Tip Jar Jam: Jamming By Fire Hose!

And thanks to Diane for the lovely blog title! It's one of those sayings that makes sense, only you're not quite sure WHY it makes sense. She said it to Gregg toward the end of the jam after he'd been valiantly trying to do the Roly Polys all night long. She called it "jamming by…

Recording the new DVD, Kick Start Your Jamming: Day Two

Again, a quick blog about our recording today. I got through all of the upgrades to the Roly Polys! Hooray! Red may have a time with the editing, but the footage is there. For upgrades (meaning harder licks) I included the Tag Lick, the Foggy Mountain Breakdown Lick, the D lick first taught in Do…

Recording The New DVD: The First Day

I'd hoped to have more energy to blog in detail about our first day of recording the new DVD, Kick Start Your Jamming! (And a tip of the big ol' Stetson hat to Texas Tim for helping with that title.) This DVD will teach you everything you need to know about the Roly Polys! We…

Tip Jar Jam: Look, Ma, no Fifth Strings!

We had quite a crowd at the Wednesday night jam this week including  the young brothers Rhys on fiddle and Drew on banjo with their parents Jason on guitar and Amber on mandolin. Can you say "family band in the making?" I hope so! So this story is about Drew: Somewhere in the middle of…

Murphy’s Comments On Hazel Dickens and the IBMA Hall of Fame

Recently David Morris wrote an article for the online magazine Bluegrass Today suggesting rather strongly that Hazel Dickens should be in the IBMA Hall of Fame. Since Hazel, and her singing partner Alice Gerrard, are both featured in a chapter of Murphy's book, Pretty Good For A Girl, that topic is right down Murphy's alley.…

Tip Jar Jam: So Much To Say…..

John, one of my North Carolina students, made the long trek to Winchester for some Marathon lessons and jamming this week. John, who has attended both our Beginning and Intermediate Camps, was so convinced of the power of the Tip Jar Jam that he took the bull by the horns and rounded up a teacher…

Bat Girl Blogs: Jamming with Steph

[Betty Fisher, a Tip Jar Jam regular, was kind enough to blog about her recent jamming experience. Betty has been having some problems with bats in her house, hence the blog title. She is also a very, very good sport!] My friend and neighbor Stephanie is a beginning guitar student of Murphy’s.  She and I…

Custom Lesson Update

I have a bunch of new custom lesson I've added to my list and here they are: Big Country (Bela Fleck) (A) Watch clip. - This is a great tune of Bela's. Definitely advanced, but on the scale of all of Bela's tunes, not that hard. Cattle In The Cane (A) Watch clip. - This is a fiddle tune,…

The Patuxent Banjo Project

This article originally appeared in the pages of Banjo Newsletter magazine in December 2013. They kindly gave permission for us to reprint it here. Buy the CD here! When I heard about the forthcoming CD project from Patuxent Music featuring Washington D.C./Baltimore/Northern Virginia-area banjo players I got super excited. The list of participants includes both…

Tip Jar Jam: Aren’t You Going To Watch Me?

I wish I could tell you the story behind this title, but, alas, it's too risque, it's too long, and it's not about the music anyhow. But it was really funny when Ben told it! Our jams have been smaller this summer, with so many folks taking vacations but I think everyone has enjoyed the…