Balancing rehearsal, maintenance and development

Daily practise is important not only for development but just for maintaining my voice, lyrics and playing.

Scheduling and prioritising my practice time has always been a big issue for me. Ideally I would do several 20 minute periods each day, but real life doesn't work like that. Some days I don't get a chance to do any music at all. On other days I'm reluctant to give up a practice slot after 20 minutes in case I can't get back to it. The end result is that I probably do an average of about 30-40 minutes a day (or 12-18 songs).

I currently have about 30 songs in my new repertoire of American roots music, with another 30 in development. There is obviously a great pressure to rehearse the songs I'm planning to perform next, but I also have to maintain the rest as well as working on new songs and techniques.

I've never found the perfect answer to this and my schedule keeps on changing. I'm currently dividing my time between:
(1) Learning new songs with the guitar.
(2) Rehearsing known songs and learning new songs with the mandolin.
(3) Reviving old songs with the concertina.

The songs with guitar have different styles of accompaniment so development of technique is intrinsic. I ought to be developing mandolin and concertina technique as well, but there just isn't time to do everything.

Dread nought!

Washburn WD10SCE

I've had a guitar of one sort or another since I was a teenager. In order to get one, I had to promise my academically-orientated parents that I would "never join a group". Perhaps that parental injunction induced a lifelong musical inhibition. Anyway, the guitar has just been a bedroom instrument and I've never publicly performed with it as far as I can remember.

The guitar was my first serious instrument, but I didn't give it the time that I was later to put into the concertina and mandolin. I'm not backtracking (yet) on my preference for playing the mandolin, but I decided that I wanted to be able to perform in more varied ways and the guitar was an obvious option given my long if undeveloped association with it.

My last guitar developed a warped neck which made it harder to play than my mandolin. I therefore decided to replace it with a Washburn WD10SCE Electro Acoustic Dreadnought Guitar which is remarkably good value. Although I perform acoustic music I wanted a model with an electric pickup owing to the decline of folk clubs and the growing ubiquity of open mic sessions.

I got the guitar just after Christmas and began to work up some songs - two traditional folk songs I've dabbled with over the years and a well-known Blues number I first started to learn but never pursued almost fifty years ago! After nine days of attempting to refresh my skills, I played all three songs at the Orpy practice session - the first public appearance with a guitar of my whole life! Whilst the songs are all at an early stage of development, the performance went better than I expected and I received some valuable advice and encouragement.

Tempted and tried

Ozark 5-string resonator banjo

I've long been tempted by the haunting sound of the five-string banjo, but I was worried about overextending myself again. Then the obvious occurred to me - that I could use a banjo (or, indeed, my guitar or mountain dulcimer) on the same repertoire of songs that I'm currently performing with mandolin. I would be stretching my instrumental focus but wouldn't necessarily have to extend my song repertoire.

Back in August a chance Google search for something else led me to a promising lot on eBay which I managed to win. It's an Ozark resonator model, i. e. the type most associated with Bluegrass, but that doesn't prevent its use for Old Time as well.

As I got it for song accompaniment, my initial plan is just to learn some very simple playing patterns, i. e. Clawhammer for Old Time and Alternating Thumb Roll for Bluegrass, and to play these over the chords. I'll just be dabbling with the banjo for now as it will, in any case, probably take months to get the right-hand patterns working smoothly, and I already have a lot of work to do on the mandolin.

The old love and the new

The Crane flies again

For the past year I've spent almost all my time on Bluegrass/Old Time music and playing the mandolin, and the  prospect of returning to my traditional English folk repertoire and playing the concertina was becoming more and more remote. However, I no longer have access to a regular Bluegrass session, and my recent attendance at this year's Tenterden Folk Festival - which is overwhelmingly devoted to English traditional music - made me feel that I should he more realistic about what kind of music is most appropriate to the opportunities I now actually have.

I therefore decided to revive my old repertoire alongside the new one. This does put some pressure on my 'psychological focus' - which I was trying to avoid - but it shouldn't put too much pressure on my time as I still seem to remember most of the lyrics of the circa 60 songs I was singing when I left the old repertoire behind. About 40 of these are acapella and it's just a case of refreshing the words.

The 20 or so songs accompanied on my Crane duet concertina are more problematical as I want to develop a style that is less melodic and more appropriate to accompaniment. This is partly to make performing easier and partly because that is the style I've always really wanted to achieve but didn't know how to. For that I need to go back to square one and start experimenting, i.e. have fun rather than pursuing some rigorous schedule. My hope is that if I can develop a general approach, I can then apply it without having to spend too much time arranging individual songs.

As hoped for, my concertina playing (in the old style) has become a little more relaxed and confident. This can hardly be down to the hiatus, but is presumably down to my experience with the mandolin which has been easier, helped me to become a more relaxed performer, and has hopefully improved my sense of timing. But one can't be complacent. All these things are fragile and need to be kept up.

OF&BC Annual Summer Festival

The Orpington Folk & Blues Club holds an Annual Summer Festival on the August Bank Holiday weekend at which I was invited to perform. The ticketed event combines music with a beer festival and BBQ open to the public, and raises money for Guide Dogs for the Blind.

This was effectively my first 'booking' for a public event, but not the first time I've been paid in beer! It was a very enjoyable day despite a little rain and a great privilege to share the billing with such talented artists.

Busking at Broadstairs (sort of)

I've been going to Broadstairs Folk Week since sometime in the 90s. As a former singer of mostly unaccompanied English folk songs, I'd always made for the singalongs, sessions and singarounds. This year was different because of my change in direction and I took in a lot more pub and concert acts, particularly if they were doing Americana. I enjoyed the upbeat music and lively atmosphere, but I was also interested to see what material they did and how acts presented themselves.

At festivals I usually spend the mornings keeping up my daily practice in some out-of-the-way corner. This year I practised by singing in front of passers-by, i.e. as if I was busking. I wasn't actually collecting money, but next year I'm thinking of registering as an official busker with a collection tin for contributions to the festival - if I get any! Busking is a great way to face your fears and get used to a public audience, and it gives you a lot more opportunity to develop your experience.

Taking it back to Weymouth...

Taking part in an American Roots/Bluegrass session
during the Wessex Folk Festival 2015

Weymouth in Dorset has a thriving folk scene with a strong emphasis on Americana. It centres on a Wednesday night session in the Sailor's Return pub and the annual Wessex Folk Festival on Weymouth quayside. There is also a monthly folk club in Hope Square and an American Roots/Bluegrass session on the coast road to Bridport. Since discovering the Sailors Return session by chance six years ago, the festival has been an annual fixture.

A predominance of Americana was not something I'd previously experienced. While it took a few years for the penny to drop, Weymouth was the main inspiration for my conversion from English to American roots music. Since my 'switch-over' last August and the invaluable experience I've since gained at the Orpington Folk & Blues Club's Grand Ole Orpy sessions, this May's WFF was my first opportunity to attend the festival as a singer/player of Americana.

I was able to join a number of sessions. Judged subjectively, it seemed to go well and I certainly enjoyed it.

Grand Ole Orpy

Grand Ole Orpy (a skit on the Grand Ole Opry) is a training-orientated session for upbeat Bluegrass and Skiffle style music sponsored by the Orpington Folk & Blues Club, which has a strong culture of encouragement. Orpy provides a great opportunity for collaboration, bringing together those seeking improvement with expertise and experience.

When I first learnt about it I was just moving to Americana, and it's greatly influenced that move with its strongly upbeat approach. It has also exposed me to a wealth of songs and tunes which I might otherwise have taken a long time to discover. All in all it has greatly accelerated my progress and has now become the main focus of my musical development.

The clip shows me leading a rendition of Worried Man Blues from, I think, late 2014. I hadn't realised this was being filmed! AFAIK this constitutes my YouTube début...

Less is more

Doc Watson

When I was focusing on English traditional material, my repertoire of songs once bloated to nearly 200. This is not a boast but a warning. Trying to remember them all was like herding cats, and many songs were hardly performed and never perfected.

I get the impression that many professionals seem to be ready to sing songs only from their current album, so maybe 20-30 odd. Folk singers might need a few more to avoid too much repetition. At a festival I used to avoid singing the same song twice or even a song that I'd heard someone else sing. At clubs and sessions I didn't repeat a song in the same venue for at least a year. To keep that up I probably needed only about 50 songs, but I found it very hard to abandon songs that I had learnt. Anyway, I did manage to jettison more than half of them, cutting my English repertoire to about 70.

For my new interest in Americana, I have a current repertoire of just 24, most of which are now performable (on a good day). This number should be far more sustainable and, ultimately, provide a better performance level. Rather than adding more songs, I'm going to concentrate on improving these by developing melodic intros, turnarounds and breaks. I think that will be challenge enough.

The Mandolin and solo song accompaniment

Using a mandolin for solo song accompaniment seems to raise eyebrows if not comments, especially from guitarists. But I think it's perfectly acceptable. Indeed, I like the sound and at the very least I find it a refreshing change from the ubiquity of the guitar. In particular, it facilitates melodic interludes which can be much louder and more effective than on the guitar.

Here are some examples from YouTube of mandolin use in solo song performances which speak for themselves. Readers will appreciate that I don't control the continued availability of these videos.

Bill Monroe - 'The Wayfaring Stranger':



Maunus (Mandolin Cafe) - 'John Hardy':



Steve Earle - 'Copperhead Road':