A Delicious Weekend of Gigs

As you read this I’m on my way home from The Dixie Bee-Liners’ weekend gigs, which took us to Staunton and Charlottesville, Va. and Thomas, WVa., and I have to say it was one of the best eating tours that I can ever remember. I’ll spare you all the foodie details (I expect they’ll be…

Books on Bluegrass

This morning, I am getting ready to head for Nashville for the International Country Music Conference which is being held at Belmont University. In past years I have presented papers (one on Sally Ann Forrester, one on Bessie Lee Mauldin—you can see I like to write about women with double first names!), but this year…

Survey Says…

Thanks to everyone who filled out the survey about banjo workshops that was included with this month’s newsletter. I thought you might be interested in what the results looked like. 111 people responded. 88% would be interested in attending a Murphy Method banjo workshop. Here’s how the playing levels broke down: Beginner: 27% Beginner/Intermediate: 38%…

White Springs Festival Coming Up!

Folks, it's almost time for the Florida Folk Festival, held every year at the Stephen Foster State Park on Memorial Day weekend. Chris, Jenny, and I will be driving down there on Thursday (13 hours, but we'll never match Casey's travel percentage!), and we'll have three days of performing music on the festival stages. Here's…

Weekend Out and Back

The Dixie Bee-Liners went out last weekend for a quick run up to Iowa and Wisconsin to play a couple of gigs. These weekend out-and-back trips are typical for a touring bluegrass band, so I thought I'd give you a brief picture of how our time breaks down. Total time away from home: 77 hours…

Flying and Picking #12

Folks, I made a cross-country flight this morning, just to keep in practice. It wasn't a really long trip, but I flew solo from here (Winchester, VA) to Bedford, PA, then to Cumberland, MD, and then back home: 3 flights, 8 good landings (I used the opportunity to practice those, too). And what does this…

Two Kinds of Practice

I was reminded of the two kinds of practice last week by a couple of my students. One is a brand new student who is learning Banjo in the Hollow. A bit of a perfectionist, he, of course, wants to play it, well....perfectly. And in his quest for perfection, every time he’d make a mistake…

From The Archives: Who Will Teach the Teachers

This is the second entry in a new series of posts called "From the Archives." They will be pulled from Murphy's many years of monthly Banjo Newsletter columns. Some of these are collected in her book ...and there you have it! This excerpt is from her August 1983 article, in which she talks about her…

Scrabble Report

So, I’m down here in Georgia again, visiting my folks. My dad and I have the same birthday, May 18, so we’re doing an early birthday weekend. One of our wonderful helpers made me a birthday cake and Daddy is having a piece right now. This morning Mama and I played a game of Scrabble…

From the Archives: A Day of Banjo Teaching

This is the first entry in a new series of posts called "From the Archives." They will be pulled from Murphy's many years of monthly Banjo Newsletter columns. Some of these are collected in her book ...and there you have it! This excerpt comes from the very first column she wrote in June of 1983.…