Whew!!! My conference is over, and I'm back (sort of).

M. Ted asked earlier what type of music I want to lear. I am engrossed and fascinated by old-time string bands (pre-bluegrass) and more recently the jug and novelty dance bands of the 20's and their modern counterparts.

My goal is to be able to play along with folks, and accompany myself singing. I don't want to be a flashy instrumentalist, etc. just understand the basics, and have my instruments become an extension of myself. When I play gutbucket people ask how I can play full bass lines on it. I find it difficult to explain since I pretty much think the bass line and it comes out through a combination of fingering and adjusting the tension on the string. It's also taken me sometime to settle down to playing what is needed to provide a solid bass that is interesting versus playing a lot of notes and/or mimicking the melody simply because I was able to. I now try to add to the completeness and "whole" of what is being played not stand out as that fancy washtub bass player.

This is where I would like to be be on my other instruments: banjo, autoharp, harmonica...

This thread captures a lot of what Mudcat means to me. The folks that have stayed involved over time have created a community that is deeply interested in all aspects of folk music, and in helping join in their enthusiasm. The thread has been very helpful in getting me to reassess how I approach learning music (see the new thread on getting beyond being a neophyte too). This has been a healthy exchange of ideas and views and in the end I think I and others like me have really benefited. Thanks M and S.

I do practice, and listen, etc. a lot, but tend to jump from thing to thing rather than digging in and conquering my challenges.

I don't know or practice scales enough.

I am not learning new chords, inversions, etc. like I should.

I don't have a teacher right now, or go to jams etc.. (Much of this has to do with tradeoffs on family, etc.. My wife is not "into" music and treats every musical thing I do as a personal selfish act versus doing something with the kids, etc. This is true no matter how much time I spend doing scouts, baseball etc.).

It seems that I need to work on the "hard" stuff in order to reach where I want to be. So I am going to re-evaluate what/how I do. Find a teacher, and put my nose to the grind stone.

GutBucky JAB

P.S. I also find it infuriating when people make simple requests for songs and/or chords without checking the D.T. or other sources, inlcuding readily available songbooks. This seems to me to be the result of a certain laziness that is fostered by the modern world where everyone expects things to be done for them, or delivered to them, etc.. Don't they realize that they are asking someone else to do their work for them?