Class Album Recording: Kids Guitar 2 - Friday - Session 1/2 2010

Hi everyone,
     Here are the tracks from class.  Sorry it took a little longer to get to you.  My computer had a meltdown, but it's all better and I was able to finish this up.
    There are three tracks plus an album cover I made on itunes.  I'm also including the original picture in case you'd like to make your own album cover.

This Land is Your Land
Ob La Di, Ob La Da
Complicated

Album Cover

Hope you enjoy it!
Jason

Picks in the Air - Saturday Strummers at the Old Town School of Folk Music

Have you ever wondered what kinds of skills are important to a 5-year-old folk guitar player? Here's an example.

My students and I made this video over the weekend.  Enjoy!
Jason

This past week April 18 through April 24, 2010

Sunday, April 18 - Lead the "Your First Guitar Solo" workshop and then attended the Kids Faculty song swap at the Old Town School.  Lots of new material.

Monday, April 19 - Jug band jam lead by Jonas at the Grafton


Tuesday, April 20 - General music at RPMS then after-school guitar class.  That evening I went to Folk Club, lead by Mark Dvorak.  We sang two songs in non-English languages!


Wednesday, April 21 - Genarl Music at RPMS, then off to Armitage for group classes and private lessons.  We recorded our end-of-session album in Kids Guitar 1.


Thursday, April 22 - Harmonica Orchestra is gaining steam at Carson Elementary.  Then headed to the Lincoln Ave. Old Town School for some private lessons and then Guitar Together.  Then I helped organize the Thursday night graduation and rallied some people for some jamming during the breaks and after the graduation.  Then headed over to the Soccer Club building to hang with the Uke Nation crew.  Of coarse we proceded to play some tunes.  Music started at 9:00am and I stopped playing at 11:00pm.


Friday, April 23 - Teaching all day.  First the adults, then the Early Stummers.  The afternoon was filled with recording end-of-session albums for Kids Guitar 1 and 2.


Saturday, April 24 - What a great day!  Strummers in the early morning, then end-of-session album recording by Kids Guitar 1 and 2.  Then we moved upstairs to the concert hall for the big party!  90 minutes of performances, dancing and jamming.  Plus the eating of a bunch of goldfish crackers.

That was one fun week!

"Once I had an Old Banjo" - My Visit with Frank and Mary Hamilton

The things that's keeping me up tonight is that I had the evening to get into some of the stuff that Frank gave me; ideas, skills, tools, recordings.

One of the tangible gifts he gave me is a CD of banjo recordings that he found important, inspirational, educational, musical and all of the above.

The CD was created after a long night talking about the sound of the banjo.  Frank was listing album after album by artist after artist that I should listen to. I started to get al little overwhelmed and I said, "I've found over the years that if someone gives me 100 things to listen to I don't listen to any of it, but if they give me just a few, I really get into it."

Frank took it as a challenge and he made me a CD of tunes he wanted to share with me. I'm just listening to it for the first time tonight. What is it about the banjo? What is it about a some singing a song and playing a banjo?

The one I'm listening to over and over is "Once I Had an Old Banjo" by Fleming Brown.

Once I had an old banjo

It was strung with twine

Only song that I could play

Trouble on my Mind

That makes me so sad.

Which makes me so happy that I play so much music.  But sometimes I get sad when I play music.  But at least I have music to fall back on.  And so it goes.

Here's a list of the songs on the CD.

1. Cindy - Pete Seeger
2. Oh! Liza, Poor Gal - Pete Seeger
3. Blue Skys - Pete Seeger
4. Once I had an Old Banjo - Fleming Brown
5. Cuckoo - Flemming Brown
6. Rakes of Mallow - Billy Faier
7. Green Corn - Billy Faier
8. Croation Tune - Billy Faier
9. Spanish Fandango - Billy Faier
10. Three Jolly Rogues - Billy Faier
11. The Sky - Derroll Adams
12. John Henry - George Pegram
13. Unreconstructed Rebel - Fleming Brown
14. Bowling Green - Cousin Emmy with the New Lost City Ramblers
15. Cuckoo - Erik Darling
16. Fight On - Weavers with Erik Darling
17. I'm On My Way - Erik Darling
18. London Bridge - Peggy Seeger
19. Love Call Me Home - Peggy Seeger
20. Portland Town - Derroll Adams
21. Sing About These Hard Times - Peggy Seeger
22. Wedding Dress - Peggy Seeger

There you go.  Maybe we'll get some of these going.  If not, I'm very glad to have these recordings and to have gotten them from someone like Frank.

Northern Illinois Steelband

Boy, so much has been happening I haven't been able to keep up with the blog at all.

Here's a short thing, though.

Tonight at went to a concert by the Northern Illinois Steelband at the Old Town School of Folk Music.

Check out this picture (Courtesy of Pat).  I have never in my live heard anything like all these steel drums coming in loud right at the same time.  Like a symphony of falling icicles.

I made a quick count from the balcony (where I could only see 2/3 of the group) and I think there were about 30 musicians.  Imagine - some of them were playing between two and six drums.   What a sound!

I've been spending a lot of time editing more video of Frank and putting together a video of The Gather-All.  Stay tuned!  Thanks for reading!

Jason

Folk Club recap - Tuesday, April 7, 2010

I had a great time at Folk Club last night.  I lead Little Birdie, which we played for the first time.  Maria lead Caballito Blanco.  That was also the first time we played that.  It's great to get some new stuff going.  Will the Circle Be Unbroken was beautiful.  So was the post-jam I'll Fly Away.

I was so happy to sit off to the side and work on my new banjo techniques.  Some of it is coming together and that's exciting to hear.

Wednesdays are fun, but can be tough.  It's a full day with classes at both RPMS and Old Town School.  We have only 9 classes left at RPMS.  Can you believe that?  Time to get get going on the final project.  We're going to record CDs.  I'm not totally sure how it's going to happen, but I'm excited to try it.

And I'm off . . .

Returning from my visit with Frank and Mary and the April Gather-All

Hello everyone,

  I'm back in Chicago.  Like the dang fool I am, last night I went right from O'Hare Airport to the Thursday Night Jam where Mary, Colby and Jimmy were laying it down with everyone.  I was able to practice the new banjo strums that I learned from Frank and I was very happy to be a beginner again.  I keep thinking about what Frank said.  "In a year you're going to be a real good banjo player."  You'll be seeing me with the banjo a lot between now and next April.

  Today was a very full day.  Adult Guitar 2 Rep, this afternoon.  We've been learning to play solos in G Major today and had a great time digging into Friend of the Devil by the Grateful Dead.  If you know me, you know how important that band is to me.

  Thanks to my cohort, John Mead, who took the ball and ran with in during today's Second Half.  He choose two tunes in E blues (Folosm Prison Blues and another one which I forget) and, knowing that G major is prefect for E blues (for reasons we'll get into another time), he called on Guitar 2 Rep to take the solos on both tunes.  Thank you John!

  Then this afternoon was filled with Early Strummers and Kids Guitar 1 and 2.  A couple students visited us.  Emma visited Kids Guitar 1 and Charlotte visited Kids Guitar 2.  Both young ladies are fiddle players and it was great to work on some tunes with them.  We played Old Joe Clark, This Land is Your Land and Angeline the Baker.

]  After that it was on to First Friday.  Check this out!  The Gather-All had both a musical saw and a tenor saxophone player.  Everyone was great!  Darrell lead an awesome song called "I'm Changin" which he learned from Ella Jenkins, the young fiddlers lead some great tunes and we got up and danced for a bit during Everybody Loves Saturday Night.

 After the Gather-All I found some dinner.

  Then, it was back to First Friday.  I hit the square dance for a bit then headed off to the concert hall to catch a set by Ann-Marie Akin and then Shelley Miller.  Loved Ann-Marie's sing-a-long and loved Shelley's "blue note" guitar pickin'.

  Then a late night snack with Darrel, Maria and Sandra.

  Now off to bed so I can be ready to go in the morning.

Let's do it again!
Jason