And a new banjo related knickname was born...

Banjoleon came up with Banzer. But I prefer Panjo for our mini dachshund, Panzer.

He does not like loud noises but for some reason the banjo has started to grow on him. The other day Banjoleon's version of "Cripple Creek" seemed to spurn him on. Excitedly wagging his tail, he rammed his Mr. Banana chew toy into Banjoleon's leg. Since he is the World's Smallest Wiener dog that was waaaaay far down his leg.

I wonder if we can fashion a small banjo for him to bust out for special occasions and parties. Something tells me that the ultimate crafter, Banjulie, can make this happen.

Putting the claw back in clawhammer

Class #3: substitute teacher

We had more playing along with the teacher. The concept of playing along with others is still something that eludes me. I am fine for the first four notes but then it quickly goes off the rails.

I had many moments where I would get lost and try to find my way back to join back in with the class. The struggling was written all over my face and when I would look up the teacher was staring at me like a hawk. It was like being busted by your parents for doing something bad. Could the teacher tell that by this point I was clearly faking it? Which consisted if a weak smile and some strumming on the strings. At this point he told me I had small hands which caused me to start nervously laughing. Are my hands that small? How so? Small like a child's hand? Then I went back to faking it.

banjobarb wasn't the only one with problems! she was just the funniest.

oh, banjobarb.  the class laughed delightedly when you declared 'don't look at me!', mostly because the rest of us weren't feeling like we particularly wanted to be looked at either.  certainly *i* didn't want any attention. 

this week there was good, and there was bad.  as we learned a few measures of the song at a time and then played them back, i thought 'hey!  this is going well!'  we learned maybe three or four sections like this.  and then our teacher was like, now let's go back and integrate the things we learned half an hour ago, and put it all together!  and i was like -- DUDE.  i'm  OLD now.  i seriously don't have those powers of recall at this point.  sure, twenty minutes ago i was rocking the shit out of those two measures, but now?  i had no idea what the hell i'd been playing.  during that stretch of class, i'm pretty sure when the instructor said 'come on now, if you can't remember, just strum something -- anything!' he was looking at me.  i sort of shut down and just looked around with a charles-whatnow? expression on my face.

BUT!

then he passed out a sheet with the tablature.  okay, as a flute player, a little bit of analysis was required.  this looks a lot different than any of the written music i've ever looked at.  but since i could actually tell what was supposed to happen next in the song without relying on my less-than-awesome memory (i think my brain is too full of incident numbers and crappy pop-culture trivia, like the names of all of the original members of new edition), it made things WAY easier.  i think maybe he didn't give it to us originally so we'd be more engaged in class and would be more likely to watch his technique and how we were doing it as opposed to just staring at the music?   anyway.  super helpful.  i'm still not awesome, but the more i practice the more natural it feels.  so, i can almost play one whole song, you guys!  and, i'm pretty sure everyone in my building now hates that song.  you're welcome!

Simon says, "banjo"!

Class #2 felt like a big game of simon says. Our instructor would play a few strings and then we would play the same strings.

I was clearly bringing up the rear at some point when our instructor asked me to play the note again. I looked up to my horror the whole class had stopped and was now staring at me. Suddenly flashbacks of being sent to the board to solve a math problem were flashing through my mind. It was about this time I blurted out, "Don't look at me!"

Simon said, "banjo" but clearly I was hearing something else.

The strongest hands in the world

So in retrospect maybe taking a banjo and cake decorating class at the same time was not such a good idea. Or maybe it is the best idea ever! I could end up with the world's strongest hands.

I started to make parallels between cake decorating and playing the banjo. Both involve hand pressure. The pastry bag has to be held with just the right amount of pressure so that the flow of icing comes out smoothly. When playing the banjo your fingers have to be placed on the frets just so in order for the tones to come out correctly. Both make your hands hurt from practice. But only one do you get all over the place and the opportunity to eat your mistakes.

Perhaps I should start using a stress ball during the day in an effort to strengthen my hands even more! Or get one of those muscle man hand squeezers. You know the triangle shaped one with the spring on it? Yep one of those. Let me know if you see one.

i came, i saw, i banjo-d! banjoed? whatever.

so, when banjobarb says 'dragged', she maybe exaggerates a little.  i am a willing participant in this thing!  i mean, who doesn't love the BANJO, for god's sake?  have you *seen* the muppet movie?  come on.  anyway.  last night was our first class.

while banjoleon predictably has his own banjo already (you didn't see that coming?), banjobarb and i are renters from our school's store.  very helpfully, the guy who hooked us up seemed knowledgeable and totally tuned our banjos for us -- so when we got to the class and everyone else was fumbling around and the instructor was going around from person to person saying things like 'higher, higher, no, higher still, keep going, higher, no!  stop!  too high!  go back the other way.  lower.  stop!  now higher!  no, now lower again'  (no lie, at one point he dropped to his knees to illustrate a point), he got to us and was like -- great!  this side of the room is good.  it was like we scored points without even trying.

it was awesome to start with that small positive, because there was a lot of not great music happening in that class, and i know for a fact that quite a bit of it was coming from *my* banjo.  maybe it's just because i haven't named it yet?  but!  we learned the basic clawhammer technique (relax your hands, yo), a few chords (G is seriously the best, you guys, because you DON'T HAVE TO USE THE FRETS AT ALL), and then we practiced a song together and even SANG a little bit.  in a kind of inhibited, slightly embarrassed way.  and it was good, clean, awkward fun!  i mean, i'm pretty far away from backing up like, langhorne slim or anything, and i think for the next couple of days i might not actually have fingerprints on the index and middle fingers of my left hand, but . . . all in all, i'm feeling uncharacteristically optimistic about this experiment.

and next week we're starting MELODIES.  yeah, you heard me.  melodies.  tell your friends.

Not sure how this all started

I am not sure where my love of the banjo came from. Maybe there is a banjo gene? My parents took me to Dollywood when I was younger, could that be it? Or is it because my dad is from West Virginia? Perhaps it all started when I first heard, "Foggy Mountain Breakdown". Somewhere in the midst off all these things I decided to learn to play the banjo. Mind you I have never played an instrument. But here I am dragging Banjulie and Banjoleon along for the ride.