Been back at the novel as well finally

Thanks for the tip on the C#m whosever you are. I like this place for chords:

http://www.musicopedia.com/chords/5-banjo.php

I feel like the little boy banjo is growing every day. I keep thinking back to sitting here, playing Oklahoma Hills over and over to learn the D chord.

I keep throwing our name in for things. Other Swap Meets, Farmers Markets, Night Clubs The Venice Summer Fest, the LA Marathon, Keep it moving. 

Daydee has confronted the bad guys- (look back for episodes from the first draft in the blog, the first 70 or so single spaced pages are there) 

Went to see Kermit play his banjo in the new Muppet Movie. His left hand moved this time. He's slowing down like the rest of us. He used to play so fast, that it looked like his hand didn't move at all.

My kids grew up on the Muppets and Fraggle Rock and Sesame Street. I grew up on the Muppets. 

The Real Banjo:

Saturday Morning

We played at Edgewater Home in Long Beach on Saturday morning. An hour and a half. Great audience, great fun playing with these guys. I did Freight Train in its original slowness. Even thought of playing my banjo upside down:

Last Night

Went to visit the "Songmakers" Hoot on the 4th Sunday in Santa Monica. Everyone is my age of course, or older. Thousands of guitars and one fiddle, one flute, one little vibe set, a piano and me. The only ones that play throughout all are the ones that can just hear the music and play it. No beginners, just a good size group of singers without instruments. They go around the circle. If you are lucky, you get two turns for a 4 hour stay. Nice folks, but I want to play more and learn. The leader sez its not good to have your head stuck in a book all the time. I was talking about trying to do original music with a band. And a random lady sez 'Well, you know, its hard to play to some else's sensibilities.' Isn't that what you do when you play a cover of someone else's song? A lot of the old chestnuts were sung. Probably won't bother going back. The open mics and the other Santa Monica group that meets once a month amounts to the same experience: 4 hours and two songs and a lot of so-so mixed in with good stuff and no one learning a thing. Nice folks though.

Back to embedding from YouTube

Believe it or not, this is exactly the same file as the one posted in the first square in the earlier post. I guess I go back to doing it this way. Upload to You Tube and then embed the video back into the blog. It works better in Facebook this way as well. Weird.

I'm trying this again, to figure out what version I should be uploading- the first couple I tried, didn't present the picture clearly. Usually I just upload to YouTube and embed it back into the blog. It's another one of Nancy's songs from her performance at the The Talking Stick. 

Nancy singing "Green Eyes" by Kate Wolf last night at The Talking Stick. The band is picking this up. It has a C#m that leaves me banjo out in the four string limbo, but I willing to do it. I'm open to good sounds and she has a voice, don't you think.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving day. I cooked straight through from 8:30 to 2:30 and we had a remarkable meal. I love doing the gourmet thing when it's just mine. I'm for hire. I could do a holiday for $300.00 plus expenses, or for nothing if I love you.

Been Buzy

Been busy running around. Playing cards, going back to yoga, Really practicing the banjo. Getting back on the schtick. A band mate sent a sheet for a song called Devil's Dream, which I haven't ever heard before so I found it in my Fiddlers Fakebook Songbook and then went on You Tube to hear it. Then I decided to see if there were words to it- when I didn't find any I went my curious "Favorite Songs & Hymns" published 1899. Didn't find it there, but did run across this:

The words made me think maybe I'd found a cool song that could maybe express what a soldier in Afghanistan on watch might be feeling (with a little rewrite) So I went looking for it performed,

 Found this: 

It sort of sounds like one of those automated music mp3s thingee you run into when you look for old old melodies. Not the guy, the music.

This is our author: John Braham (c. 1774 – 17 February 1856) was a tenor opera singer born in London, England. His long career led him to become one of Europe's leading opera stars. He also wrote a number of songs, of minor importance, although The Death of Nelson is still remembered. His success, and that of his offspring in marrying into the British aristocracy, are also notable examples of Jewish social mobility in the early 19th century.

Definitely Public Domain song. Got a melody and some words, needs a bit of work Probably not.

(This is what I do these days instead of real work)

 This is probably this closest version to what I do with my low voice. It's this tempo. We had rehearsal tonight. Ben, our guru, was in in an odd mood. But he wanted to do this one. He wanted to add guitar and fiddle and fix it up. This was the first one I brought the first time I went to the Saturday Morning Bluegrass Group, Betsy's group.  I was proud of myself, because I knew all the chords. She asked me if I had a tuner. It took me a half hour to realize that I was out of tune. Nice lady- one of the best.

Heard at the last Square Dance

Been busy with the Mama Bear in the hospital. All is done now, cards at home instead at UCLA

Enjoy- Listen to the your children

The Very First One

This is the song of mine that the band has been playing for a while. Gail loved it, thank god. It was the first one that I wrote. It was really a failed poem that had never worked The band embellished the chords a bit and I edited it down. I played it for the first time at Doug's house jam in Long Beach. And there was silence after I played & sang it. I announced it as the first one, after. Hell, I know what I got, no matter how raw. I'm thinking maybe, this is what I was supposed to be doing all along.
Little Sister Words Dan McNay,
Music Rhubarb Meringue Pie

You remember her; you saw her long ago,
Out in the lobby in a crowd and all alone,
With her hand outstretched and her face aglow,
As if your change would buy her fare to heaven.

She was born in a big house, had big house ways,
She had everything she could want or need.
Then Daddy fell from a window in a drunken daze
And they had to give up everything they owned.

 CHORUS
She will always follow the good looking guy
With the beard and the twinkle in his eye,
The one who talks of wisdom and then who sighs
And brings her on his own bus if she doesn’t cry.

She went to college to run away from home,
But she was always fat and always alone,
She didn’t want to marry, didn’t want to roam,
And she would pray in secret late at night.

She was an angel in Monterey
Who gave a poor boy her smile
She said I had a very old soul
As old as the hills we climbed

So what did she find in the Krishna dance?
What was real in the fog of the old sweat lodge?
The guru was the knight of the last chance,
And all of us just want to arrive

CHORUS

Repeat first stanza

So, Song Lyrics

For My Lost Daughter – Dan McNay

G                                           EM

I would write a song about dust

G                                    D7

The dry clay summer dust                                                                             

                                                          C

That runs through your fingers like silk

                                      G

But adheres to the touch

G                                            EM

A clap of hands sends a cloud

G                                               EM                                         

Swirling in sunlight and settling

                           

On the grass and weeds

C                                                G    

And brittle leaves scattered about

CHORUS

G                                        EM

I carried her down the stairs

                   C                           G

With her head on my shoulder

                                                         EM

And handed her over to be strapped in

             C                                        G

To the car that went away forever

G                                              EM

I would write a song about dust

G                                                        D7

Because the scar on my heart remains                                    

                                                    C

And aches each day I think of you

                                                   G

Though you dissolve in the glare

G                                                EM                                             

Leaving empty air as still as death

G                                                   EM                                                                                                     

Words once said are silent as sand

And I want for a young girl

    C                                          G    

That dust and sand are a way home

CHORUS

G                                                            EM

A mound becomes a cake, twigs for candles

G                                            D7

A smooth spot, a place to draw                                 

                                                          C

All that matters can be managed here

                                                   G

Sand can be easily carried away

G                                         EM  

In the bottom of big pockets                  

G                                                    EM

Or in shoes emptied before going in

And I would pray she dreams

    C                                                    G    

Always of sand and shovels and pails

CHORUS

This one is pretty much just me putting a poem I already wrote to music and adding a chorus to break your heart.  It is the best one I've written me thinks. Haven't really performed it too much. But come January I'm doing three of them with a little accompaniment at Boulevard Music. 

Recommendations

I'm in love with these two- ah to be young. There's a double album out, apparently
Mandolin Orange @UNC-TV from David Huppert on Vimeo.
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Mandolin Orange @UNC-TV from David Huppert on Vimeo.

Are We Looking Old?

I was looking through the playlist. A lot of the songwriters are dead. I forgot this guy:

The Judds are still around- the youngest is Ketch Secor who wrote Wagon Wheel.

Oh well, I guess we are old. 

I just asked the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts in LA if they want free Americana music for fundraisers. I think I'm brilliant,

The Growth of The Playlist

In the beginning there were four or five of us at work and we decided we would sing for our Director who was retiring. So we came up with Aloha, Hit The Road Jack and something else I can't remember. We had three uke players, one guitar and my banjo. After that, we decided to come once a week at lunch and practice and play. I found four easy chord songs and passed them out: Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms, Wabash Cannonball, Ring The Banjo & Tom Dooley. Barden offered up a Marty Robbins song and Wayne offered up Back Home Again and MTA. I invited Craig from the 12th floor. We moved to my house and everyone dropped out but Wayne & Craig & me. I invited Marla and Gail. I injected This Little Light of Mine and Gulf Coast Highway because I was already playing them. Marla threw in Daniel (which is no longer on the list) We were doing open mics at Boulevard Music in Culver City and only had enough for time for three songs so we worked up based on that. Gail brought songs and we learned them but only played You're Sixty in performance I think. Then we got the pancake breakfast. We had 2 hours to fill. I threw a bunch of songs that Wayne & I had been playing at the Saturday Morning Bluegrass Meetup in Long Beach: It Takes A Worried Man, I'll Fly Away, etc (I Aint Gonna Be Treated This Away, Pallet On Your Floor, and Fair & Tender Ladies are from here) Then I thought, I'm writing all these songs- why not do them- We ended up doing one because I let them rewrite the melody and Gail loved it.) I gave everybody all of my originals and Wayne gave everybody every song he had ever sung. That ended up the problem.

I'm the organizer, so we were doing the playlist just in Alphabetical Order, because that seemed the simplest thing to do, Wayne and Marla said we should think up something different, but they would never work on it. So as I was compiling this new list, I threw the ballads in one pile and the quicker songs in another and then tried to combine them in some entertaining way. 

The whole idea now is just to keep a movement forward. The singers get to pick what we want as we all learn and then replace things. But we still have 2 1/2 hours of stuff. The instrumentalists get to pick the things they want and we will showcase those as well.

I'm not really attached to half the songs here. MTA, Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms, Wabash Cannonball, Freight Train, Worried Man, This Little Light, Cotton Jenny, I'll Fly Away, Country Roads, can all disappear. I'm ready to move on. But we need to move on together doing things that everyone wants to do.

I need to give Oleeta and Richard and Nancy more songs to sing! I want fiddle tunes and banjo that Betsy and Renata and Ben can sail away with! I think we're on to something!

So This Is The Playlist For The Band

Play Me Some Mountain Music

I’ll Fly Away

Freight Train

Fair & Tender Ladies

Green Eyes

Going Down That Road Feeling Bad

Oklahoma Hills

Don’t Make It Rain

Cotton Jenny

Three Little Words

Worried Man Blues

Both Sides Now

Jerusalem Ridge

This Little Light of Mine

Wabash Cannonball

Love Can Build A Bridge

Country Roads

Little Sister

Hallelujah

Pallet On Your Floor

You’re Sixty

Gulf Coast Highway

Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms

MTA

Summertime

San Antonio Rose

Lay Down Beside Me

Blue Moon of Kentucky

Back Home Again

This Land Is Your Land

If You See Her

You Ain’t Going Nowhere

Streets of Laredo

Wagon Wheel

Daydream Believin'

I signed up for this Sonicbids Service since it looks like some venues want you to subnit through these folks. I put us in for a Festival in Santa Barbara this way. I get these "Gig Of The Day" emails. There's a few that are just contests: pay your money and win for your song or whatever. Those are just vanity things to take your money. But these- boy, can a boy dream, can't he?

It's hard to resist

Me Again

More of me playing at the Visitation School. It was a good day. I went back later in the evening to see my friend Mike play and filmed him and a boy scout on piano that I know. (The food wasn't too great for us blood suger challenged.)

One more

One More for the Road: Oleeta singing "Blue Moon Of Kentucky" at the Vet Day Stage. The Marching Bands had quieted down for a moment. 

This was sweet Martha's response to my email after the Vet day thing. She hired us (at no pay) because I called her to ask about a non-profit vendor booth (for $10.00)- I thought we could just pay the $10 and play all afternoon. She asked what kind of music did we play and I answered with the right group- "The Kingston Trio, etc" She asked us to play the stage. One of my band mates today said she didn't think they were too organized or too aware of what they were trying to do. (Martha has asked me to rent the generator and she'd reimburse me, but I had no idea what I should be getting- so they supplied it.)

Dan,
You are brilliant! that is an idea that has a lot of merit.
I will keep you in mind for next year; this year was excellent.
I will spread the work about your group.

Thanks again for all you did to make our event a success.

Martha
P.S. Next time you perform out doors and need a generator...
a 2000 volt one is what you need. It worked yesterday.

> Date: Sun, 6 Nov 2011 04:18:05 -0800
> From: mcnay@mosis.com
> To: msthuente@hotmail.com
> Subject: Parade
>
> Marthe,
>
> Thanks for having us. We had fun.
>
> I had a thought about next year. If the stage was set up at the far end
> of the vendor area, with it being close to the food vendors, it would
> afford us being able to play better without the noise of the marching
> band leaving the staging area and we could attract more people to be
> present at your award ceremony. Give it some thought.
>
> Thanks again. Keep us in mind for next year or anything else your group
> might be doing. Memorial Day?
>
> Dan
>

> 

Visitation School Today

It poured down all morning. I called the school and they said it was on. We'd be under a canopy even if it was pouring. About 10:30 it just stopped, by 12:00 the sun was shining. And us three that will go anywhere anytime showed. This was the next to last song we did. First time out in public, and only one rehearsal. (But I've been playing this song by myself for two years now.

Vet Day

Vet Parade Stage Day

Well, I'm back. We played the stage before and after the award ceremony. This is a picture from last year. We had the back half of the stage. It wasn't quite what I expected. We really didn't have an audience until just before the awards and only a couple of people afterward. I suggested the stage be moved for next year, away from the marching bands staging to start the parade and next to the vendor fair, so we could attract an audience and they would have more people there for their award ceremony.

Still working out all of the kinks and all of the sound and how we do this together. Anyway it was good practice for the real thing, when there's a real thing.