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Here’s a slow rag I played on bottleneck guitar. I picture sitting on the porch with a lemonade on a day when it’s too hot to move fast.

There are plenty of blemishes left in the sound. Most recordings try to isolate the music and eliminate background sound. I am experimenting with doing the opposite, because being able to hear the moment and the context gives the music emotional kick. But I don’t know if that is distracting and annoying.

I learned it from Turner’s Banjo Journal No 10. The original was probably perky instead of slow. You can find the sheet music I worked from here: http://www.classicbanjo.com/tutors/TBJ/TBJ-10.pdf. This is probably from the early 1880s.

Here’s the sheet music for those who are inclined that way (chords added by me to make it easier to jam on):

I was inspired by “Dark Was the Night” by Blind Willie Johnson, the Ry Cooder soundtrack for “Paris, Texas”, Ben Harper’s and John Fahey’s weissenborn playing.

This recording is permissively licensed under Creative Commons Attribution. Have at it as long as you give credit. The best type of credit is to link back to this post, at http://soupgreens.com/2012/08/22/brooklet-schottische/ ‎.