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I like trying to relate chord theory to grammar, but I think a better fit would be: the 1st is the subject, the 3rd is the verb, and the 5th is the object. The third is what puts everything in...

Alan Barrows and Sissy Know from A Mighty Wind.

Geordi La Forge in Star Trek.

Paul McCartney: technically, a fictional character (Yellow Submarine), technically a mandolinist.

This is what I hear: the KM has more balance throughout the range, but the stringy-ness robs ornaments of their power. While you are getting a good tone out of the instrument (indeed, you aren't...

Let's try these:
A Simple Tune
You may leave, but this will bring you back
Summertime

Well, if anyone would like to comment on the tone of my 505, I put some recordings up at soundcloud.

I'd like to try some. Thanks.

Well, you should rewire your brain because having more control over pick direction allows you to do more and be more expressive. In general, you should pick jigs DUD DUD but all other 6/8s DUD UDU,...

Both keys have three open strings, and plenty of Scottish tunes make use of open 2nd and 3rd strings in B flat.

In general, using a capo is ok, but I find that I confine myself to one position...

Try playing some strathspeys for a month: you'll feel differently about your hammers on.

It's big news here in the Piedmont, so I can't gauge national reaction. I did see some segments on CNN and Headline News; Brook Baldwin even interviewed Ricky Skaggs on Doc.

My own feelings are...

http://folkloreproductions.com/wp/in-memoriam/doc-watson-1923-2012/

Oops! I forgot one major reason: to get free beer at the Irish pub.

Simple answer: to share thoughts and emotions with other people and appreciate their culture.

Banjo player Jake Schepps is offering his album, An Evening in the Village: the Music of Bela Bartok, as Free or Name Your Price at Bandcamp this weekend only. This is an inventive reimagining of the...

I don't play many slides, but like with jigs, I will look at the melody to determine my picking pattern. When learning, I start with DUD DUD. For the record, the first phrase Merrily Kissed the...

I asked a question on picking patterns a few years ago that I think pertains here. The gist: the importance of hitting the downstroke on the 1 and 4 for jig patterns--everything else is a choice.

I must admit to loving a hornpipe Mr. MacLeod recorded: Sandy Bell's. Too bad no one else seems to know it.

I'm pretty sure many, perhaps even most, tunes were played in flat keys, but were relocated to sharp keys in order to drone. As difficult as I find it, there's something really bright about a tune...

Whatever else McMahon contributes to the discussion about Irish music (or traditional in general), his history is untenable. Preservation and awareness of Irish music could not have spread without...

Ironically, Irish and Scottish is more likely to share tunes (or related tunes) with English than with the others.

I can hear some of it in this recording, but Bouchard's 60s records show it more clearly.

Virtual Gramophone has wonderful source material, but I found it led me astray a few times. Many...

"Jazz harmonies" isn't terribly precise, I should apologize. Rather, around the 1960s, perhaps starting with the recordings of Jos Bouchard, there is an effort among guitar players to use chord...

What I think distinguishes Quebecois traditional music:

1. The amalgam of American and European music traditions that many Quebecois musicians learned in the logging camps.
2. The kitchen parties...

Philippe Bruneau (1934-2011) lost his life to cancer on Sunday. He was a composer and played the diatonic accordion who became celebrated as the grandfather of Quebecois traditional music when it...