All posts filed under: Acoustic Music

Few things are better than the sound of acoustic instruments

Wayne Henderson, John Monteleone and more in Fretboard Journal

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The Winter 2009 issue of The Fretboard Journal arrived in my mailbox yesterday, which means that I’ve been reading cover-to-cover for the last 24 hours.  As always there are articles about some of my favorite people in the music business.  But in every issue I’m also introduced to new musicians and new guitars.  What a great magazine! This issue has articles on several terrific players, including jazz legend Jim Hall and a tribute to the late country pioneer Jerry Reed.   There’s an extended article celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, where you can learn how dobro god Jerry Douglas got one of his nicknames (and its not “Flux”).  But the articles on two luthiers – John Monteleone and Wayne Henderson – are my favorites in the current issue.  I was taken by the beauty of Monteleone’s instruments many years ago after David Grisman featured a Monteleone mandolin on the album cover of Quintet ’80.  John Monteleone’s archtop guitars are beautiful and innovative.  (The Fretboard Journal is known for publishing beautiful pictures of guitar eye …

Baseball, Blues, and Bluegrass – Do Christmas Gifts Get Any Better?

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In the midst of a strong recession, everyone expected downsizing in holiday gift giving.  But the generosity of family and friends showed me that downsizing can still result in gifts that touch the heart. My colleague Dolores shares my passion for baseball, so her gift of Obsessed with Baseball was perfect.   This is Jeopardy for the baseball set…2500 questions that the electronic widget embedded in the book asks you to answer.  For instance – to take a random example – Question 54:  Who led the majors in RBIs in 2006?  A.  David Ortiz, B. Albert Pujols,  C. Ryan Howard, or D. Lance Berkman.  If you typed in “C” for Ryan Howard, the widget tells you “correct” and you are 1 for 1 or 100% correct.  It is easy to spend all day answering questions about Heavy Hitters, Hall of Fame, The Playoffs, and more. Want to try another one?  Question 1505:  Name the future big-league manager who hit 30 or more home runs 11 times in his 21 season playing career.  A.  Gil Hodges, B. Frank Robinson, C. …

Merry Christmas

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Merry Christmas from More to Come… to all our regular readers and to those who find us by accident on that great information highway.  We’re with family this year, which is always a bonus since we don’ t have immediate family in the Washington area.  The presents are out, the calls from all parts of the country have already started, and we’re working on a great Christmas morning breakfast. As a Christmas gift, here’s a video of Canadian singer-songwriter Allison Crowe singing one of our favorite seasonal hymns, In the Bleak Midwinter.  Enjoy, and best wishes for the holiday season. More to come… DJB

Scandinavian Christmas Closes Out IMT Fall Season

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Strings, strings, and more strings were the order of the evening as the Institute of Musical Tradition closed out its 2008 Fall Season with a Scandinavian Christmas concert tonight in Rockville.  Before a full house of Swedes and Norwegians (or so it seemed), Andrea Hoag, Loretta Kelley, and Charlie Pilzer were joined by Bruce Sager for a night of polskas, waltzes, walking tunes, and other music from the north.  The evening opened with triple fiddles backed by Pilzer’s steady bass, and throughout the night the four musicians played wonderful music as soloists, duets, trios, and a quartet. The dance polskas (not to be confused with polkas) were great fun, but I especially enjoyed the walking tunes such as Solskenslaten (The Sunshine Tune) and The Bell Tune, where the bells on the reins of the bride’s  horse were tuned with the fiddle to ring in harmony as the fiddler led a traditional wedding procession. Loretta Kelly (left in the photo above) played two different hardingfeles (or Hardanger fiddles) with their sympathetic vibrating strings, while an energetic Bruce …

Playing Music

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Playing music with friends over Thanksgiving has pushed me to reorder my schedule to find even more time to play.  And – no surprise here – I’ve loved it.  I’m reacquainting myself with some of the playing of Norman Blake (check out the Nashville Blues video below of Norman and the Rising Fawn String Ensemble) and other musicians I admire. In the delightful book Practicing, author and musician Glenn Kurtz says, For me, sitting down to play has very little to do with discipline.  “It isn’t just education and discipline that makes one so devoted to work…it is simple joy.  It is one’s natural sense of well-being, to which nothing else can compare.”  Love of music brings me to the practice room. I am finding that joy in playing again and it is a wonderful feeling. So I’m off to play a bit now, and then tomorrow evening I’ll be at the Celtic Christmas concert of the Institute of Musical Traditions for some great acoustic guitar by Al Petteway and Robin Bullock.  If you’re in the Washington, …

I Believe Thanksgiving is my New Favorite Holiday

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I’m not sure what has been my favorite holiday, but I think Thanksgiving has now taken over the top rung on the ladder.  I think it may be the fact that big business hasn’t yet figured out a way to commercialize it.  Or perhaps it is the fact that food plays a big role.  I like the focus on the act of being thankful for all we have in a country that’s been abundantly blessed. Then again, maybe it is just that we’ve figured out how to get together with people we really enjoy and have a very relaxing time.  Whatever the reason, it is my new favorite holiday. Candice and I have always enjoyed Thanksgiving.  For many years we traveled over the mountain from Staunton to a wonderful inn, Prospect Hill, for a bountiful Thanksgiving dinner.  It was especially meaningful to us because we honeymooned at Prospect Hill while we were very poor graduate students.  Little did we realize that just a year after our wedding we’d move to Virginia and be an hour away.  With …

Thankful for Beautiful Music

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On Thanksgiving morning, Candice and I visited our neighborhood Episcopal Church in Silver Spring.  We went to give thanks for all we have, but we also went to this particular church because we knew that one of the DC-area’s best hammered dulcimer players – Karen Ashbrook – was providing the music. Over the course of the next hour, Karen played six beautiful tunes.  Of special note was the haunting O Savior Thee – a Scottish Christmas carol – which made for a wonderful time of reflection following the readings and sermon. The small Gothic church was acoustically alive, providing a nice setting for Karen’s music.  It was a wonderful start to our Thanksgiving Day. Check out Karen and her husband Paul Oorts on this video of Irish tunes. More to come… DJB

David Grier at IMT

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All of David Grier’s guitar skills were on display tonight at the Monday evening concert of the Institute of Musical Tradition in Rockville.  Greir opened with a spirited version of Durham’s Bull, an old fiddle tune (and afterwards opined that all fiddle tunes are described as “old”), and then put on a two-hour tour de force of flatpicked guitar and bad jokes. It is a tall order to keep an audience’s interest with two hours of solo flatpicked guitar, but Grier made it look easy.  With equal measures original tunes and flatpicking chestnuts – with the occasional popular tune such as Yesterday thrown in as well – Grier showed why he’s one of the best flatpickers on the planet.  This was an evening of highlights:  the beautiful intro for Red Haired Boy, the original waltz High Atop Princess Cove, and the Stephen Foster tune Angeline the Baker among them.  One of Grier’s best recorded efforts is the Bill Monroe tune Old Ebenezer Scrooge, which he worked as a duet with bassist Todd Phillips on the Grammy award winning True Life …

Great Acoustic Guitar in Washington

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There are few things in life I like better than the sound of an acoustic guitar.  So I’m looking forward to two upcoming concerts in the Washington, DC area by three terrific players. On Monday night, one of the best guitar flatpickers on the planet will be playing at the Institute of Musical Traditions series at Saint Mark’s Presbyterian Church in Rockville.  David Grier is well-known to flatpicking aficionados and along with a busy session schedule handles the guitar duties in the supergroup Psychograss.  Watch the video below of Grier and Wyatt Rice – younger brother of guitar superstar Tony Rice – and you’ll see why we flatpicker wanna-be’s will be in attendance on Monday, flatpicks clutched in our right hand taking in every lick. For those of you who prefer your acoustic guitar fingerstyle (which I also love), you only have to wait two weeks to December 8th for the IMT concert featuring Al Petteway, Amy White, and Robin Bullock.  Petteway and Bullock both have inventive minds and beautiful tones.  Their holiday-flavored concert, which features the silver-throated White …