off the radar for the weekend. It was my first cruise and I'm still sort of in denial that we're back in Orlando, getting back to the grind of things.



Knowing that I was going to be caught up in the cruise afterglow this week, I took the liberty of already shooting the second installment of "Dulcimerica" dealing with blues on the mountain dulcimer - it will be posted on YouTube tomorrow morning as well as at Dulcimerica.com. Thanks for all of the kind words - glad you enjoyed part one!

It's a busy week here - lots to do. Hope you have a great one - watch this space for more soon!

Dulcimerica 157 - "Dulcimer Blues Pt. 1"