We've got some things in common. I'm stuck with nobody to play Cajun music with, too.

In another life I raised horses. When it came time for my wife and I to split the blanket, she got the 6-acre horse farm, the cash, and I got the horses.

Try living in a one-bedroom apartment in town with 6 horses, then come tell me about your frustrations.

I have a similar problem here in the Central Jersey / Philly area. There are a small number of Cajun musicians, mostly fiddlers, and a few box players, but generally at an entry level. But the biggest hurdle for me is to find good rhythm guitar and bass players. In this neck of the woods, there are scant guitarists and bassists who are content with playing just Cajun rhythm. And even with the few musicians around, very few are able to break from their mainstream lives and meet regularly to play music. So I while most my music time away, playing with my buddy, Amazing Slowdowner.
Tom

Wow! Me too. I stepped away from the accordion and French music four years ago for pretty much the same reasons. But recently I've rekindled my love for it. There's just no one to play with around Sacramento. I can still have some fun with it...

Tommy, I thought there was a huge Cajun music scene on that left coast, or is it all in SF?

I didn't quite step away from the Cajun music, just the playing. It's been rejuvenating just listening again, especially all the songs I love but weren't using as model material.

There's a fair bunch of folks in the Berkeley, CA area. Blair Kilpatrick has somewhat regular jams over at her place. Mark Marcin is there a bit and Andrew Carrier shows.

@Nedro - man... There's gotta be a song in that somewhere!! :)

Oh.. garde donc qua t'as fait
t'apres m'quitter avec les chevaux
t'apres m'quitter dans les miseres
a la 'tit maison

Best as I can do with my rudimentary french.

John in Oregon

Sacra,mento is a music dead zone for any and all forms of fun...

Go jam with Jerry Brown

Jerry Brown, you mean "moonbeam"

What I need is soem Telecaster lessons.

Funny thing is Brown is not only the most conservative governor California has had in a generation, he has also balanced the budget, gotten the State on track and is making things work. Liberals don't like him very much...

I lived in Auburn near Sack a tomatoes for three years.. I concur, cultural desert unless y'll wanna play new age bluegrass.

I am now exiledin So Oregon some improvement, but not for a boz player.


I have played box off and on since the early nineties, owned well over 50 boxes.. I have taken a vacation for some time now hoping to re-kindel my interest.
B LaFleur is on the right track.. Put it down and listen.

I have a fantastic Castagnari D one row .. I got bored enough to offer it for sale.. but, there is nothing like it, so put it away to see if things changed.

Now after listening to a great deal of music, I am ready for a box in C.

Paul, I've been looking at Jacksonville Oregon as a place to retire. Are you near there?

Tit' Galop Mamou pretty well sums it up, John!

Make that Tit Galop Pour Mamou

Hmm.. You got me started now, Ned...

Oh.. garde donc qua t'as fait
t'apres m'quitter avec les chevaux
t'apres m'quitter dans les miseres
a la 'tit maison

Oh.. garde donc, J'suis moi tout seul
J'ai pl'us l'argent et les chevaux est creve de la faim
J'ai pl'us m'aimer et m'ame et affemee
tu criminelle


Gahh.. I know it's pretty terrible grammar. Some help please?

John in Oregon

John,

Between Google Translate and my own limited vocabulary we can only hit about half the words.

However, go ahead a publish it, and cut me in for 10% for providing the theme.

Haha... well.. maybe we can just mumble it.

So, what I was trying to say with the words was...

Oh.. look at what you've done
You left me with the horses
You left me in misery
In a little house

Oh.. look here. I'm all alone
I have no money and the horses are starving
I have no love and my soul is starving
You criminal

I'm curious if I got it even close in french. Seems to be a classic theme.


John in Oregon

John, it all makes sense to me except the 3rd line of second verse. In the 1st verse, you're saying "You're leaving me with the horses". "apres" and a verb makes it in the process of. To say "you left me with the horses, it would be "Tu m'as quitté..".

In the 3rd verse, "I have no more money" should probably be "J'ai p'us d'argent..", I think.
"love" as a nound is "amitie". So I think it would be "J'ai p'us d'amitie" for I have no more love. And I think "my soul is starving" might be "mon ame est affamé". But I'm not a fluent speaker, maybe someone can correct me if wrong. Marc? Pop?

Thanks for the corrections Brian. I'm glad to see I was at least in the right ballpark with it.

Sooo... we should have....

Oh.. garde donc qua t'as fait
Tu m'as quitté avec les chevaux
t'apres m'quitter dans les miseres
a la 'tit maison

Oh.. garde donc, J'suis moi tout seul
J'ai p'us d'argent et les chevaux est creve de la faim
J'ai p'us d'amitie et mon ame est affamé
tu criminelle

I came up with a tune for this on my bike ride home yesterday. Hopefully soon I'll record it. Ned and I will be famous.

John in Oregon

Hello, David, nice to hear from you. Glad my "baby" is still doing ok. Man, I'd sure take once a month, I get 2 or 3 times a year when I go back to the motherland.

John, I think there may be a few more corrections on that to make it complete, John, but I don't think I'm the best for that job. Here's how I'd do it, for what that's worth, maybe Marc can correct it.

Oh.. garde donc quoi t'as fait
Tu m'as quitté avec les chevaux
t'apres m'quitter dans les miseres
a la 'tite maison

Oh.. garde donc, J'suis moi tout seul
J'ai p'us d'argent et les chevaux sont crever de la faim
J'ai p'us d'amitie et mon ame est affamé
toi criminelle

David Holt,
Hey bud. I've found Big Nick's DVD 1 to be helpful in getting the bass side going. He runs thru things several times nice and slowly. Cowboy waltz.
The second thing was, thanks to Jim Pettijohn videos on youtube, doing scales while doing bass, chord, chord. Hold down the scale notes while playing the bass side.
The third was playing only the bass side in every push pull combo there is, i.e., bass/push chord/push chord/push is "normal." Sometimes I do only this just to cement that waltz rhythm into my left hand muscle memory.
Push, pull, push
pull, push, push.
You get the idea. That side of the box has to become second nature, subconscious.
Stick with it a bit. The better I get, the more encouraged I am to play more. Some of my crap is even starting to sound like music!
Well, it's Sunday morning, 7:00am, I think I'll pull my MARTIN out of the case and wake the whole house up.

Thanks Tim - I'll give it a go.

Same boat different sea.

Hi Bryan, "No 18" here, a delighted customer of yours. My mahogany "L'Anse Grise" is much admired, drooled over even, wherever it goes. I'm trying to learn from DVDs and CDs, but the instructors have a nasty habit of completely glossing over the bass, having laboured (sorry, labored, ha ha) over the treble ad infinitum - then they say "and now we'll add the bass" and - wallop, they add it, played fast, no explanation, no going over it more than once, nothing. It's all right for them, they do it without thinking, but not for someone like me who's struggling from zero. So what I do is to enter the treble notes on Finale Songwriter, then add the bass notes, which Finale puts in the right places rhythmically, then print out the result and learn to synchronise the bass from that. Slow and laborious, but it "clicks" eventually, and then I can do it without thinking. Strange but true. Here in Manchester (UK) there's the friendly and helpful Cajun Specials once a month to jam along with, but once a month isn't really often enough, but better than complete isolation.