young players

Holidays can be the best of times, often with families close at hand. Gift-giving is on our minds, with the challenge: “enjoyable and useful” to the recipient.

Kids in the 8-18 zone but also adults of any age are prime candidates to receive a musical instrument. Notice I didn’t just say “banjo”…sometimes the best thing a banjo player (you, I presume) can give a relative is an instrument that goes well with a banjo!… Read More

Ah youth! I still remember my years as a teenaged musician and how much excitement and energy I had for learning and playing bluegrass. Fifty years later, I love to be around kids in that state of mind. Kids today have it better than we had it, I tell you!… Read More

Amber Waves is a talented Colorado family band that I started coaching last summer. I met them when one of the teenage twin daughters, Katie Costello, attended my banjo camp on scholarship from the Colorado Bluegrass Music Society. The Costellos are living a version of “the American dream”— traveling as a family (4 kids, the youngest is 6) in an old converted school bus, hitting mostly RV parks in the Sun Belt this winter, busking for a living…and making it!… Read More

It’s been an interesting few months lately for the banjo in the media…. A couple of new 5-string stars are burning up the TV waves: One’s a 66 year-old “overnight sensation” Hollywood celebrity who’s blended his considerable creativity, digital dexterity, and off- the-wall humor into (yet another) new career—as the banjo’s Victor Borge, filling concert halls and even holding Paul McCartney’s feet to the banjo fire.… Read More

I’ve been “playing in the street” since I was a teenager, going back to my pre-college summer, at the short-lived Freedomland amusement park in NY City. My folk trio played in a high-traffic spot for a few hours, and then took the coins from the open guitar case and spent them all, replacing the fluid we sweated that afternoon.… Read More

For the past several years Joan and I have been invited to perform and teach in Morehead, KY by one of our favorite musicians and people, Don Rigsby. Don heads the Kentucky Center for Traditional Music, bringing attention and learning to music there in the eastern part of the state, between Lexington and West Virginia.… Read More