2019 Debut : Feb 23, Moonlight Hunt Club, 7:00 Pm

                  (Playing on the Porch of A.P. Carter's Childhood Home)

 A unique local music educational program will be making its 2019 debut on Saturday February 23. Pasture #3, an Americana and Roots music band is an outgrowth of the programs at Mill Swamp Indian Horses in Smithfield. On Monday nights for over a year a group of about six adults and twice that number of young people have been gathering to learn to play and perform songs ranging from Carter Family classics, Blues, Gospel, Old Time, and even to some of Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle, and Gram Parson's best lyrics.

 Often starting from scratch and without written music, program participants have learned to accompany the songs on fiddles, guitars, banjos, mandolins, ukuleles, dobro, autoharps, bouzouki, tenor guitar, tenor banjo, three stringed wooden banjo, wash tub bass, and even the wash board. All teaching is in the oral tradition. Rehearsals rarely even include sheets of lyrics.

This is music played and learned as it was in rural areas of the nation for the past few hundred years. Instruction itself is quite sparse--sometimes as sparse as "listen to the song-play the song." Or, "Now this is what a D chord looks like on a guitar--now find those notes on your instrument." and even, "Don't be singing this song like you are happy about it! "Circle Be Unbroken" is about your Mama's funeral!"

 And some how it all comes together. When the group steps up to the microphone the songs are played with the reverence and respect that they deserve. Over the years, portions of the group have shown up at area local mics, especially Victorian Station in Hampton. No matter how many young performers he has had to find mics for, Vaughn Deel has always been supportive and encouraging of the young performers on the stages of the open mics that he has headed up.

 Performances have grown to appearances at the Chippoaks Fall Festival, private dinners, and  several local churches. The February 23 performance will be at 7:00 pm at Moonlight Hunt Club, 8066 Moonlight Road, Smithfield Va 23430. Tickets are $10.00 for adults and $7.00 for kids under twelve. All proceeds from the event go to fund programming at Mill Swamp Indian Horses. Tickets may be obtained by contacting Steve Edwards at msindianhorses@aol.com.  See www.millswampindianhorses.com for information about the work of this local non-profit corporation

Chippoaks Performance Oct 20 Fall Harvest Festival

If you want to hear some ancient songs performed by a group of hard working young musicians come on out to Chippoaks on Saturday Oct 20. We will be doing two sets during the Fall Harvest Festival. Where else will you see young musicians passing around instruments and performing old Carter Family songs, a Woody Guthrie song or two, and even a great Steve Earle song? You might even hear a couple that Gram Parsons or Townes Van Zandt wrote. We will also have a formerly wild Corolla stallion along with us.

Chippoaks Plantation State Park in Surry Virginia--just across the ferry from Jamestown.

We Talked About Griots

Yesterday we had students from Rivermont School out at the horse lot. One of the boys had never been out before. After we worked horses for a while he surprised me by looking over at the banjo on the porch bench and asked me if I could teach him how to play it.

 We are in the year 2018 and this young African American teen looked over at America's most African American instrument and asked me if I could teach him how to play it.

We talked about the African roots of banjos. We talked about the history and development of banjos over the past few centuries. We talked abut three string banjos. We talked about wooden headed banjos. We talked about four string banjos and we talked about five string banjos.

We talked about oral tradition. We talked about the importance of rhythm and repetition  in making oral tradition easier to learn and pass down. We talked about the blues as an example of rhythm and repetition. We talked about Charlie Patton, Psalms, and the  poetry of the prophet Amos.

We talked about how Jimmy Rogers used that tradition and the courage that it took for him to compose and perform "TB Blues" at the very time that he was dying from the ravages of tuberculosis.

And we talked about the griot--the African keeper of the cultural tradition of his people--the walking library of history and tradition who taught and preached through the ancient songs that he helped preserve and carry on.

And we talked about the African concept of  "Sankofa" --reaching back into history to bring forward the wisdom of the past.

And later I could not help but pause and consider what had happened.  How many times--how many thousands upon thousands of times, has a young black man looked at the face of an old man with a banjo and simply asked, "Could you teach me how to play that?"

And how many thousands upon thousands of times, both here and in Africa, has that simple question produced a discussion of history,culture, wisdom, art, beauty and connectedness.

In a time when our nation is divided more than it has been in at least fifty years and maybe one hundred and fifty years, few things are worth seeking more than connectedness--and "Sankofa."

Why Teach Little Ones To Play Copperhead Road?

This year is the 30th anniversary of the release of Copperhead Road by Steve Earle. The song works on several levels--powerful song, full of drive, causes outbreaks of dancing if one is given to such things, simple, blunt lyrics, but most of all, extraordinary social analysis.

I know of no song that better illustrates the ties between poverty, violence, crime, substance abuse, and war. Listening to the song and reflecting deeply on its meaning gives one an opportunity to do what great lyrics always do--to be picked up and put in another place at another time.

Transcending time and space can only be accomplished with art in its purest form. These simple lyrics are art in its purest form. But is the song appropriate for kids to learn to perform? It is never too early for a kid to begin to understand other people and their struggles. It is never too early for a kid to begin to learn about compassion and empathy. It is never too early for a kid to learn to seek solutions for social pain instead of merely assigning blame. For the moment it is fine for a little one to only think of that song as the one with the neat set of notes at the end of each line. Eventually they will either ask what it means, or they will figure out on their own what it means when the protagonist sings, "They draft white trash first round here anyway."

Music has more than one purpose. There is a place for frivolity in music. There is a place for the beauty of instrumentals with out lyrics at all, but music achieves its highest value when it teaches wisdom.

How old should a child be before it begins to understand  that the world is filled with unspeakable suffering? I suggest that it be at the same age that the child is taught that it is the child's obligation to do everything in its power to reduce that suffering. That means learning to share, to stand up to bullies, and to stand up for those who are bullied.

These lessons cannot be taught too soon. If we want kids to grow up to be moral, ethical, compassionate adults we cannot keep them on a constant ration of artistic baby food.

 Mary would not have had that little lamb if someone  had dropped napalm on it.

The Tools That Help Tell The Story

Going from left to right--a wooden five string banjo that my father and I made in the 90's, a three string wooden Neely banjo made in Damascus, Virginia in the 80's, an Appalachian dulcimer, an Oscar Schmidt autoharp, a bouzouki, and a Sigma guitar. We have added to this by having three fiddle players, a mandolin player, a ukulele player, a tenor banjo player, a dobro and wash tub bass player, a developing Cajon player , a washboard player and an occasional harmonica.

But it is the lyrics that matter most. These old songs often tell stories and these instruments don't distract from those stories. No jazz inspired instrumentals--just a lot of hammers, pull offs and slides to both follow, and at time lead, the human voice as it seeks to find the sound that goes best with each word that tells that story.

I always keep my eyes open for instruments that transform the spoken word to music. The one below should arrive this week.

A Phone Call That Changed My Life

I was an extreme traditionalist in my musical tastes for the first nearly 30 years of my life. I was interested in knowing the root of every old song that I played. I wanted to know its history and I wanted to know exactly how it was played. I had absolutely no interest in any song written after the Great Depression. I had no interest in modern song writers. I always figured that if a song needed to have been written, A.P. Carter would have written it.

I was interested in playing an instrument "correctly". Playing correctly meant playing the way everyone else did. That created a great deal of tension for me. I despise conformity and one of my greatest fears is to be accepted by any establishment, be it the established horse world, other lawyers, fashion arbiters, or culinary critics. If I do anything in conformity with the bland world around me you can be sure that it is a mere coincidence.

 An off hand statement made to me by a total stranger opened my musical world up around 1996. I began playing Carter Family songs about thirty years before that. After we got married Beth and I went to see her family in the mountains. I saw a traditional bluegrass band in which a teen age boy picked up an instrument that I had never seen before. Its fret board was diatonic like a mountain dulcimer. It had only three strings and the sound box was small, smaller even than a pie pan.

The sound intrigued me, but I had played music very little while in law school and suspected that performing was one of the things slowly slipping out of my new life as a lawyer and locally elected official. Like playing baseball it was simply something that I felt like I was aging out of.

I saw one of these instruments for sale in Abingdon. At the music store they referred to the instruments as a "Neely Banjo" or as a "Mountain Banjo".  There were no instruction books for this instrument. I decided to buy one and hope that I could find some way to learn to play it.

Eventually, I put together a thumb-lead style of playing that played the melody with a thumb pick while brushing the cord with my first two fingers. Throw in a lot of hammers that I used when playing and guitar and slides that I used when playing a mandolin and it sounded right good.

I had tht banjo for a long time before I noticed a little piece of paper inside. It had Mr. Neely's name and phone number. He had created this banjo. Finally I would be able to learn how to play it.

I hate talking on the phone and I hate talking to strangers, in general. But I was excited about this call. I got him on the line. He sounded very humble and perhaps a bit shy. I told him what I had and I asked him several questions about the instrument.

"What kind of wood is it made from?"
"That depends, I made them from different odds and ends that I had around. What does the top look like?"
"Looks like spruce to me. And the back looks like curly maple."
"Sounds about right I made several out of spruce and maple."

Now that the chit-chat was over I was ready to get to the heart of the call.
"Mr. Neely, how do you play this instrument?" He answered without the slightest hint of irony."
"Son, anyway you want to play it is fine with me. Tell you the truth, I never good much music out of them myself. You play it how you want to."

I hung that phone up a free man. Never after that have I told anyone that I was teaching that you were supposed to play an instrument any given way. Instead I show them some different styles of playing and let them go look for the sound that they want.

The five string wooden banjo in the bottom picture is one that Daddy and I made in the nineties. I have never learned a three finger roll and I have never mastered clawhammer banjo. I enjoy the music that I get out of it playing something based on what I have read of Maybelle Carter's banjo playing style. I am not aware of her ever being recorded playing banjo.

I am bothered by it because the high string does not drone on a regular basis.  I read a description in recent years by a man who saw Maybelle Carter play banjo. His description seems to match  the style that I developed, which was based only on descriptions and my hunches.

I like the sound that style produces for many songs. Most other people do not even get far enough to evaluate the quality of the sound. Instead I have perplexed looking people who explain to me that that is not how you are supposed to play a banjo.

I just think of Mr. Neely and tell them that any way they want to play a banjo is fine with me.

A Worn Out Porch

This picture is from a couple of years ago. We were performing for the 30th Anniversary of the Smithfield Times outdoor concerts. We have many different participants in our music program now. This is the opening post of a brand new blog that will focus on the music program at Mill Swamp Indian Horses.

As we move along more of this will make sense. At first blush what we do might seem confusing. We are a non-profit breed conservation program that works to prevent the extinction of several strains of Colonial Spanish horses and other breeds of Heritage livestock. We teach riding lessons. We have one of the largest and most diverse herds of American Indian Horses in the nation. We teach microbial pasture management and soil and water conservation.

We have a range of educational programs and we do every bit of it without a single paid staff person. We are located outside of Smithfield, Virginia. More on the program can be found at our website www.millswampindianhorses.com.

And we teach/learn Americana and Roots music to any program participant that wants to learn to play an instrument and perform on stage. We teach music in the traditional form of unstructured exploration and experimentation that kept so many of the ancient songs, that were the sound track for rural life in America for two hundred years, alive. We don't read music. In fact, only a few of the songs that we do have written lyrics to learn from. We do not teach a musical discipline. We teach musical freedom. We encourage immersion in the music to the degree that much of the instruction can be left unsaid. Perhaps it is better to say that we give direction and encouragement instead of music lessons. For example, instruction might simply be "Figure out which notes make up a "D" chord and when you get to the end of the first line let your fingers dance on those notes while keeping time with your right hand."

 At the moment our instruments include bouzouki, mandolins, three string wooden banjo, dulcimers, guitars, tenor banjo, fiddles, cajon, dobro, wash board, wash tub bass, harmonica, ukulele, and auto harp. Participants learn the history of their instruments, the history and meaning of the songs and how those songs fit into both the time in which they were created and into the present moment. They learn the connection between music that grew from the traditions of poor white families and that that grew from the traditions of poor black families. They learn to understand the power of songs that kept rural people going when everything around them seemed helpless. They learn to see the thread that runs between the Carter Family, Charlie Patton, Steve Earl, Townes Van Zandt, Gram Parsons, Woody Gutherie, and Lead Belly. They learn the meaning of what it is to find meaning in life.

Future posts will focus on finding that meaning. We also just set up a facebook page Pasture #3. Check it out and follow it regularly. It will cover where we will be performing and will feature some great pictures of young people finding meaning through music.