Andy Chase

Since getting my gourd banjo the other week, I’ve been exploring some old minstrel tunes, played in the so-called “stroke style.” The Banjo Factory’s scans of Briggs’ Banjo Instructor from 1855 are an amazing resource, and I’ve already plugged a few into Tabledit.

If you’re not familiar with the tune, here’s Tim Twiss’ fine rendition on YouTube:

vinyl
Originally uploaded by Usonian

My brother kindly gifted me an old Garrard GT12 turntable a while back, and this week I finally got hold of a new cartridge plus up a few albums to tide me over until I get my own old stash out of whatever closet it’s hiding in at our parents’ house.

There is nothing to compare to the physicality of vinyl records, both the discs themselves and all those gorgeous big sleeves… cover art used to be such a big part of the overall package. It’s been about 20 years since I had my own turntable… how I’ve missed it!

The new Audio Technica AT92E cartridge sounds great, but there’s noticable wow in the playback - time to hunt down a replacement belt too.

Last night I decided to get more familiar with CCK and Views integration by way of rebuilding the Chords module, which is functional in its current state but doesn’t do much.

So, I’ve begun work on Chords 2 for Drupal 6. Major architectural changes:

• The original module has been split into two:
  • The Chords API module provides basic functionality around calculating and rendering chords (and keeps the original module namespace)
  • The Chords UI module contains the simple chord builder tool from the original module.
  • New modules are on the way:
  • A Chords Field module will provide a new CCK Chord field and some useful formatters
  • A Chords Views module may provide Views 2 integration, if Chords Field doesn’t cover it.

I know better than to state a timetable, as these things have a way of languishing when other shiny objects catch my interest. However, if you’re interested in playing with the latest and greatest code, check out the CVS HEAD.

I've been using iTunes for over six years now, and I rely pretty heavily on ratings and playcounts to create any number of Smart Playlists, most of which revolve around finding music in a particular genre that is highly rated OR frequently played AND has not been played in a while.

The result is not unlike the mix tapes of favorite music that I used to make for myself, back when I had few enough albums that picking a mere 90 minutes' worth of faves was not a laughable notion.

But having one giant, never-ending Smart Playlist is depressing in some ways; I could start my "unrecent favorites" playlist and never reach the end, thanks to the "Live Updating" feature. The major thing missing from having a massive digital music library is that sense of deliberateness that used to accompany listing to music on physical media. In particular, cassettes and vinyl LP's, which required the listener to get up, flip sides, and resume playing.

For a while now I've been paying homage in the nerdliest possible way to the act of flipping over a humble 45-minute per side mix tape. I started with a smart playlist titled "Unrecent alt/rock Faves", limited it to 45 minutes, and then unchecked the 'Live Updating Box'; after all of the songs play, I edit the playlist, re-check 'Live Updating', click 'OK', then re-edit the playlist and un-check 'Live Updating' again. Kind of a pain, but it does break the music up into nice listenable chunks.

Just now I decided to bite the bullet and hack together an AppleScript that consolidated this silliness into one step, and managed to pull it off. You need two playlists: The aforementioned "Unrecent Alt/Rock Faves" smart playlist (limited to 45 minutes, with the 'Live Updating' option checked) and a new regular playlist called "Unrecent Faves Cassette". As far as I can tell, there's no way to alter the 'Live Updating' attribute of a Smart Playlist via AppleScript, so this method just copies from a Smart Playlist to a static one.

Here's the script:

tell application "iTunes"
	set theSmartPL to playlist "Unrecent Alt/Rock Faves"
	set theDumbPL to playlist "Unrecent Faves Cassette"
	
	delete every track of theDumbPL
	
	set selectedTracks to every track of theSmartPL
	
	repeat with aTrack in selectedTracks
		duplicate aTrack to theDumbPL
	end repeat
	
	reveal theDumbPL
	play theDumbPL
	
end tell

When saved in ~/Library/iTunes/Scripts it shows up in the iTunes Scripts Menu, and when run it wipes out the current contents of 'Unrecent Faves Cassette' playlist, replacing it with the newly updated contents of the 'Unrecent Alt/Rock Faves' playlist. It then selects and plays the Cassette playlist. I can even run the script from Quicksilver! The only thing that would make it better is have the script play a .wav file of a cassette being flipped over before re-starting, but I can't seem find a free one online.

You can download the .scpt file as an attachment, but if you want to name your playlists something else you'll need to open it in Script Editor.app and tweak it yourself.

Old-time tune performed by Crookneck John.

Recorded tonight on an iPhone using Four Track, slightly mixed with Garageband. I should really re-record the guitar part, but it’s getting late.

My friend Jason e-mailed me out of the blue last week to inform me he had purchased a $25 violin kit from ebay.

The one time I inquired casually as to what one might expect to pay for a good quality, entry-level violin kit (instrument, bow, case, accoutrements) at Stamell Stringed Instruments I was given a figure in the $700 dollar range - that was for a Pacific Rim import, professionally set up, that you wouldn’t outgrow as soon as you learn how to play Boil Them Cabbage Down.

Despite that point of reference, and personal experience bearing out that you really should begin with the best instrument you can afford, that $25 figure really got under my skin. Much like the time I bought a $25 ukulele, I gave in to temptation because at that price there’s really nothing to lose. I expect that the instrument headed my way is complete rubbish, and that I’ll be doing myself a disservice by trying to learn how to play on it, but we’ll see. In the meantime I’ll be lurking at http://fiddlehangout.org.

A couple of nights ago I spent a good two or three hours playing my poor guitar (bought in March and hardly touched since, due to various personal-life goings on), banjo, and learning Ducks on the Pond on mandolin. (By the way, a very nice guitar recording and tab can be found at http://www.raccoonbend.com/flatpick/tablature/tab_main.html.)

Sunny, mild, early-summer day + Back in Black = utter perfection.

Somebody put this at the end of a post on the Mandolin Café message boards yesterday:

“Old-time music: It’s better than it sounds!”

It can mean whatever you want it to mean, but I think it’s just about perfect.

I got to play some banjo on the porch last evening. It was the first time I’ve played out there this year, and the first time I had picked up my banjo in a few weeks.

I don’t think there’s a better match for porch picking.