MAY - 2016 HTMA Newsletter APRIL

Volume 50 – Issue 5
www.huntsvillefolk.org
May 2016
HTMA Monthly Meeting
-
& Jam
Sunday – May 15th
Main Public Library Auditorium
starting 2:00 PM
................................................
Coffeehouse
The coffeehouse is still on vacation
2015 Gazebo Concert (photo by Bill Cassells)
HTMA President’s Notes
May 2016
Dear Friends,
This past month has been a milestone for your executive board.
Secretary/treasurer Pat Long and I both retired recently – vice-president
Jim England preceded us in that transition by quite a few years. So far the
retirement gig seems to be pretty pleasant for Pat and at my house. I am
enjoying more time to play music and piddle around with other interests.
With the additional “free” time on my plate, I have regained interest in restarting the HTMA coffeehouse series. At Sunday’s meeting Jerry McGough
told me that he would like to see his band, ShadyJ’s, play for a coffeehouse
gig, and I had to tell Jerry that the coffeehouse is on vacation at present. If
you, gentle reader, have any interest in making these performances a
reality, please get in touch.
I think that the minimum volunteer commitment we need to get back in
business is for one co-producer and one co-chair for the performance
committee. The co-producer would serve as a backup to handle
arrangements on the day-of-show, and the performance co-chair will assist
in conversations to book artists for our performances. Neither of these jobs
involves a major time investment – likely less than four hours a month, but
both are essential. In 2014 and 2015, the coffeehouse operated totally
single-string, with one producer (your president) and one booking agent
(Ken Winchester). Having zero backup for either position put too much
stress on both Ken and me, and that is what eventually led to the hiatus in
coffeehouse gigs this year. 
Inside this Issue:
1: A Message from President Jerry LeCroy
2: Area Events/ & HTMA Board
3. Stormy Weather (for your guitar)
4. Rise Up Singing (book review)
5: Member Classified Ads
Milton Woolridge playing an HTMA coffeehouse
in October 2009 (photo by Jerry LeCroy
I really like the coffeehouses as an opportunity for HTMA members and
friends to get to play out in a friendly environment, and for members and
friends to see and hear really entertaining artists from outside of our
immediate musical circle. I think that the coffeehouses provide value to
the association membership and the larger community. To get back in
gear, though, we will need to find some firm support from within the
ranks of HTMA membership.
I really enjoyed our April membership meeting/jam at the Bailey Cove
branch library meeting last Sunday. We had some great music at the jam,
and I think all attendees had a good time. As I was leaving I received
several comments from the library staff about how much they enjoyed
the music.
Please note that the membership meeting in May comes pretty early –
the third Sunday is the fifteenth. We will meet at the main Huntsville
Library auditorium.
I hope to see a lot of friends at our May meeting.
Jerry LeCroy
President JERRY LECROY
256-880-6234 [email protected]
Vice President & Public Service
Chairman
JIM ENGLAND
256-852-5740 [email protected]
Secretary/Treasurer
PAT LONG
256-539-7211 [email protected]
Publicity Chairman
BOB HICKS
256-683-9807 [email protected]
Performance Chairman
Position Open Please Volunteer!
---NEW HOPE SATURDAY NIGHT JAMS
Operations Chairman
GEORGE WILLIAMS
[email protected]
SATURDAY EVENINGS - Every Saturday starting 6:00 PM
New Hope Senior Center, New Hope, AL
---BREWGRASS JAMS held on 1st WED Monthly -6:00
PM STRAIGHT TO ALE BREWERY
Webmaster/
Jeri Ann Payne
3200 Leeman Ferry Rd SW, Huntsville AL
http://www.straighttoale.com
[email protected]
---MILLTOWNE Every 2nd Friday Evening-Monthly
Newsletter Editor
Jerry LeCroy
Plays at Bandito Southside Restaurant
11220 S Memorial Pky, Huntsville AL
The leadership of HTMA invites YOU
to be an active part of our great
organization, whether you play an
instrument, or want to share in any
other way, we welcome you and thank
you for your support!
SATURDAY May 7th
---ELMCROFT ASSISTED LIVING Starting 3:00 PM - 8020 Benaroya Ln., Huntsville AL
SATURDAY May 14th
HARBORCHASE RETIREMENT HOME
Starting 10:30 AM - 4801 Whitesport Cr., Huntsville AL
SATURDAY May 21st
REGENCY RETIREMENT VILLAGE
Starting 3:15 PM
HTMA Executive Board
2004 Max Luther Drive, Huntsville, AL
*Please check with Jim England for firm dates and times
Page | 2
Summertime, and the Living is Easy
Jerry LeCroy
Well, summer living is easy for humans, dogs, and
cats. This is less true for most of our musical
instruments. While some guitars and ukuleles are
built with plywood or have solid bodies that are
pretty impervious to changes in humidity, it’s likely
that the instruments you enjoy playing can be
affected by excess humidity or temperature
exposure.
Instrument response to humidity is generally a
relatively slow process. It might take a month or
more for the wood in a guitar top to come to
equilibrium after the average environmental
humidity level shifts. In the transitional period,
there some difficult stresses will develop. Your
guitar top is probably protected with a relatively
impermeable finish on the outside, but bare on the
inside. That means that the moisture affects the
inside surface first, and works its way out to the
outside. Since wood expands as it absorbs
moisture, the first effect that the change in
humidity has is to stress the outer surface of the
thin wood parts, like the top, causing some
propensity for those surfaces to crack. Although
cracks can be repaired by a good luthier, it is
disheartening to see one open up on your favorite
guitar.
Later, when the instrument top is fully saturated at
Huntsville summer humidity levels, other problems
arise. When wood expands or contracts due to
changes in moisture levels, most of the size
change occurs across the grain, with little-to-no
change in the direction of the grain. The body of
your guitar or mandolin has the wood grain flowing
parallel to the sides, so it does not want to grow
the way the top does. Since the body is usually
well braced, the top has only one way to go, and
that is up and out.
and the top panels. That stress can cause the
glue joints under braces to fail, and nothing makes
terrible sounding buzzes like a loose top brace.
The bottom line is that your instruments will thank
you if you pay attention to their exposure to
humidity extremes, either high or low. Our guitars,
mandos, and pianos aren’t the only instruments
subject to humidity-related issues. I remember
shopping for a quality oboe for my daughter some
years back, and I think over half of the instruments
I looked at had had cracks repaired. Crack repairs
on a conical-bore wood tube are likely to be far
more challenging to accomplish than on a simple
flat guitar top.
The other risk to our instruments in an Alabama
summer is exposure to high temperatures.
Leaving an acoustic instrument in a closed car is
the most likely death sentence. I have seen
guitars completely disassembled from exposure to
heat from being stored in an attic. How much heat
is too much? Well, although violins are
traditionally assembled with hide glue that softens
at lower temperatures, most modern instruments
are put together with aliphatic resins. Those resins
start getting weaker even at 100 F, and by 140 F
have relatively little strength. Titebond III is about
the best performer in aliphatic wood glues – bonds
with this adhesive have a room temperature
strength of about 4,000 psi. That bond strength
drops to less than 20% of the room temperature
value at 150 F, a level easily reached in a parked
car on a sunny Alabama summer day. Under
string tension at car interior temperatures, the
glued joints in your instrument are likely to just
give up and let go.
Moral – Take care of your instruments like your
babies or pets. None of them should be left in a
parked car, ever.
The top bowing out has two adverse effects. First,
that deflection changes the position of the bridge
relative to the neck, and the rising strings that
result cause playability issues. Second, the
curvature that develops in the top puts a lot of
stress on the glue joints between the top’s bracing
Page | 3
years, I haven’t had any issues with pages
tearing out by accident.
Book Review
Rise Up Singing (The Group Singing Songbook)
edited by Peter Blood and Annie Patterson
Rise Up Singing is a volume that each of us
should have several copies of at home. This
book was published by the editors of Sing Out
magazine in 1988, and lightly updated in 1992.
It contains compact chord charts and lyrics to
some 1,200 folk, pop, traditional, and topical
songs.
The book is spiral bound, so it lays flat on your
music stand, table, or lap. The spiral binding
eliminates the need for the clothespins I use
to hold conventionally bound music books
open on my music stands. The type faces are
a little tight for us older folks – expect to need
your reading glasses, but that is the only way
to get 1,200 tunes in a book under 300 pages.
The good news is that the chord charts are
bigger. They appear to have been written by
hand, perhaps in 1988 alternate fonts were
not so accessible.
The chord charts use a shorthand notation
that will take you a few songs to work out, but
it is compact and easily followed in practice.
The book features a well-organized index,
with songs listed by title, topic, artist, and
even by first line (a boon for those of us who
have trouble remembering song titles).
Although the book is available from the big
universal online bookseller, I recommend you
get your copies directly from the source, Sing
Out Publications:
http://singout.org/product/rise-up-singing-spiral/
Review by Jerry LeCroy
I
There’s no space inside this volume for fancy
arrangements. The book is intended to be
used as a guide for folks singing around the
fireplace or piano in the living room. That’s
why you need to have more than one copy, so
that you can have several people singing
together, each with their own reminder of the
song’s lyrics and chords. This is a small
volume, only 7 x 10 inches, and easily fits in
the pocket of my guitar case cover. The pages
are heavy enough to be durable. In twenty
Former HTMA president Bill McCampbell, who started the
association’s program of retirement home performances
Page | 4
Do you have an item for sale? Are you looking for an instrument? Are you wanting to acquire, trade or sell musical gear,
recordings, books, get something repaired.... Do you need music lessons? Are you wanting to join or find a new group or
band member? This section of our newsletter is for members to place ads for services or instruments or anything related
to music. It will be updated for each newsletter. If you have an item or advertisement you would like to be published,
please send an EMAIL (preferably before the fifteenth of the month) to [email protected] (Jerry) to have your listing
included in the upcoming newsletter. In your email, fully describe what your offering or looking for, and how you want
users to contact YOU, via email, phone or both, etc. Once your listing or item is no longer active, please also email
[email protected] for removal of your listing.
Please note that HTMA makes this service available to aid our users in finding, trading or selling music items and
services only - and we are not responsible for the completion or non-compliance of any transactions between
members.
Roy Book Binder in 2009 HTMA house concert (photo by Jerry LeCroy)
Page | 5
The Jimmie Rodgers Collection Guitar Recorded
Versions Tab Book, Hal Leonard by Fred Sokolow
Excellent paperback $10
Stephen Foster – America’s Troubadour by John
Tasker Howard, 1953, used paperback $7
Susanna, Jeanie, and the Old Folks at Home: The
Songs of Stephen C. Foster from His Time to Ours
November, 1975 by William W. Austin
Used hardback $5
Set of 3 Music Together Books (Fiddle, Triangle & Bongos)
produced by the Center for Music and Young Children
(CMYC) by Kenneth K. Guilmartin and Lili M. Levinowitz
Excellent condition, paperback, $5 for set.
contact: [email protected]
Looking for a band member, hosting a jam session,
wanting to be part of a group? Place a listing here..
Blood on the Strings playing an HTMA coffeehouse at Burritt Museum, September 2009.
.
Artists
are Keating Johns, Ben Davis, Dan Charles, and Danny Davis (photo by Jerry LeCroy)
Page | 6