Banjoree Pictures!

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Here are some pictures and comments on the Banjoree 2007 in Hagen. I took pictures on Saturday and Sunday only. The pictures from last year are still available. This time, I have made "thumbnails" you can click on to enlarge the picture.

If anyone here objects to having their name or image online, please contact me and I will make the ncessary changes.

	I attended Gerard de Smaele's clawhammer workshop on Saturday morning. It wasn't as much a workshop as a demonstration of clawhammer techniques. He showed us countless tunings and variations. While some participants were disappointed at not having been able to do any playing/active learning during the workshop, others were impressed by the great variety of possibilities offered by clawhammer. For my part, I spent part of the workshop complaining about all the tunings. More on that later...
	This is Wim van de Weg, the guy who sold me my banjo and one of the vendors at the Banjoree, showing off one of his instruments.
	This was the afternoon workshop on "Progressive Clawhammer" with Udo Weihrauch. This workshop was very hands-on. He taught us G-licks to use as building blocks in our standard arrangements. Here he is going around the circle checking our progress.
	Diligent clawhammer students...
	Long before dark the jam sessions began. Here are Veit Doehler and Peter Huber.
	Here's another small jam going on nearby. The guy with the mando is another of the vendors, Karsten Schnoor.
	These gods of fashion are the gentlemen who organized the Banjoree 2007 - Veit Doehler, Andreas Benkhofer, and Reinhard Gress. Read about them here.
	In the early evening there was a lecture by Ulf Jagfors about the history of the banjo. He traced the various lines of development of the instrument from the earliest times up to Earl Scruggs. Here he is showing a bow, perhaps mankind's first instrument.
	Here he is showing a banjo-like instrument of great antiquity still in use in western Africa. Read about his ideas and all the latest in banjo history research at his homepage. It includes links to videos of these instruments being played.
	Here are some of the African banjo-like instruments that Ulf brought with him and put on display. That's Wander van Duin trying out a gord banjo.
	Back in the main lobby, a jam session took root...
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	That is when I noticed that I did not have a local monopoly on the John Hartford banjo.
	Frank Kleingünther also plays one. A pity I lost my baseball cap or we would pass as family.
	The bulk of the evening was taken up with a concert by the workshop tutors and others. The first up were the Coshs from jolly ol' England. She played and he made the doll dance!
	Next, the band Random Strings took the stage with the borrowed bass talents of Wander van Duin. The fiddler was easily the youngest active participant at the Banjoree and got a lot of applause.
	They were followed by Eugene O'Brien (an English-raised Irishman who lives in Belgium!) on his open-back.
	Here are Christal Seyberth and her Zufallsfriends. She had a really great voice and moved me to tears with a song about a child's preminitions of her father's impending death a mining accident.
	Here are Heartstrings (Elly Beurskens and Bruno van Hoek) singing beautiful close harmony. I am usually not a fan of instrumentals, but they also performed one that Bruno wrote called "Do you really think so?" that I really liked.
	This cute duo is Eric Stefanelli and Patricia Gerente playing a ragtime tune and demonstrating other classical banjo styles. The following morning they did a workshop on classical banjo.
	Here are Olaf Gläsmer and Gabi Weber singing and playing "Were you there?" and "Shady Grove". They apologized for not playing banjo, but they were well received anyway!
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	Two-u (Ulrike and Udo Weihrauch) did several numbers including some amazing banjo playing. They were followed by the virtuosity of Gerard de Smaele (first picture above), but I didn't get a good shot of him.
	Then most of Four Wheel Drive took the stage for some raging bluegrass.
	For one song, they were joined by Gerd van Loock on the mandoline.
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	The concert ended at about midnight and the jamming never really got going again. While there was nothing like the monster jam we had two years ago, there were several small sessions like this one with Bruno van Hoek and Philipp Antar.
	Ulrich Wortmann is trying out what I think is Juergen Biller's banjo.
	Outside, they had some Hawaiian-sounding tunes going.
	Udo and Ulf bring down the house.
	This was Sunday morning. These are the members of banjohangout.org who we managed to scrounge together for a photo after breakfast. From left to right: Bruno van Hoek, Mark R. Hatlie ("Strelnieks"), Philipp Antar ("Zawinul"), Gerhard Pehland and Olaf Gläsmer.
	Here we are joined by Wim van de Weg (left) and Andreas Goerrings (middle).
	The jamming got started up again soon thereafter for those who were not in the two workshops.
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	That's when I met Jeff Stone, another American who has condemned himself to long-term life in Germany. We chatted about a number of things. He showed me a bit of clawhammer close up and in a few minutes dispelled some of my fears of all those hideous tunings. (There isn't a whole lot going on in terms of holding chord positions.) It was the next day when I remembered that and, finding some tab online, began to play around with "mountain minor" and think of the sounds that de Smaele had demonstrated. I caught myself trying to imitate his "Pretty Polly." Between de Smaele, Weihrauch and Stone, this banjoree might have created another convert to clawhammer...
	This little jam was going on outside. That's Olaf Gläsmer standing, Wolfgang in the black Banjoree shirt, Frank and Ulrich Wortmann on the bench, and Thomas Balzar with his back to the camera.
	This is the last shot I got before I got in the car for the long drive back to Tübingen.

I spent much of my time on the way home in Bochum, Essen and Mühlheim taking pictures for sites-of-memory.de. If any of you pickers have any cool memorials nearby and would like to submit photos to that website, I would be glad to have them.

Thanks to everybody, but especially Veit, Andreas and Reinhard for a great weekend!

Comments are welcome at my blog.

Keep on pickin'!