This is How I Roll

Last weekend was about as good as it gets. In the previous post, I told you that the second reason for the great weekend was a gathering of over one-hundred banjoists. The occassion was the 2011 Suwannee Banjo Camp.

The Suwannee Banjo Camp is put on by Ken Perlman and Chuck Levy. They do a great job and if you are interested in bluegrass or old time banjo, I highly recommend it. The camp also has classes on fiddle, bass and guitar playing, with instructor concerts and jams in addition to the classes. I enjoyed the nightly instructor concerts as much as anything, because I got to hear a wide variety of folk music from some of the best in their respective areas.

It was a fabulous experience to learn from some amazing instructors. Tony Trischka, Janet Davis, James McKinney, Alan Munde and Scott Anderson were the bluegrass banjo teachers. There are four levels of classes and the instructors rotated among them so that all the students get to learn from each teacher.

A real high point was getting to learn and be in a jam with Trischka, because he is such an icon in the banjo world these days. Just as well known are Davis and Munde, who were both just fantastic teachers. I feel like my head is still spilling knowledge that they gave me in just a few hours. Anderson really helped me settle in on jamming and taught a song I really like, Doin' My Time by Flatt and Scruggs. And I was blown away by McKinney, both in his playing ability as well as his intensely analytical approach to music. The math major side of me quickly related to his way of thinking and his goal oriented approach to practice.

But the most imporant thing I took away from the camp is something that applies to art as much as it does music. Janet Davis is as good of a teacher as I've ever met. She knows her subject forwards and backwards and can explain it easily. She also exudes patience and acceptance to put the student at ease.

One of the many things Janet said really resonated with me. A couple of times she made the comment "In music, there are questions and there are answers". She was applying it to the chords in songs, such as when a tune leaves the audience hanging with a tense V chord, versus the resolution of returning to the I chord. For example, a "question" would be the part of Amazing Grace that goes "...saved a wretch like me...". That "me" leaves you in anticipation. It asks a question. Later, that question is answered on "found" in "...lost, but now I'm found".

The same theory applies in artwork, and it is another way of looking at composition that I'm eager to employ. In a painting, some passages should be a question, or create a tension, that leads the viewer to another passage that brings resolution or clarity. That is why you might see a painting that is technically amazing and very detailed, but isn't as compelling to you as another that leaves more to the imagination. I am very grateful to Janet for giving me that one profound concept.

Above is a video I did the other night. I still have a long way to go, but you can see I've made a lot of progress if you go back and look at one of my videos from August.

Next week I'll wrap up the telling of my camp weekend and tell you all about the perigee-syzygy.

• Don Thacker's Online Art Journal
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