Waiting on a Sunny Day

or Stand Back - Key Change

There's a bit of a lull with the Charmers at the moment - trying to get mick and keef in the studio at the same time is a nightmare! So I've been messing about with some stuff that we might do? i've always liked this Springsteen song so thought it was time to torture myself (and you) and sing an play. You might notice the subtle attempt to manage the key change in the middle...
It's in C and goes up to D.. chords C Am F C G repeat. awkward key change D Bm G D A E G D back to C

Happy 40th Birthday Mark

A Bit More From the Hill

After a slightly rambling instrumental version of Spancil Hill last night, we had a more focused go with vocals.

Ale Fellow Well Met

I haven't played with Johnathan for ages but we always used to play Spancil Hill we're a bit rusty playing guitar and banjo but there's always room for improvement, and J turned up with ale so what's to complain about!

Just Like Aunt Bertha Used to Make it

Well, maybe with another 40 years of practice!
After watching Aunt Bertha I realised she was playing this in G, but I've only ever found tab for Soldiers Joy in C or Double C. So I sat down with a pad and paper and two banjos, one in Double C and one in G and had a go at transposing it. It's the first time I've ever done this, so it took a while. I first started playing the melody note for note on the G tuned banjo, but this isn't right. So I worked out the notes for it in C and then moved them all up 4 steps and the notes are now in G. That's not quite the end of it as it's taken a bit of slight re-arranging to get a similar feel in G. The C tuning is so much lower that you don't quite get the same deep bass notes, but instead you get a much brighter rolling feel like Aunt Bertha gets. In G its also possible to play a version of the melody with fewer hammer-ons etc make it much simpler to learn.

I haven't been able to find any tab for Soldier's Joy in G so if I get chance I'll try and tab out my simplified version.


The double C version though gives you more range to play the melody in at least two different ways within the first 5 frets and it has that cranky old time feel too.

Muttbunkey - My Kind of Morris

The Muttbunkey dropped me a line the other day and on visiting his extensive folk archive on Youtube I've picked this dance performed at the Druids Arms, Loughborough as my favorite piece of Morris dancing for many a year.

Gid Tanner & The Skillet Lickers-Soldiers Joy-1929

Soldier's Joy

My new favouritestest song ever!
I've had time to tinker a bit with the tune and I think I'm getting the timings better.
there are also a load of different tabs for this on David's Clawhammer banjo site

Bangin Away on the Big Dog...

or Soldier's Joy

After looking at Aunt Bertha on You Tube I thought I'd better have a go at learning Soldier's Joy. I think the big bass sound on the Rutherford banjo suits it.

Make Your Own Banjo Part 7

Finally, after months of trying I think I've got it right. I spent about six hours today fitting, stringing, unfitting, refitting, restringing, rejigging etc etc, but I think I finally got the neck right. I had to cut a slot in the pot where there perch pole fits to the body and loosen the bolt and slide it up and down until the action came right. I then cut a small shim which fits behind the neck heel and a plug to fix the perch pole bolt in the correct place and suddenly she sounded sweet... as a nut!

She needed a bit more tweeking to get the final sound right, as a couple of the strings buzzed, but I recut the slots on the nut and once they were slightly wider bingo - no buzz. It's some relief to get it right at long last, mainly for all the effort Harry has put in. Every time we it and it was wrong I was gutted for him. He's really found a creative outlet for his carpentry skills and he's dead keen to make a second instrument as proof that it wasn't a fluke, so I felt pressure to get a set up that worked so he can crack on with #2.

I've always held Harry in high esteem because he, and lots of my older relatives, are so practical and capable, and its been a rare opportunity to work on something together as equals. His skills with wood and my (meagre) knowledge of the instrument and I think we've both got something special out of it. As my mate Mark said 'That is a real legacy, something to keep and cherish for ever'.

all I can say is that I've learned a real lesson too.
2 degrees is a mighty small angle but without it you are stuffed!

Make Your Own Banjo Part 6

or The Esoteric Secrets of the Luthier
I haven't done any updates on the Rutherford banjo for a while. That's because we've been having a bit of a rethink. The original set up was made with the neck parallel to the head and this produced a loud banjo with a very high action. It also produced a neck which became progressively sharper as you played up it. Although harry and I were pleased with the first set up it obviously wasn't right. The problem was how to fix it?

We used Roger Siminoff's Constructing a 5-String Banjo: A Complete Technical Guide which is good and has a full set of plans, but there always seems to be something on which he goes a bit quiet - the angle of the neck. In his plans the heel is shown with a very slight angle at the point at which it meets the pot. Originally we thought this might be a mistake in the printing as this isn't mentioned anywhere in the book, at least not explicitly.

Not to run Siminoff's book down its great for getting all the components in the right order for building, you also need so advice on setting up, so I also bought How to Set Up the Best Sounding Banjo by Roger too! This book gives you the other half of the story, getting all the bits you made to fit together and make the right sound, but the crucial detail of the vital neck angle only shown in the plans and never mentioned is only mentioned in one paragraph in this otherwise excellent book!!!!

I spoke to friend who made a living as a luthier and he said something very telling, 'If we told you all the secrets you'd make it for yourself and I'd be out of business'. But at least with this little hint we knew where we were going wrong. The tricky part has been putting it right. Over the last few weeks we have reset the neck twice the first time we over compensated and the strings touched the frets - action too low. harry has since reset the neck again and hopefully this time it'll be right.

At the moment she's sitting here waiting to be reassembled and restrung - fingers crossed.

I wanna be... Aunt Bertha