Mel Bay A Fiddle Player's Guide to Jamming
John Sherman has been playing guitar since age ten when, while living in Italy, curiosity led him to begin trying to play a guitar his father had purchased as a gift. His earliest interest was American folk music, soon followed by classical instruction from Professor Costas Proakis, himself a one-time student of Andres Segovia. Though his exposure to the established and rigorous classical method was all too brief, cut short as it was by his family's return to the U. S., it provided a thorough grounding for the playing style he subsequently developed.  Some years of self-taught exploration of the rock and folk idioms followed, until John became a member of a traditionally oriented old-time American string band in the mid 1970's. This led to his becoming acquainted with the stringed instruments used in that genre of music, especially the fiddle and 5-string banjo. The Irish and Scottish tunes found within this repertoire especially intrigued John, who found himself increasing drawn to the music of these traditions. At this point, John took up the Highland bagpipes, which introduced him to yet another repertoire and ornamentational style.  John's return to the guitar, which he had largely left alone for about five years, was occasioned by hearing the work of other Celtic and Celtic-influenced guitarists, notably Pierre Bensusan's album "Pres de Paris." While experimenting with the DADGAD tuning used by Bensusan, John was struck by the wonderful ease, efficiency and grace with which Celtic meldoies could be rendered. Arranging these tunes for guitar has been at the center of his musical endeavors ever since. John believes that the feature that most sets him apart from other guitarist/arrangers working in the field is his multi-instrumental background. "A lot of what I end up arranging for guitar I've in fact learned or heard performed on other instruments," he says, "and the characteristics of the instrument tend to get enchoed in my own guitar treatment of the tune. Also, guitarists who learn mainly from the work of other guitarists are necessarily somewhat subject to that experiential limitation on their choice of material and stylistic presentation. If you don't come up with much of your own material, this can be quite restrictive." While he has written a few original works, the challenge of arranging existing tunes within the traditional framework continues to engage him: "As long as there are tunes out there to which the guitar can give a unique voice," John says, "I'll be looking for them."   Carl Yaffey, a multi-instrumentalist (banjo, guitar, bass, mandolin) has been playing music on and off since 1962 (the “folkie” days). Way back then in Norfolk, VA, he played banjo and guitar in several Kingston Trio “clone” groups. After moving to Columbus, OH in 1966 to accept a job as a programmer with Bell Laboratories, he played bass in a country band and several rock and roll “oldies” bands. In between, Carl has played old-time and bluegrass banjo and bass with several different groups. Carl now teaches music, plays with One Riot One Ranger, Five Guys Named Moe, the Timbre Wolves, the Pit Bull String Band, and Turkeys in the Straw. And, he jams whenever he can.