Practice!

Today we'll talk about what may be an unpleasant subject: PRACTICE. While some learners find it easy to play one or two or six or seven hours a day, some can't get the energy or time for 20 minutes. But it's important. I can talk from my own experience. As I get older it's harder…

Improvising: My Two Cents

I’ve been reading with interest the comments about improvising on this blog, and thought I would try to outline my thoughts. I won’t try to answer the questions raised point by point, but maybe I will accidentally hit a few of the high spots. I do remember the question “Is improvising an advanced skill?” That,…

A Few More Thoughts On Improvising

Murphy’s post last week on improvising sparked quite a discussion, so I thought I’d add some further ideas. This same topic came in one of my banjo lessons on Saturday. Clay, who drives to Nashville from Memphis every now and then for a lesson, had been reading about improvising on this very blog. He broached…

Are You Listening?

Since I pick with people when I get the chance, and I've also taught a good many music lessons in my life, I've developed an attitude about listening and learning. It's this: If you can't or don't listen, you can't play. At least, you can't play right. You have to know what a tune sounds…

Improvising: The Second Stage?

As you know we have a DVD titled Improvising: The First Stage. And when I first concocted that DVD (many long years ago) I had a fairly clear idea of what the second stage would be. However, that thought obviously did not pan out and furthermore I’ve completely forgotten what it was! Still and yet,…

Custom Lesson Update

It's been a little while since I've updated my list of custom banjo lessons. I've added quite a few good ones over the last couple of months. As always, if you'd like to order any of these for yourself, they're $30 each and can be ordered by emailing me: themurphymethod (at) gmail (dot) com. The…

Murphy Method Digital Downloads

Folks, we've had a terrific response to our first 6 DVDs offered as digital downloads (details here). We didn't know quite what to think of this new technology at first, but when we put these 6 up on line, the response from old and new students has been excellent. It appears that the downloads have…

Something New Under The Sun: Murphy Method Student Changes Arrangement of John Hardy!

Okay, sure, I’ve had Murphy Method students change arrangements of songs before, but they usually do it by accident! Judy did this ON PURPOSE! Now you have to know the MM arrangement of John Hardy for this to make any sense, but I’m sure you all do! <G> It’s in the D chord, those 12…

A Hottie Reunion

You may remember in the past I've written about the group of women I jam with sometimes. We call ourselves At Least We're Hot because although we may be somewhat short on skill and polish on our respective instruments, we're not short in the looks department (if we do say so ourselves...and we do!). And…

Happy New Year

And what did I do this New Year’s Eve? I went square dancing! And so did Murphy Method students Susan and Bill Morrison. I thought you might like to see a picture of us in our square dance attire! Don’t you love Susan’s scarf? Don’t you love my Chicos blouse? (Thank you sister Claire for…