Banjoray

[Ptarmigan]

WELCOME ;D

Hello Banjoray

Welcome to the Old Time Music Forum.

We are all delighted that you are now a member and we look forward to your contributions to the discussions here.

Please tell us a little bit about yourself, your music & your Old Time Instruments.

Then, why not hop over to our Where do you live & play your Old Time Music? poll and click on your own area!

Cheers
'Ptarmigan'

[banjoray]

Hi - I've been playing banjo since 1961. I managed to con my parents into buying me one for passing my A levels, and they probably regretted it for the rest of their lives.... but I didn't. I started playing trad jazz at Aberystwyth university on my first (tenor) banjo tuned like a plectrum banjo (CGBD) because I could only find the one chord book. It worked fine. After a couple years I'd helped found the college folk club and bought a five string in a local antique shop. In 1964 a friend played me a tape of some copied recordings of Wade Ward, Hobart Smith, Dock Boggs, Doc Watson, the Carter Family and the New Lost City Ramblers and I was hooked and landed. We formed a band called the Virginia Bootleggers and appeared on BBC Wales - I think we must have been about the first Old Time on Welsh television (and probably the last as well!). After leaving Uni I used to play a few things at local folk clubs for a while, temporarily joined a folk band in Yorkshire in the early 70s. I married Marilyn and then we became weekend mountaineers and spent 25 years rock climbing and hill-walking. I picked up my banjo maybe once a month. Then in in 1997 I skied over a small cliff in Austria and badly injured my right knee, which severely cramped my style. I decided it was time to revive my musical interests and try and be a better player. I discovered on the internet that there was an Old Time festival half an hour away at Gainsborough in Feb 98 and I went along. My old hero Tom Paley was on stage with the New Deal String Band and I seemed to know the choruses of a lot of their stuff. I realized I'd come home. I bought a new banjo from Helmut Rheingans that weekend and joined the Slow Jam session led by John Shepherd of the Cotswold Mountain Boys, and found out about the regular session in Sheffield which I've been attending ever since. I've learned a stack of tunes, been to lots of festivals here and in the states, met a lot of fine people and even took up the fiddle - though I'll never be any good on it, it's great fun and helps the way I approach tunes on the banjo.
Cheers for now
Ray

[Ptarmigan]

Great intro Ray.

It's amazing how many Banjo players eventually take up the Fiddle.

Over here in Ireland they talk about Moving UP[/i] to the Fiddle! ;D

Sounds like your having a wonderful time with this music.

Cheers
Dick