Banjo Genome

image from here

From this. It blows my mind (and I'm pretending to be this guy a bit this morning:

The presence of a body plan in the genome, whether of a fly, a whale, or a human, was unexpected by embryologists. Previously, most of them did not think that development of embryos was controlled by genes; they had assumed that the different parts of developing embryos were determined by physical interaction between neighboring cells and that there was no overall division of the embryo according to a genetic plan. Experiments had shown, for example, that removing developing wing tissue from one part of an embryo and implanting it elsewhere still gave rise to a wing, although an abnormal one. Scientists attributed the abnormality to the effects of the neighboring cells in the embryo. This was wrong. In fact it was caused by the disruption of the body plan.



and this:

Hox genes, as Carroll explains, are in fact one of many kinds of genes that direct embryo development by a mechanism of switches. One example that is not a Hox gene is the gene that controls the development of the eye in fruit flies. If this gene (called Pax 6) is damaged when it mutates, the fly fails to develop eyes. We now know from the experiments described in Carroll's book that the Pax 6 gene is also found in butterflies, mice, and humans. Indeed, Pax 6 genes are interchangeable. The Pax 6 gene from a fly will turn on genes that make eyes in mice, and the Pax 6 gene from a mouse will turn on genes that make eyes in flies.

It had long been assumed that eyes had evolved independently in different species. The structures of mammalian eyes and insect eyes are very different and it would seem most unlikely that they had followed a similar evolutionary path. Mammalian eyes, for example, have a single lens that focuses an image on the retina. Insects have eyes with many tube-like structures, each tube having its own lens and retina. Yet the discovery of the Pax 6 gene gives us reason to believe that the evolution of the eye in all the animals followed related, and to some extent common, paths, though we cannot completely exclude the possibility that each kind of eye evolved following completely independent pathways.

That means we have a lot more in common with frogs and fish (and banjos?) than previously thought.

What's going on here?

I barely pay attention to this banjo blog, but it seems to have a small but loyal following, day after day. Who are you people? Maybe it's 15 different people every day, or maybe it's the same, I can't tell. But who are you?

Change of Scene

I've decided not to muck up this Banjo Banjar blog anymore. The Tutankhamen illustration replacing Dock Boggs in the upper right corner was bad enough but there's nothing I can really do about that. I've decided to keep the site otherwise pristine and purely banjo'd, and invite you dear readers to head on over to a brand new and currently active blog - a blog on the subject of memorizing the lines for Antony in Antony and Cleopatra. If you think that's not a good enough reason for a blog, well... Antony has a lot of lines. Some of them are really good too. And others are strangely bad. And the blog will cover related obsessions as well...

It goes by the name of shkspearshkspar.blogspot.com, it's here and the Tutankhamen image suits it much better

What Next I Need

For September. In the teaching department. I'm starting to look early, because I need at least 15 thumb pianos. Not to mention several pairs of Cothurni, but I don't think you'll be able to help me with that.

Speaking of thumb pianos, if you want to hear some good TP trance pop, "neurotic sci-fi folk for the whole family", check out this 102 year old woman.

Hollow Man

I just found a website for John Millard and his band Happy Day. I'd never seen it before and it looks like he hasn't touched it in awhile. Funny these abandoned houses on the net. Except it's not so abandoned. It's got a page with two or three mp3's on it. I'm going to link one of them here – Hollow Man – since it's one of my favourite songs and I'm thinking of swiping the title to use as the title of a novel I'm writing about a pair of musicians.
This album has got more great songs on it then would be normally desirable or even respectable. If you like the banjo or if you like to get your heart twirled and your ear opened, you should get it. I believe it's just called John Millard and Happy Day. And if anyone has a problem with me linking mp3s, let me know and I'll take it down.

whodathunkit

So it looks like none other than the Boss has jumped up on the long neck banjo bandwagon.

Also, it seems that a certain masked blogger has inspired me to resuscitate this blog, even if I am blogging with old news.

Jane Jacobs

What the world needs now, it seems to me, and contrary to the opinion of at least one masked blogger, is a serious look at Jane Jacobs' Systems of Survival. If this book were heeded, if it were rated at all, nevermind overrated, there would not be big problems like torturers under private contract in Iraq getting away with murder while military grunts are scapegoated, there wd be no Halliburton for that matter; nor would there be little problems like competing gas co's coming to your door and trying to rip you off, all the while pretending to represent a public service.

Overrated. What a joke.

John Millard & Canada

Nice cover image. The boy's going to put a birdhouse up, but on stage, not in real life. Here's an email from John Millard, Canada's own latter day Uncle Dave Macon, i.e. the country's most innovative and celebratory banjo player (I tried once to pen a mock-epic ballad about the demise of his first band, the Polka Dogs - I only got about halfway through), this morning:

On Tuesday February 14 2006, come to THE RED GUITAR at Markham and Bloor and enjoy:

A PEOPLE'S FAME

John Millard's brand new renditions of Canadian folk songs. Performed by John Millard's trio featuring Tania Gill on piano, Jay Burr on Tuba and John Millard on banjo, cittern and vocals.

Sets at 9 pm and 10:30 pm

Students, Seniors, Artists at $6 and Everyone Else at $10.

While not an official release party, this should be considered a pre-release event and the new cd "A People's Fame" will be available.

Over the last three years, I have visited some of the biggest collections of folk songs in this country including The Canadian Museum of Civilization, The Edith Fowke Archive and the University of Calgary and The Phillip J. Thomas Collection of Popular Songs at the University of British Columbia. During this time, I have dug out what I think is a great collection of known and unknown Canadian songs and arranged them for this group of people.

These are the people who play on the cd:

Mark Duggan on Percussion
Don Kerr on Drums
Dragoslav Tanascovic on Accordion
Monica Federigo on Cello
Julia Hambleton on Clarinet
Pamela Bettger on Viola
Tania Gill on Piano
Jay Burr on Tuba
John Millard on Banjo, Cittern and Vocals

These are the songs:

The Raftsmen (Ontario),
Stormy Scenes of Winter (Nova Scotia),
All Smiles Tonight (ON)
Maid on the Shore (NS)
Klondike (BC)
Arise and Come Along! (ON)
Peter Amberley (NB)
Shining Birch Tree (QC)
Skidegate Love Song (BC)
Shanty Boy (ON)
Sunset (BC)
Mary Anne (BC)
False Knight on the Road (NS)
Louis Riel (MAN)
Rise Up, My Love and Come Away! (ON)
Young Monroe (Cape Breton)
Heave Away Johnny! (NS)

Look What's Coming

Out March 20th, with a launch at the Gladstone Hotel. Here's an email from Erynn Marshall and Chris Coole:

Music in the Air Somewhere is a study on conventions that many West Virginians hold dear: fiddle music and folk traditions. It is also a look into the broad influences that folk music has on fiddlers' compositions and their practices. By exploring the oral histories and music of seven celebrated, life-long West Virginian musicians, Erynn Marshall illuminates the diversity of these music traditions and the culmination of fiddle song genres.

Through the studies of these musicians' lives, oral transmission, social contexts, and analysis of various genres within the contexts, Marshall expresses how the instrumental and vocal tradition has merged and transformed over time, blurring the present boundaries and perceptions of the art.

Included with this intense survey of Appalachian tradition are seven musical transcriptions and a CD of Marshall's field and archival recordings of West Virginia musicians Warren Cronin, Rita Emerson, Lela Gerkins, Leland Hall, Phyllis Marks, Lester and Linda McCumbers, Woody and William Simmons, Melvin Wine, and the Sandy Valley Boys. (links are banjo banjar's)


In this excellent study designed for both the scholar of traditional music and the aficionado, Erynn Marshall has assembled a meticulous body of ethnographic information about West Virginia’s traditional musicians and their music. She also explores the place of “song-tunes,” a concept which she introduces here, thus opening up for the reader ways in which musical genres, folk artistry, and traditional repertoires work. Music in the Air Somewhere: The Shifting Borders of West Virginia’s Fiddle and Song Traditions is likely to become a classic in the field of roots and folk music.
Gerald Milnes
Folk Art Coordinator
Augusta Heritage Center


Music in the Air Somewhere: The Shifting Borders of West Virginia’s Fiddle and Song Traditions offers a happy combination of breadth and depth of vision, looking at a number of West Virginia fiddlers as it does finding broad themes, issues, and threads to highlight that might not have revealed themselves with a focus on just a single fiddler. Erynn Marshall is also right to highlight the importance of women fiddlers in the tradition and to explore ways in which women fiddlers differed in both repertory and performance preferences from men fiddlers, both historically and today.
Alan Jabbour, Founding Director
American Folklife Center
Library of Congress