My son Keaton loves to draw. At Kim’s suggestion, I commission him to draw the banjo for the cover of my upcoming release, While I Have Being. He labored for days on the project and ultimately produced the stunning work above.

Regretfully, I made the mistake of helping with the coloring. He was just completely drained from days of laboring on the drawing (which he took with his typical seriousness and intensity), and I wanted to free him of the burden. When we were done, I could tell Keaton wished that the final product had been exclusively his work. I was heartbroken that I had robbed him of that very appropriate satisfaction.

Being wholly committed to Kim’s brilliant concept for the cover and packaging, I soon realized that our colored work just didn’t achieve the aesthetic we were seeking. Ben’s sketch, on the other hand, nailed the concept and is featured on the back of the packaging and the CD itself. Keaton attended to Ben’s work and intuited why the drawing was so effective in the context of the project. Committed to satisfying his commissioner, Keaton set about transforming his detailed drawing into an “inked” black and white sketch. The exemplary result now graces the cover of the album.

Keaton received his well deserved commission. He now “gets” that art-making is sometimes arduous work. I have finally internalized what I should have already understood: never rob a child of the deep satisfaction that comes from struggling through the blood, sweat, and tears of a challenge.

While I Have Being features eleven solo, original banjo compositions. I tracked the pieces both here at CedarSmith studio, and in Salem, Oregon at Spring Hollow Sanctuary, a lovely, peaceful location where I was able to spend a week of uninterrupted tracking. Mixing and editing took place here at CedarSmith, and final mixes and mastering were done by the magic-eared Dale Adkins at Big Owl Studio in Salem, Oregon.

Packaging design is in-process and the first version produced by my friend, the exceptionally talented Tony Figoli, looks great. Another week or so of changes and tweaks and the whole project should be ready to submit for replication. I’m looking to set a release date of early December.

I will be building a website to promote the album at www.darrenjahn.com, where you can learn more about the project as well purchase the CD. The album will also be available for purchase at CD Baby, iTunes, Amazon MP3, Rhapsody, and other popular online vendors, as well as at Main Building Supply in Rogue River.

The New Banjo

I promised an update when the new banjo arrived. Well, here it is.

These were the words I sent Pat upon inspecting it the day it arrived:

This truly is a breathtaking instrument and true joy to play and hear. I know it has tunes hidden inside of it, and I can’t wait to discover them.

Here are the specs:

1. The pot: The Gothic™ pot has a tone ring made of Bilinga, one of Pat’s favorite tone woods. Below the tone ring is a layer of very highly figured Bubinga, a very thin ring of Wenge, then another ring of highly figured Bubinga. The bottom of the pot is trimmed with a layer of Palo Duro. The pot is stunningly beautiful. It carries 16 hooks and Doc’s handmade solid brass Oxbow” Armrest (this is not a standard wire armrest). It also features Doc’s Frailer’s Tension Hoop with built-in tailpiece and aged brass hardware.

 2. The neck: This neck features 11 pieces of wood in a complex and beautiful example of our joinery. The heel is matched, layer-by-layer to the pot. The primary wood of the neck is the same highly figured Bubinga found in the pot. The centerline woods are 2 strips of Bilinga with a midline strip of Wenge. Our low profile scalloped fretboard is made from Cameroon Ebony with inlaid bronze bar frets and a layer of Bilinga beneath. The peghead is matching Cameroon Ebony with an underlayment of Bilinga. The neck includes our hand sculpted 5th string zone, Doc’s Frailing Platform™, and Pat’s unique Tunneled 5th String which places all five tuners on our striking slotted peghead. .

The distinguishing features of the slotted peghead include 3 vintage style Waverly tuners (made in Montana) on the left, 2 on the right. This design, along with the 5th string tunnel and scalloped frets, give this banjo a look like no other. Pat’s tunneled 5th string neck design features a hand sculpted swell at the 5th string nut that allows for proper 5th string spacing up the neck while improving the natural feel and playing comfort as there is no 5th string tuner or tuner block obstructing movement as on most banjos.

 3. Other specifications:

• Scale Length: 24 inch
• Frets: Handmade bronze bar frets, Scalloped fretboard,13 frets on the left, 15 on the right
• Tuners: Waverly Slotted Head Tuners with Relic Finish
• Nut: Bone
• Width of neck at nut: 1 5/16″
• String height “above” 1st fret: 0.040
• String height “above” 12th fret: 3/16″
• Bridge: 7/8″ Bubinga Cathedral Bridge™
• Head: Skin, Custom dyed
• Strings: Nylgut Minstrel
• Armrest: Doc’s Oxbow™ Armrest
• Tailpiece: Doc’s Built-In Tailpiece™
• Tension Hoop: Doc’s Frailer’s Tension Hoop™

Patrick Huff of Doc’s Banjos has asked me to perform a selection of my work onstage at the upcoming NW Handmade Musical Instrument Exhibit near Portland, Oregon. I am honored and excited!

If you find yourself in the Portland area Saturday April 30th, swing by Marylhurst University and catch my performance at 1:45. Be sure to visit Doc’s exhibit and see the many other craftsman instrument builders. I can’t wait to see all those beautiful instruments!

I’ve decided not to post any more tunes until the record is complete because I want it to have some freshness and surprise for listeners. I intend to include eleven tunes; the most recent two are numbers six and seven.

I’ve also spent considerable effort in the studio working out the engineering details for capturing the banjo tone I’m after for the record. I’m pleased with the progress, but I still have more work to do.

My friend Pat of Doc’s Banjos will be replacing my renaissance head with a custom stained, thin skin head to “soften” my banjo’s tone a bit without losing the clarity and resonance that have been such a large part of the inspiration for my writing and playing.

Additionally, I am ebullient about the fact that Pat will soon be building me a new banjo. We want to develop an instrument with a unique voice, distinct from my #141, that will furnish tonal variety on this recording project and further inspire my writing and playing. More details to come soon on this new banjo!

It was a fairly massive project that involved many, many hours on both our parts. Pat built a light box and spent weeks of trial and error learning how to photograph banjos and accessories. He also had to communicate his story to me and share his vision for all aspects of his craft.

I collected, edited, and data architected all this information, then designed and built the site. I also got to design T-Shirts, stickers, print ads, and even a banner ad for BanjoHangout.com.

This was the largest and most complex web project that I’ve taken on—I learned a lot! I struggled to become proficient (with only limited success I’m afraid) in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Fireworks CS5 and really had to brush up my CSS skills. There were numerous technical challenges that were new to me as well.

Now, the thing is, I’m not a professional graphic designer or web developer. I’m a Hardware Store owner and Homeschool Dad. I happen to have a technology background and I really wanted to help Pat. Finding the time to pull this off was not easy, but what a blessing it has been.

Pat is a genuine master craftsman and brilliant artist in wood. He’s an incredibly kind and generous man who spent over a decade volunteering as a Doctor in war torn and poverty stricken counties all over the world. Additionally he has developed numerous pioneering innovations in banjos and banjo accessories by courageously trusting his intuition rather than being bound by strict tradition.

I wanted the world to hear Pat’s story. I wanted new and long-time customers alike to be aware of the full range of products offered by Doc’s Banjos. I wanted customers to shop and buy Pat’s products online. Thankfully, our efforts seem to be paying off. Pat tells me that sales have taken off since the new site went live.

The best part of this project has been developing a close friendship with Pat. I am thankful to have this wonderful man as a friend and mentor.

Phase one is generally a fun and relatively easy process. I don’t research and practice a discipline; it just happens. The closest analogy might be that flash of an imaginative idea or solution that sometimes strikes you in the shower. You aren’t looking for it; it just presents itself like a gift. My new banjo has been a groundbreaking phase one catalyst (far better than a shower).

Phase two is a combination of focused exploration and frequent recordings that repeats over and over again in various forms until the piece takes its final form. This process can take days, weeks, or even months. It usually comes in spurts, and I’ve noticed that sometimes setting a piece on the shelf and returning to it days or weeks later can result in fresh inspiration. I typically use the built-in iPhone “Voicemail” app or the excellent “FourTrack” app in this first stage of phase two. The sound quality is surprisingly good, but far more importantly, it is always in my pocket waiting to capture a glint of creativity. I once read a quote (I believe it was from M. Ward) where he said that he didn’t record songs as he was writing, because the question of whether he would remember the song served as a sort of litmus test as to whether or not it was any good. My experience is quite different than his. I often find that I can remember the notes of a new composition, but can’t reproduce whatever magic spark made it compelling to me.

After refining with “FourTrack” for a while, it’s time to hit the studio. In days gone by, an artist paying for studio time typically had to focus that costly time on phase three—tracking final takes. These days, however, home and project studios allow artists to use the studio during phase two. The challenge for me is how easily I get hung up trying to get the perfect sound or the perfect take too early in the process. This attention to detail, which is crucial in the final phase, is a creativity slayer in phase two. It simply shuts down the creative process. As such, I now endeavor to explore any idea that pops into my head, and hold the critiquing until later. One thing, however, that has to be right from the start is the tempo. I’ve learned to take my time and get the tempo nailed right from the get-go. This allows me to build the piece up in chunks, alternatively keeping and/or replacing chunks as I sculpt the song towards its final state. It also means that chunks can be added in any order and easily moved around in the piece. Without a solid tempo as the foundation, however, everything must ultimately be abandoned and restarted afresh from scratch.

Phase three is generally tedious and stressful. It is my least favorite part of the process, and the phase that I am in most need of practicing. To produce excellent results, everything has to be exactly right: performances, tunings, mics, preamps, levels, compressions, reverbs, frequencies, volumes, fades, and on and on. This all becomes still more challenging when working alone. The difficulty in achieving success in this phase drives me to continue studying and practicing. Ultimately, I think that as my confidence and efficiency in phase three increases, so will my enjoyment.

This week I was able to witness a new piece proceed from inception through studio exploration (phases one and two). As is usually the case, the piece began the process without a title. However, after laying down the banjo and guitar tracks in the studio, my grandmother’s accordion called out to me with the revelation that this piece was written for it. I literally picked up her accordion and played the verse melody and chorus chords as if I had already worked them out. That’s when it became “Esther’s Song,” after my sweet, musical grandmother whom I adored. Lastly, I added a chorus melody with my fiddle. None of these takes will make it into the final production, and the fiddle performance is particularly unsatisfactory. Nevertheless, I remind both the reader and myself that this tune is still in phase two, and as such, is is right where it needs to be.

I hope you enjoy this phase two presentation of “Esther’s Song.”

Esther’s Song — Darren M. Jahn

The piano shares a pronounced commonality with fiddle, guitar, banjo, mandolin, cello, and bass in that tones are produced by vibrating strings. The profound difference is in the method of producing and maintaining the vibration.

A piano tone is generated by a hammer striking a string when a key is pressed. The musician controls the volume of the tone by how fast or slow he strikes the key, and he controls the sustain by how long he holds the key down (or presses down a pedal). The character of the note, however, cannot be affected. The pianist is limited to fashioning his expression by controlling these two elements (dynamics and sustain), in addition to playing different pitches and multiple pitches (chords).

The other stringed instruments mentioned above are uniquely different in the expressive potential of individual notes. Whether produced by a bow, a pick, a fingernail, fatty tissue or some combination of these, the very character of each individual tone is magnificently malleable. In addition to how the string is made to vibrate initially, vibrato and other pitch variation possibilities make any given tone almost limitlessly flexible. Ten different musicians can each make the same note on the same instrument sound dramatically different.

I don’t mean to imply that the piano is an inferior instrument; it certainly is not. For instance, a piano possesses a much larger pitch range and offers a greater capability for performing complex arrangements and chord voicings than other stringed instruments. However, the piano’s inability to alter the character of tones (and even the hidden nature of the mechanics) result in a somewhat sterile experience compared to the messy reality of the scraping, clicking, pounding, whacking, scratching, plucking, strumming, and finessing of individual tones on other stringed instruments.

One result is that while a masterful piano performance can make you cry or sing, a masterfully played fiddle can accomplish a similar effect with a single note. Why is this? Perhaps the evocative expressiveness evidenced in these “messier” instruments is somehow more closely connected with our humanity; said differently, their distinctive tones resonate candidly in our souls.

Although there are certainly exceptions, simple arrangements and relatively poor recording quality seem to be hallmarks of the genre. I appreciate that the magic is conjured in the subtleties of the performance, not the recording. Still, the fledgling engineer and producer in me is constantly longing for a tasteful integration of Old-Time banjo into a more contemporary production aesthetic.

Abigail Washburn’s “Song of the Travelling Daughter” and Sarah Jarosz’s “Song Up In Her Head” are real stand-outs in this regard. The arrangements are engaging and original yet respectful of their heritage. Washburn’s work feels the more traditional of the two thanks to Washburn’s tasteful Clawhammer banjo, which forms the core of the compositions. The production on both records is outstanding.

I began a diligent search for the best replacement option. The more I researched, the more I found mixed reviews of just about every product south of $400 and nearly ubiquitously glowing reviews of the Grado Prestige Series SR80i headphones. Hundreds of people have passionately written about their love for their Grado “cans”.

At $99, the SR80i are not cheap, but my oh my, what amazing headphones. I can’t imagine getting more audio enjoyment for less than a hundred dollars. Grado’s are famous for their “soundstage”, which puts listeners right in the middle of the action. I don’t pretend to understand the physics, but the result is that you feel as though you are right in the middle of the studio or stage with the artists sitting all around you. Additionally, the frequency response is smooth across the entire spectrum with a full, but not artificially enhanced, bass and clear, harsh-free highs. I have literally discovered new elements in productions that I have heard countless times because of the unique experience of listening with these headphones. I find myself thinking “Whoa, has that always been there?”

One caveat: Grado’s are “open-back” headphones. This means that sound travels out of the headphones nearly as efficiently as it travels in. Don’t plan on listening with these in bed next to your spouse, don’t plan on an enjoyable listening experience in a loud room, and don’t plan on being able to use these in a recording setting. These headphones are anything but isolating. The trade-off, however, is an exceptionally remarkable listening experience.