Routes to Roots I
Throughout history there’ve been schools of music. Archaeologists have found teaching methods from ancient Assyria, clay tablets of music notation. Musicologists have learned how to play the tunes. A schooling that survived millennia.
Parallel to and preceding that path is the “Folk” way. Aural and oral tradition passed on through families and communities from elders to youngers.
One of the most influential of the Folk traditions comes through the United States, primarily from the southern states where a unique combination of available or home-made instruments, immigrants’ traditions, isolation, religious and secular needs, personal and social requirement for music brewed a complex, heady, vibrant stew of musics.
Isolation is one of the most important factors in that process. Everyone was desperate to hear music. It was scarce. Everyone had to figure it out for themselves.
Tut Taylor’s story from the Fretboard Journal, issue #21, is representative of many players’ journey to being a Player. In the second sentence he speaks to the use of Music.
“We lived way out in the sticks.
So that’s why I play the way I do:
I didn’t have anyone to play with.”
- Chet Atkins
Tut Taylor
Music meant a lot to a lot of people back then. I mean, it relieved their frustrations and made ‘em see past tomorrow. Like Dolly Parton said one time, “We didn’t know we were poor until somebody told us.’ And it was the same way with us.
My dad worked on the WPA back then, the Works Progress Administration. He made $7.50 every two weeks. I grew up on the Oconee River down in Georgia, six miles from town, and our mode of transportation was two mules and a wagon. My folks went to town about once a month. Sometimes, they’d let some of the kids go with them. That was the first time I really heard good pickin’ and singin’, other than my family.
Two street musicians — both of them were from Macon — they’d come over about midmorning on a Saturday, and they walked the streets all day, pickin’ and singin’. A lot of times, they’d stop, you know, we’d put money in the cup. As soon as we got to town, and my daddy tied a wagon up under a shade tree there at one of the stores, I hit the ground running ‘ I was looking for them. And we could hear ‘em a block or two away. Man, what a great sound.
There was a black guy an a white guy. And I don’t remember who played what, but one of ‘em played an old Martin, and the other one played an old, black, beat-up Gibson. Man, they sounded so good, and I’d just follow them around like a little puppy all day. I stopped when they stopped, walked when they walked. Those were real musicians, you know, with this gutsy singing, from the heart. I don’t know, something about that sound — I still hear it, and I’m thankful I got my memories, ‘cause, man, I can tune them in and go back and do a lot of things.
Later on, I got with some old boys down in high school. So we’d get together every day at lunchtime and play at this little store right up the street from the high school. As I grew up, I was exposed to more people, and the radio station come to town, and we had us a little band by then called Little Georgia Playboys. In fact, I’ve still got a piece of my ’36 Plymouth, Little Georgia Playboys painted on the back of it.
And then my buddy and I got to playing square dances, and that was making a little money. Back then, World War II, that’s when juke joints became popular. And the term was, “Let’s go jukin’”. One particular place in our little town every Friday night would have a square dance. So they got me and my buddy to come out and play for the square dance. And they’d say that we come and play, they’d give us what money we took in at the door.
My buddy’s mother was the doorkeeper and admission was 50 cents. Well, we done quite well. Like, one night in particular, I think we made $12.50 apiece, which was a awful lot of money. A lot of people didn’t even make $12.50 a week back then.
I had heard scuttlebutt that he was playing a two-necked guitar, and this was before information was so easy to get. She wrote me back on a penny postcard.
Everyone’s got their heroes, and, of course, I had mine. But I’ll tell you something strange; you might have experienced this in your own career. You start playing and you begin to hear these guys — they play so good and so well. Well, I found out that the more I learned and the more I played, they became less and less. And they didn’t play any less or anything, but I came to know what they were doing. And it sounded a little different after you really get to know what they’re doing. But there’s nothing like the magic of hearing whoever it is for the first time ‘ or first few times, you know? You can’t take that away.
I learned a long time ago that the white space on a sign is very important. It’s more important than anything else, ‘cause you get too busy or too much on there, and you can’t see the picture. And music’s the same way: that space is wonderful.
I didn’t want to copy anybody, because I couldn’t do it. That’s the reason I came up with my own stuff, because it’s what I could play. I wish I had paid more attention to myself back over the years, ‘cause there’s all the stuff that I’ve done, and I have no idea how it came about. I don’t know what sparked my interest, you know, to play a tune and then put some kind of name on it; I just did it. No influence from anybody or anything. I just made up tunes for myself, my own interest.
Well, you know, it’s funny: Nobody ever explained to me, when I was growing up, what it would be like to be old. Nobody prepared me for it. So one day, I woke up and here I am, old. And it’s kind of wonderful. I get an opportunity to think back on life and especially all the musical influences and all the good times we had.
“If you’re lucky in this world you’ll be born in the country
and at an early age somebody will give you a guitar
and you’ll play it with your [right hand] fingers.
That’s what it’s all about.”
- Chet Atkins
Is the above the only way to be an authentic musician. Do we have to be raised in the country. In isolation and desperation to hear other musicians. Live in a world without the tsunami of today’s instant, mass communication, drowning in YTube sources.
What we can take away from those rural days of yore is the player’s drive to be a musician, to be a better player. Maybe it’s not their commitment to being a musician. Maybe they had no choice. Maybe they willingly volunteered their submission to the demands of Music.
What they had was a life of hard work in rural circumstances. They were outside more, heard the sounds of nature more. Heard silence more. Their exposure to influences was fewer and farther between. They had more time to stew over what they'd come across. They became desperate to find new input. They came up with their own.
Earl Scruggs and his sister practiced timing by both starting at the front door of the house playing the same tune. They'd walk around the house in opposite directions and have to be in the same time when they met up at the back door.
Maybe I don’t have that mysterious given gift of Chet Atkins. But I can emulate his practice routine.
“I go home every night
and get my guitar
and practice
until I go to sleep with it in my lap,
as I have always done.”
– Chet Atkins
Throughout history there’ve been schools of music. Archaeologists have found teaching methods from ancient Assyria, clay tablets of music notation. Musicologists have learned how to play the tunes. A schooling that survived millennia.
Parallel to and preceding that path is the “Folk” way. Aural and oral tradition passed on through families and communities from elders to youngers.
One of the most influential of the Folk traditions comes through the United States, primarily from the southern states where a unique combination of available or home-made instruments, immigrants’ traditions, isolation, religious and secular needs, personal and social requirement for music brewed a complex, heady, vibrant stew of musics.
Isolation is one of the most important factors in that process. Everyone was desperate to hear music. It was scarce. Everyone had to figure it out for themselves.
Tut Taylor’s story from the Fretboard Journal, issue #21, is representative of many players’ journey to being a Player. In the second sentence he speaks to the use of Music.
“We lived way out in the sticks.
So that’s why I play the way I do:
I didn’t have anyone to play with.”
- Chet Atkins
Tut Taylor
Music meant a lot to a lot of people back then. I mean, it relieved their frustrations and made ‘em see past tomorrow. Like Dolly Parton said one time, “We didn’t know we were poor until somebody told us.’ And it was the same way with us.
My dad worked on the WPA back then, the Works Progress Administration. He made $7.50 every two weeks. I grew up on the Oconee River down in Georgia, six miles from town, and our mode of transportation was two mules and a wagon. My folks went to town about once a month. Sometimes, they’d let some of the kids go with them. That was the first time I really heard good pickin’ and singin’, other than my family.
Two street musicians — both of them were from Macon — they’d come over about midmorning on a Saturday, and they walked the streets all day, pickin’ and singin’. A lot of times, they’d stop, you know, we’d put money in the cup. As soon as we got to town, and my daddy tied a wagon up under a shade tree there at one of the stores, I hit the ground running ‘ I was looking for them. And we could hear ‘em a block or two away. Man, what a great sound.
There was a black guy an a white guy. And I don’t remember who played what, but one of ‘em played an old Martin, and the other one played an old, black, beat-up Gibson. Man, they sounded so good, and I’d just follow them around like a little puppy all day. I stopped when they stopped, walked when they walked. Those were real musicians, you know, with this gutsy singing, from the heart. I don’t know, something about that sound — I still hear it, and I’m thankful I got my memories, ‘cause, man, I can tune them in and go back and do a lot of things.
Later on, I got with some old boys down in high school. So we’d get together every day at lunchtime and play at this little store right up the street from the high school. As I grew up, I was exposed to more people, and the radio station come to town, and we had us a little band by then called Little Georgia Playboys. In fact, I’ve still got a piece of my ’36 Plymouth, Little Georgia Playboys painted on the back of it.
And then my buddy and I got to playing square dances, and that was making a little money. Back then, World War II, that’s when juke joints became popular. And the term was, “Let’s go jukin’”. One particular place in our little town every Friday night would have a square dance. So they got me and my buddy to come out and play for the square dance. And they’d say that we come and play, they’d give us what money we took in at the door.
My buddy’s mother was the doorkeeper and admission was 50 cents. Well, we done quite well. Like, one night in particular, I think we made $12.50 apiece, which was a awful lot of money. A lot of people didn’t even make $12.50 a week back then.
I had heard scuttlebutt that he was playing a two-necked guitar, and this was before information was so easy to get. She wrote me back on a penny postcard.
Everyone’s got their heroes, and, of course, I had mine. But I’ll tell you something strange; you might have experienced this in your own career. You start playing and you begin to hear these guys — they play so good and so well. Well, I found out that the more I learned and the more I played, they became less and less. And they didn’t play any less or anything, but I came to know what they were doing. And it sounded a little different after you really get to know what they’re doing. But there’s nothing like the magic of hearing whoever it is for the first time ‘ or first few times, you know? You can’t take that away.
I learned a long time ago that the white space on a sign is very important. It’s more important than anything else, ‘cause you get too busy or too much on there, and you can’t see the picture. And music’s the same way: that space is wonderful.
I didn’t want to copy anybody, because I couldn’t do it. That’s the reason I came up with my own stuff, because it’s what I could play. I wish I had paid more attention to myself back over the years, ‘cause there’s all the stuff that I’ve done, and I have no idea how it came about. I don’t know what sparked my interest, you know, to play a tune and then put some kind of name on it; I just did it. No influence from anybody or anything. I just made up tunes for myself, my own interest.
Well, you know, it’s funny: Nobody ever explained to me, when I was growing up, what it would be like to be old. Nobody prepared me for it. So one day, I woke up and here I am, old. And it’s kind of wonderful. I get an opportunity to think back on life and especially all the musical influences and all the good times we had.
“If you’re lucky in this world you’ll be born in the country
and at an early age somebody will give you a guitar
and you’ll play it with your [right hand] fingers.
That’s what it’s all about.”
- Chet Atkins
Is the above the only way to be an authentic musician. Do we have to be raised in the country. In isolation and desperation to hear other musicians. Live in a world without the tsunami of today’s instant, mass communication, drowning in YTube sources.
What we can take away from those rural days of yore is the player’s drive to be a musician, to be a better player. Maybe it’s not their commitment to being a musician. Maybe they had no choice. Maybe they willingly volunteered their submission to the demands of Music.
What they had was a life of hard work in rural circumstances. They were outside more, heard the sounds of nature more. Heard silence more. Their exposure to influences was fewer and farther between. They had more time to stew over what they'd come across. They became desperate to find new input. They came up with their own.
Earl Scruggs and his sister practiced timing by both starting at the front door of the house playing the same tune. They'd walk around the house in opposite directions and have to be in the same time when they met up at the back door.
Maybe I don’t have that mysterious given gift of Chet Atkins. But I can emulate his practice routine.
“I go home every night
and get my guitar
and practice
until I go to sleep with it in my lap,
as I have always done.”
– Chet Atkins