This week on Inside Appalachia, Alleghany and Covington high schools were rivals for decades. But now, they’ve merged. This week, we head to a home football game and learn how it’s going. Also, the daughter of a legendary guitar maker didn’t set out to take up her father’s craft — but she’s found it irresistible. And, we take a trip to the mushroom capital of the U.S.
Alleghany and Covington high schools were rivals for decades. But now, they’ve merged. This week, we head to a home football game and learn how it’s going.
Also, the daughter of a legendary guitar maker didn’t set out to take up her father’s craft — but she’s found it irresistible.
And, we take a trip to the mushroom capital of the U.S.
You’ll hear these stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.
A consolidated school might be different, but student spirit remains the same.
Credit: Mason Adams/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
There’s nothing hotter than a high school sports rivalry. Host Mason Adams grew up in Alleghany County, Virginia and went to Alleghany High School. His school’s biggest football rival was the Covington Cougars, on the other side of the county.
The two schools consolidated this past year. Adams made a trip home to visit the new school during its very first homecoming to see what has changed and what hasn’t.
A New Generation Of Henderson Guitars
Jayne Henderson builds her own future as a guitar and ukulele maker.
Credit: Janie Witte
Wayne Henderson has been making guitars since he was a teenager. The guitars he makes are prized by players who are willing to wait up to a decade to get their hands on one.
His daughter, Elizabeth Jayne Henderson, never intended to follow in her father’s footsteps. She went to law school, but now Jayne is carrying on the family tradition in her own way.
Folkways Reporter Margaret McLeod Leef had this story.
Pennsylvania’s Mushroom Empire
Shiitake mushroom.
Credit: Keith Weller/United States Department of Agriculture
People have hunted wild mushrooms for generations — but did you know that Pennsylvania is the biggest producer of mushrooms in the U.S.?
WVIA’s Kat Bolus brought us this story about Pennsylvania’s mushroom farms and foraging clubs.
The Migration Of Frijoles Charros
A bowl of frijoles charros sits to the right of a bowl of refried beans. While refried beans are a standard side dish in most Mexican restaurants in Southern Ohio, frijoles charros often accompany the main meal at restaurants in northern Mexico and along the US-Mexico border.
Credit: Nicole Musgrave/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
A bowl of brothy pinto beans is comfort food for lots of folks here in Appalachia. There’s a similar tradition in rural Mexico — frijoles charros — or charro beans. Now, the dish has made its way north to the former coal town of Wellston, in southeast Ohio.
Folkways Reporter Nicole Musgrave has the story.
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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Joe Dobbs and the 1937 Flood, Mary Hott, The Sycomores, Anna and Elizabeth, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, John Blissard, and the Alleghany High School marching band.
Bill Lynch is our producer. Zander Aloi is our associate producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens.
You can send us an email: InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.
Markus Reuter is a master musician, inventive composer, producer and a great teacher.
"Whenever something is true and authentic, it translates. It will always translate. The beauty, your beauty will always come out through your art. It's impossible to break that connection." – Markus Reuter
I first met Markus in 2012 at the Three of a Perfect Pair music camp (Adrian Belew, Tony Levin and Pat Mastelotto are the “pair” in question). Confession: I knew nothing about him or his music. When we were introduced, his wit, candor and passion about music came through immediately. In short, we fast became friends.
Then I heard him play. It was an experience unlikely to forget. To begin, he plays a U8 Touch Guitar: an instrument he developed by first playing the Chapman Stick and the Warr Guitar. The music that comes forth is so jawdroppingly good that it takes a moment for the senses to reconcile what is heard with what is seen. I jokingly refer to this phenomenon as a “music concussion”, but that’s not far from the truth. This video of The Crimson ProjeKCt in concert might illustrate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1Y4Hrx2ToM
Besides the aforementioned Crimson ProjeKCt, Markus is also a member of Stick Men with Tony Levin and Pat Mastelotto and Centrozoon with Bernhard Wöstheinrich and Tobias Reber.
It is very difficult to pinpoint Markus’ style as a composer because his work keeps expanding into unlikely (for the stereotypical electric guitarist) areas such as the orchestral Todmorden 513 and string quartets: Heartland Bleeds. Simply put, whatever musical endevaour he undertakes, he does so with immense focus, technique and most of all – passion.
His latest album, Truce, may be his most personal. Listen and find out why:
mark_reuter_extended_interview.mp3
Markus Reuter extended interview.
Available on https://markus-reuter-moonjune.bandcamp.com/album/truce
We are binge watching In Treatment, starring the marvelous Gabriel Byrne, and there is a relationship, in the most respectful terms, between certain elements of private counseling sessions and private music lessons.
Byrne’s character, Dr. Paul Weston, is having all sorts of fits with his patients, his private life is fractured, and his detached therapeutic persona is shattered by the revelations of his own therapist, the bright and insightful Gina.
My life is nowhere near that level of upheaval, but there’s no doubt I’ve had some strange encounters with students.
The dabblers.
Some students that only wanted to dip their proverbial toes in the water. These type students, seeing that actual work is involved, soon cool their initial enthusiasm (usually around lesson 6) and stop lessons. This might be the social media equivalent of a selfie: “Here’s me, with a guitar.” Next: here’s you, without a guitar – which gathers dust.
Are their goals realistic? Not even close.
One student, a mature professional person, wondered, after a few weeks, “Why am I not making music like James Taylor?” This professional must have forgotten about the long hours required to become certified in her field. Why would this not apply to guitar or to any worthwhile study? People dismiss music as being easy and I accept that, but my amazement remains.
What to say, when to say it.
The imparting of my great wisdom is a difficult matter. The information has to be given out at the right time with the right person. No unnecessary dissertations, no prolonged explanations to beginners or even intermediates. You’re confusing them and bogging them down with needless details. Get to the basics and stick to them.
I have made mistakes in this regard.
Waxing on philosophically, I told a student “you eventually become your own teacher.” He took this literally and never showed up for another lesson.
That will teach me to open my stupid mouth.
Define the aim clearly and succinctly.
Then stand back and duck.
A professional man once consulted me and when asked about his goals, his answer was exact. He had had plenty of playing-in-a-band rockabilly experience, but wanted to learn how to play Bach correctly.
After three lessons, he realized that he would have to relearn everything. “That’s too much work, ” came his response after three lessons. He rightfully came to this conclusion and saved us both a lot of misery. Rockabilly and old Johann are not even miles apart: they are light years apart. Both require devotion, commitment, love and a helluva lot of work.
Can I teach that?
One kid came in, plugged in his electric guitar, complete with distortion pedal, and proceeded to perform all manner of heavy metal fingerboard acrobatics. When he finished, I smiled and simply said that he played very well. I even asked about his right hand technique. Many musicians cannot define what they do in concrete terms; that’s for us teachers. Had he “blown me away”? – a common phrase for a revelatory musical performance.
Truth is, I don’t play that style, not do I fully understand the whole esthetic of heavy metal music. It’s a foreign country to me with a language all its own.
I was straight with him: if he wanted to learn theory, extended harmony beyond “power chords,” or any other verisimilitude known to a classical-jazzy-latin-progressive guitarist who’s main instrument is a nylon string, then yes, it could work. He could not cross over into my world any more than I could into his.
We weren’t a good match and both concluded that it was best he searched elsewhere. This was an amicable parting.
Leave your baggage at the door.
There are dilettantes who come fully loaded with all sorts of misinformation, misconceptions and expectations. More likely than not, these seem to be professional men who come armed with lots of information gleaned from magazines, what their friends have told them and all manner of research. The problem is clearing away all that noise and getting them to listen.
You don’t have to prove you’re smart nor well-informed. A spirit of cooperation and goodwill goes a lot further. Often, in these cases, there is a locking of horns over simple ideas.
“Put your left hand like this” I might proffer.
“Why?”
“Because your thumb and your forearm needs to support your fingers.”
“But, I’ve seen so-and-so [insert name of famous guitarist here] do that.”
I want to say, “Then go study with him and good luck with that,” but I hold my tongue and gently tell them that it is a solid idea that will promote a fluid ease in the left hand. I can even detail the what, the why and the how. The questions don’t bother me-that’s a healthy skepticism to be encouraged.
These over-thinkers usually come back the next week with frustrations that these changes are not working out for them. Methinks they imagine themselves endowed with salty, Yankee ingenuity and can figure all this out on their lonesome. I can’t get through all that to teach them a thing.
This student did his biblio-knowledge dance for a few lessons and then disappeared for several weeks. Stopping by his house to sell him a guitar and I soon felt like I had dropped by a police station for a nice, grueling interrogation. He asked about those lessons he never attended and I told him that there is such a thing as continuity in teaching and that lessons, even if paid for, are not valid in perpetuity. The polite, but heating up debate continued until finally his wife, a symphonic musician came to my rescue by telling him, in no uncertain terms, to let it go. She feels the same way about lessons. His protestations ceased.
Yikes. Yowsa and all that.
Credit Jim Lange
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Your work is your bliss. The area where I practice and write I call my bliss station.
Is it in a book?
Yes and no.
One man, after purchasing the required books, kept asking about other books that might further illuminate his study. Round and round we went, with him coming in weekly with new books.
There are great things to be found in music instruction books, but they mean nothing unless your work on them and ultimately, experience them. Words are meaningless compared to experience.
Are you calling me out?
A friend of mine told me a horrifying story about how a student, who was part of a large class he was teaching, “called him out” – or challenging him to play for them to prove that he could. Deep sigh.
I have had umpteen of these challenges, most of them by rank beginners, who use this tactic to deflect attention away from their own shortcomings in the weekly practice department. One classic example was when I was trying to inspire a rather laconic student by playing some fancy finger magic. His response was cryptic at first:
“Awesome tapping guitar.”
“What?”
“Awesome tapping guitar. It’s on YouTube.”
In short order, he was frankly stating that my guitar soliloquy was not impressive and that this video of this player should be watched in order for me to get a more realistic assessment of my own, evidently, more humble abilities. This, from a student, who had missed way too many lessons, had a severe case of overconfidence, and could not, even at the end of the semester muster up the most basic of songs.
I have long since come to terms with my place in the guitar universe and am quite happy. My standard answer now is simple: ” That player is terrific. I can’t do what he/she does.” The silence that follows is priceless as the purpose breaks and now the focus is back on the student. It was a way of deflecting responsibility away from the student.
“Now, what will you be working on this week?” I am an old, clever dog who understands every trick, every sleight-of-hand and every accountability escape clause that students devise.
The most horrible students ever.
I had a college student who complained that he felt like he wasn’t being challenged enough and he outright did not like the music. I did not figure it out at the time, being a trusting soul, but he was chasing his tail and wasting time.
Every week, it was the same: “I don’t like this piece. It’s too hard.” So, I’d set him onto another. Finally, it came down to he couldn’t really play a complete anything-it was total fragmentation.
And I was to blame. ?
He told me it was my fault that he couldn’t play anything. Dumbfounded and furious, I learned a lesson that changed every lesson to follow. I would no longer make offers to students of what they wanted to play. Nay, I tell them what to play and it’s that or nothing. A college syllabus must be like a legal contract – unbreakable, no loopholes, written in clear and marked language. Even then, students will lie and say they did not get one if things go sideways for them.
Another tale is worth telling.
Sometimes you meet some real winners and I thought I had seen them all.
I went into the breach, so to speak, subbing for a teacher at a local university. This teacher had started a guitar class and was called away to active military service quite unexpectedly. I thought that this was going to an easy fit.
I was so wrong.
Those kids resented the school for taking away their teacher and they didn’t take a shine to their sub. I have worked some tough crowds before, but these kids were like the high school kids with the same level of maturity.
No matter how hard I tried to win them over or to convey the new goals for the semester, they weren’t giving an inch.
Then there was the one kid. Oh boy. He spent class time regaling us all with his strumming and flagrantly ignoring what the rest of the class was doing.
At the end of the semester, the moment of truth came when the playing exam took place.
There he sat, at first defiantly, using every off-the-wall excuse and reason he could summon as to why he could NOT play one of the required pieces. Note: not one note of any of the pieces could be played.
“I have a superiority complex, ” he joked and began a long and convoluted plea to give him a passing grade. I’m sure my face was a red as the rage felt inside and it took everything to remain calm enough to keep repeating, “Which of these pieces would you like to start with?”
What a sight we must have been: this rebel-without-a-clue doing the soft shoe shuffle and his livid teacher repeating the same thing over and again. Perfect reality TV stuff.
I finally stated, “So, you cannot play ANY of these pieces?”
“No.” He had run out of steam and pretense.
“Alright, Mr. So-and-so. Please send in the next student.”
It should and could have ended there, but it didn’t. No, he must prove himself to be a jerk of almost immeasurable proportions. He took his complaint to someone high on the academic chain. The music department chair told me about this and I felt like someone has dumped a bucket of ice cold water on me. This horrid brat, who not tried one iota to do the work, was trying to get me in trouble!
In the end, nothing came of the big bluff, but I did read the student evaluations and could guess which was his.
This isn’t about the guitar at all.
Some only want a person of authority to recognize their talent or even more, to bolster their self-esteem. Many, young bright college kids are so full of self-doubt that they looked so pained when a lesson does not go well. They feel that they are letting me down. This is not the case. I am not emotionally engaged with the outcome. I am the biggest cheerleader when they succeed, but if they do not, it does not upset me. I point the path out again to them. That’s my job, plain and unencumbered with emotion.
When I first started teaching privately in 1977, this emotional detachment was impossible. A young musician is dealing with so many struggles and most of the time, I was very emotionally volatile. You could wind me up without even trying. Age has given me the wisdom to become much more comfortable with all aspects of my musical life. I am one happy boy these days.
Because my teaching is usually private, one-to-one instruction, the thin barriers and boundaries between people can become permeable. I have felt my psyche invaded and students have tried getting into my head and trample around. This has to be prevented.
Did I mention every trick is used by college students?
Flirtation is often used as a way of insuring a good grade. College girls are the usual suspects in these cases.
The hilarious stories I could tell you. Let’s meet over a good coffee for that one, yes?
I have had great students. And I love teaching.
Reading about my trials and tribulations may lead you to think that I am a rough teacher or that perhaps I don’t enjoy it. This is far from the truth. I don’t have to teach – I have my full-time job in radio.
Teaching is ultimately about learning. Learning how to communicate, to clearly define concepts that you may understand instinctively and to express yourself in the most concise and clearest terms.
A therapist must never make the therapy about themselves and, by the same token, a teacher must never make the lesson about their personal relationship with the guitar or music. I have learned to be detached: to be still, to observe, to compartmentalize my own relationship with music and the guitar.
I most sincerely want you to succeed and see that light come upon your face when you realize that you CAN do it. That brings me great joy and is the greatest joy of teaching. This is perhaps the divine element of teaching: the delight in seeing the growth of others; effecting positive change through music.
Well, it’s back to In Treatment and poor Paul Weston. I hope he works his own issues.
Consistently, the concept of music coming from another time or another place, far different from our own, is an idea you will encounter again and again in artistic circles. It’s as if music is imported, allows itself into or gently descends upon the practitioners of this noble art.
Then there’s silence. What’s so special about that? How does it relate to music?
Silence of the nature that Robert Fripp and Sandra Bain Cushman talk about occurring on Guitar Craft or now as it is known, Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists courses, is a keenly felt presence.
Brother Frank stood to announce that he will be leaving us this afternoon, returning on Friday. Shortly afterwards, quietly enjoying breakfast with my chums, I noticed I was wondering whether Silence would put in an appearance. And then: a shift. Not a glide, not a whoosh, but immediately: what we recognize, and refer to, as the presence of Silence.
Nothing I report in this Diary is of greater profundity than this: when the qualitative world enters that of the quantitative; when the (non-existent) barrier between perception and actuality falls away – in an instant – and there we are: where we are. Occupying a moment in time, while out of time. Sitting with a Presence which is not constrained by time, but which enters the time-stream to visit, reminding those of us who live mostly-here that we are ourselves only visiting.”
To experience something real: is this why we continue to play music?
Credit Robert Fripp
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RF’s room at a Crafty Guitar Orchestra seminar.
“We have a public performance on Saturday. Technically, this is referred to as a manifestation of our work.
Firstly, this is a flag for those young people who are looking for something more valuable in their lives. Also for old people, even as old as Hernan and Dr. Mike and Martin, looking for something more real than a glass of wine and dessert at the end of their day.
Secondly, the act of music is primarily social. Something remarkable acts through Music, moving from outside the time stream into the flow of events. This provides an energy, a certain something, that is available within the performance and becomes available to the audience.
Thirdly, the performance is for us. We are not ourselves from the timestream: we are only visiting. This is an opportunity for us to more fully experience who we are, what we are, while playing music.”
Many things are taught on Robert Fripp’s guitar courses, but one cannot imagine that defensive tactics against scorpions is one of them. Saints preserve us!
I had to point out this most unexpected entry in the RF diary:
22.32 As I was sitting at the computer in my room, a loud crack! as something fell from the ceiling and bounced off the desk or Mac. Looking down to see what this might be – a black scorpion on my left trouser leg just below the knee. It walked around to the back of my leg, where I couldn’t see it. Standing and slowly walking backwards out of the door, picking up a shoe as I went, fortunately finding Aileen sitting on the bench outside. I gave her the shoe, and with loud and expressive shouts Aileen rapidly dispatched the scorpion it by knocking it from my leg, then giving it a hefty hammering with the shoe. This a first, in almost twenty-nine years of courses.
"Life without the morning sitting is like trying to walk without legs. This is the beginning, the foundation, of strengthening personal presence. If we are absent, then life is all stuff. Nothing real happens;" ~ Robert Fripp
"And so each venture Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate With shabby equipment always deteriorating… ~ TS Eliot
PREAMBLE: This is part of an ongoing series which deals with those physical-mental practices that have influenced me in a positive way and have helped me greatly with back/arm issues. One of the meditation-like practices I have learned is called the morning sitting. This is an extension of Alexander Technique (abbreviated AT) which we shall go into further depth in the next entry of this series.
How did you learn about this?
It was February 2008 and there was a blizzard atop Snowshoe Mountain. The trip up had been a beautiful, sunny winter drive up I-79, but once reaching the outskirts of Snowshoe, it was like entering a Stephen King novel. Up the winding mountain road, fog and a blinding snowstorm slowed driving to a crawl. Petrified by the inability to see the road more than a foot or two ahead, an angel of mercy must have led me to the fog-enshrouded “village” where the course was to take place.
It was a fitting beginning to a very intense four days with Robert Fripp and his students in what is referred to as Guitar Craft (Herein and henceforth abbreviated as GC). It is beyond the scope of this post to go into all the details of this course, but Mr. Fripp has an online diary which presents his perspective. Also, Guitar Craft has many defined terms (i.e. Guitar Craft, the morning sitting, etc.) on their website.
After dinner, we all descended to the basement and people were asked to share some brief biographical details and their goals for the course. Then Robert introduced us to the magical morning sitting. While the snow swirled and the wind howled outside, these 20 souls, 7 staff and 12 participants, listened in complete stillness as Robert lead us through this phenomenal exercise.
I became lost in a tangible silence. Silence was not the absence of talking, but a presence. A thick silence – a silence that is not emptiness, but is filled with a something. Something which defies words. From whence comes this silence? Was it our souls in communion? I don’t know.
All else faded away. Sitting in the room with us was not the world famous guitarist. All were equal, all were not one (as the cliché goes), all simply were.
Sounds like big stuff, yes? It is and yet it is practical. There is no mysticism, philosophy, religion here, but rather an awakening to ourselves in a way we never knew existed or was possible.
I began my morning sitting soon after that 2008 course, but my practice was rather spotty. I was on-off again for a while, but eventually it became part of my morning routine. At first, it’s an exercise in sitting still. I recently told a friend that, before he played a sound on his drum kit, to sit perfectly still for 15 minutes. His reply:”15 minutes? I don’t think I can lay still 15 minutes when I’m sleeping.”
What is this morning sitting business?
To be brief, it is a way of training the attention to be where we want it to be instead of it wandering hither and dither. It also sensitizes us to to our bodies, specifically our muscles so that we recognize unnecessary tension when we play an instrument or in any other activity of our lives. Over time, we can recognize the sharpening of this sensitivity as our morning sitting practice deepens. With more time and practice, an unexpected richness unfolds.
Why not just tell us what you do if it’s so practical?
Because it has to be experienced. I do not feel at all qualified to speak on this as much as those whose practice is much richer than mine. I was taught by Robert Fripp who studied with John G. Bennett who studied with George Gurdjieff. I have also taken guitar lessons with Tony Geballe, a long-time GC and AT student, and have discussed his approach to the morning sitting.
I will share what I know only by request. Send an email to (after you removed the underscores) jlange_@_wvpublic_.org.
Why do I need all this?
You may not. I do. We seem to inhabit a world that cannot shut off and must be habitually filled with noise, noise and more noise. There is no down time, nor time to refresh mind, body and soul. We must be doing something at every moment or we are wasting our lives.
That is precisely the problem. We have no “off” switch. Our minds are turbulent, grinding, repetition machines creating a mental noise which is non-stop. If the noise would stop, would we like what we would find? Who is inhabiting the being I refer to as “me”?
If this labyrinth of philosophy becomes too circular, consider it this way: because we have no “off” mode, our “on” mode is fatigued and lacks focus. No clear distinction between the focus of attention and relaxation diminishes both.
What then do we do to learn how to shut off? To be able to control our attention before the next commercial break, phone call, Facebook, text, ad nauseam?
Turns out that there are teachers who can help us.
Next: Interview with Sandra Bain Cushman – The Alexander Technique.
