- Jim Bottorff's Banjo Page
- Website History
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- Overview:
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- This website has evolved from 1994
as something for my own use, to the present, where it is used
by banjo players, banjo bands, teachers, performers and musicians
of all types throughout the world. The goal of the site is to
promote the banjo with instruction items, play-along songs, and
examples of how it can be played.
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- The Beginning:
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- In 1994 I began researching various
music software programs for the purpose of providing myself with
music accompaniment while playing the banjo. I began to
use midi files and the html website format. The website
format allowed for indexing the song titles and linking each
title to a midi file arrangement. In this way, I had quick and
easy access to my songs for playing along with on my banjo. The
song sound files were recorded onto cassette tapes, which I used
for my own play-along practice and for teaching students. Nothing
was put on the Internet at that time.
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- By 1995 the cassette tapes had been
distributed to a few people, including Gary Neuman, an established
San Francisco Bay Area musician. Gary suggested that I
start a webpage so others could play-along with the music as
well. In 1996 I started the first webpage with an obscure
address that was difficult to work with. Eventually in
1998 jbott.com was started.
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- The Songs:
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- At first, the webpage songs were
selected for students, a show our band was practicing for, and
sometimes a few verses I was trying to learn. I started including
requests from other banjo players for songs they liked. At
banjo shows and jam sessions, I would keep track of songs that
were being played. Ralph Martin (American Banjo Museum
Hall of Fame) suggested I add "Hit
Parade" songs to my website, like
the ones he used for the Southern California Banjo Band recordings.
The list of songs became large and my music library was small.
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- I used the Shakey's
Pizza Parlor Songsheet (pdf) as a starter.
All of the songs from the Shakey's songsheet are on this website.
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- Thanks to the Internet, eBay and
antique stores, I have been able to build up a large sheet music
library. Whenever possible, I like to use the original
sheet music for making my song arrangements. The next choice
is to use good fake books or arrangements from some of my banjo
friends. Last resort is to transcribe the song by ear from
a recording, and then have it reviewed by some music scholars
I know.
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- The Present:
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- The current jbott.com website has
two parts: (1) The HomePage aka
The Songs Page
and (2) The Beginners Page. These two pages provide links to songs,
instruction materials, sound clips, videos, pdf files, etc. Some
of the linked pages contain tablature or special notation specific
for Plectrum, 5-String, or Tenor banjos.
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- An "Update Log" showing recent additions and
changes can be accessed at the top of The
HomePage.
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- The most recent addition to the The
HomePage is a Performers Links
page, which links performer sound-clips and videos with the play-along
song pages. Select a performer name from the Performer
Names Index to see the song titles performers are linked
with.
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- Happy Picking and Strumming,
- Jim Bottorff
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