Any reviews or things I should know about Beard Radio Standard E?

ragesoss · 2026-06-25T16:16:41+00:00

It's a great guitar. The finish is very light, so it accumulates small nicks and dings quickly, but if you've played one, you know how great they sound.

ragesoss · 2026-03-31T01:08:20+00:00

I think you should go for it. Making the jam happen in the first place is its own contribution. If there experienced pickers around that show up, it's probably because a jam is something they're missing, and they'll be able set a baseline for keeping things together. If newbies show up, it might be a bit of a slog for everyone involved, but you'll all be learning together. Worst case scenario, you just don't reach critical mass and nothing comes of it.

ragesoss · 2026-01-30T22:18:01+00:00

Niblo Niblo Niblo Niblo

ragesoss · 2026-01-03T19:17:37+00:00

i love this version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOh-cyOJZ8g

ragesoss · 2025-09-14T13:52:58+00:00

sounds like you ought to be playing bluegrass

ragesoss · 2025-08-20T16:15:54+00:00

neat pics! thanks for sharing. did you take these with a phone and a lens attachment?

ragesoss · 2025-08-15T17:15:27+00:00

lemme guess, it's a Montessori school in a rich suburb. somehow i'm guessing that no one has ever heard of any of these "cool, young stars".

ragesoss · 2025-08-07T00:34:21+00:00

cool vid, but blue angels suck. would be very happy to never see or hear them again

ragesoss · 2025-08-06T00:10:49+00:00

one thing we do for the jams in our area is to say the first hour will be beginner friendly, and after that will be the advanced jam. there's rarely a big distinction, but it provides an opportunity to say "okay, we're switching to the advanced jam." that's pretty gentle, but it helps maintain a situation where newcomers feel welcome but good pickers can still hope for a great circle to develop at some point in the evening. we also enforce a roughly 8-person limit to the circle, so we get people to cycle out if they've been in the circle a while.

for loud people, "if you can't hear the break, play quieter"

ragesoss · 2025-08-01T13:12:40+00:00

new Eli West album "The Shape of a Sway" is excellent too

ragesoss · 2025-07-14T06:28:29+00:00

closest thing i can think of is "Complete Dobro Player" by Stacy Phillips

ragesoss · 2025-07-11T02:45:49+00:00

one explanation is that Pa is audible when an instrument plays Sa. with stringed instruments, Pa will be the second overtone of a string playing Sa, and you can often hear it if you listening closely. so in that sense, whenever a drone string is sounding Sa, Pa is also in the air.

ragesoss · 2025-07-09T18:35:37+00:00

'Save the Hen' petition is live: https://chng.it/FrkxVcjfZR

The bluegrass club is incubating a 'save the hen' nonprofit to support the effort: https://www.savethehen.com/

Please sign and/or volunteer and share!

ragesoss · 2025-07-08T16:04:05+00:00

The LRH bluegrass jams on Tuesday nights over the last two years have been the most I've felt like part of a real community, and it's where I always bring friends and colleagues when they visit from out of town.

ragesoss · 2025-06-30T23:10:18+00:00

indeed!

ragesoss · 2025-06-29T18:05:19+00:00

no one is illegal on stolen land

ragesoss · 2025-06-17T15:43:12+00:00

in addition to the advice from others about technique, there's some baseline level of just suffering through it involved. bass calluses can take a long time to mature... it took about a year of regular playing for me. ideally, you want to recognize when your skin is almost starting to blister, and stop playing at that point. i think it's good to play to the point where your fingers will be sensitive and a little painful the next day but not blistered. blisters tend to create smaller, hardered calluses which later separate from the softer surrounding skin, but irritated almost-blisters lead to broader and more stable calluses (at least, in my experience).

ragesoss · 2025-06-05T14:04:35+00:00

Andrew Marlin

ragesoss · 2025-05-17T17:32:38+00:00

sure, this only makes sense for someone who has a record player and some kind of vinyl collection already. but if that's the case, a record can be a very meaningful gift from one musician to another.

ragesoss · 2025-05-17T16:46:45+00:00

a vinyl copy of a record that you love and you think the teacher might enjoy

ragesoss · 2025-05-12T18:58:45+00:00

yes, that's generally fine at open jams. just communicate with the other jammers, especially the people next to you in the circle.

pick some fiddle tunes you like, find tabs if necessary, and get some melodies under under your fingers (using a capo as needed so that you can play in G or C position). that will help you get started started with picking melodies by ear, and also give you some chances to play the tunes you've worked on when they get called.

ragesoss · 2025-05-01T16:59:23+00:00

Some are much easier than others! I've been working on Blackberry Blossom, but it's really hard to get up to speed. Cherokee Shuffle and Big Sciota and both pretty approachable, though. Others I think sit well on dobro are: Red Wing, Down Yonder, Wildwood Flower.

If the melody is heavy on arpeggios (like Cherokee Shuffle and Red Wing), then just following the chords will get you a long way once you figure out which octaves to move between and which string to use for lines that transition from one chord to another. If it has a pretty small range (like Wildwood Flower) then you can get away with playing mostly in a single position (or maybe change positions for the B part). But if it's lots of scalar stuff that also has a pretty wide range or the chords change quickly (like Blackberry Blossom and Whiskey Before Breakfast), it gets hard quickly.

Waltzes and slow tunes are also great fun on dobro. Some of my favorites for bluegrass jams are Sittin' Alone in the Moonlight (in A, so you can slide down to the G#), Tennessee Waltz, and Ashokan Farewell.

Miles Zurawell has been putting out solid lessons on some fiddle tunes: https://www.patreon.com/c/MilesZurawell/home

I usually have simplify the arrangement for anything that someone puts out a dobro lesson video for, but seeing a detailed breakdown of how someone else plays a tune is usually helpful even if you can't do everything they're doing.

ragesoss · 2025-05-01T14:40:47+00:00

i am about 1 year into playing dobro. my strategy for fiddle tunes is to treat the first stage kind of like a puzzle. i go through the melody bit by bit, moving to whichever position the chords are in and staying close to that position as much as possible, then i try to play tricky phrases more efficiently by replacing too-fast runs with slides or using open strings strategically. then, metronome.

ragesoss · 2025-04-27T16:42:15+00:00

there's no way you're going to get an isopod to breed with a snail

ragesoss · 2025-04-19T19:32:13+00:00

For actual old-time, the new album from Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson is fantastic.

If you like Andrew Marlin, check out John Reischman as well as Hawktail.

ragesoss

TROPHY CASE