Good morning! This will eventually be released under the @magicians umbrella, but in the meantime enjoy Violet Mazurka, composed for 5-string by James Buckley :jb: in 1860.

! I bought this new "Kmise" brand tenor guitar from ebay for an absurdly low price.

at 30" long with a 21.25" scale length it's a little closer to an over-sized baritone ukulele, but it is indeed slightly larger than Kmise's bari uke model, and it's got a pin bridge with steel strings vs the usual ukulele nylon.

I'm pretty sure the body is all mahogany laminate.

It's a really well-made little instrument, absurdly well-made for about $70 shipped with a very nice gig bag. I haven't checked with a tuner but the intonation is spot-on and the action is nice and low all the way up the neck.

It sounds like you would expect a small-bodied laminate guitar to sound; not very loud and not a lot of low-end, but that's fine. I'll record something with a good mic once I've gotten to know it a little better.

I tuned it to CGBD and it will be a lot of fun to noodle around with. Since the scale is something like 5" shorter than a typical plectrum, the strings feel very taut; plus they're steel, which my fingers are not used to. I'll have to research lighter strings.

As mentioned in a previous post, I've challenging myself to learn one new jazz standard per week for the next 60 weeks.*

This week's tune is "After You've Gone" by Henry Creamer & John T. Layton, written in 1918 and now in the .

In case anyone wants to play along, I'll try to be faithful about posting a new lead sheet every Sunday; I figure Saturday is a pretty good "due date" for many people who have the day off, and Sunday's a good day to start working on a new one for the same reason.

Until/Unless I can think of a snappy challenge name and hashtag, I'm going to call it Jazz Tune of the Week (.) The goal is to learn a tune well enough to record an audio or video clip of yourself playing it... whether that's singing, playing the melody, or vamping chords, or laying down a smooth bass line. You don't have to commit to grinding for 60 weeks if you don't want to, dropping in and out is fine.

Please boost! I'm going to do this myself regardless but the more the merrier.

youtube.com/watch?v=tlHUqFSDD9

*60 weeks because I'm working through an arbitrary "standards every jazz banjo player should know" list that has 60 songs on it

@musicians

, "Briggs' Breakdown" from from Briggs Banjo Instructor (1855) I recorded a few years back. Audio boosted, pretty noisy :briggsbook:

It’s , and the Capharnaum County Magicians Society just released a new track, a originally composed in 1865. magicians.bandcamp.com/track/f

Sneak preview of a track I'll be releasing to Bandcamp tomorrow! It's a funeral march from #1865, played on a fretted banjo in concert pitch with accompaniment.

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