Volume 50 Issue www.huntsvillefolk.org May 2016

1 -Sunday May 15thMain Public Library Auditorium starting 2:00 PM .. Coffeehouse The coffeehouse is still on vacation Inside this Issue : 1: A Message from President Jerry LeCroy 2: Area Events/ & HTMA Board Weather (for your guitar)4. Rise Up Singing (book review)5: Member Classified AdsMilton Woolridge playing an HTMA coffeehouse in October 2009 (photo by Jerry LeCroy HTMA Monthly Meeting & Jam 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 re-starting 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.)

2 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. Volume 50 Issue May 2016 Page | 2 ---NEW HOPE SATURDAY NIGHT JAMSSATURDAY EVENINGS - Every Saturday starting 6:00 PM New Hope Senior Center, New Hope, AL ---BREWGRASS JAMS - held on 1st WED Monthly -6:00PM STRAIGHT TO ALE BREWERY3200 Leeman Ferry Rd SW, Huntsville ---MILLTOWNE -Every 2nd Friday Evening-MonthlyPlays at Bandito Southside Restaurant11220 S Memorial Pky, Huntsville AL SATURDAY May 7th---ELMCROFT ASSISTED LIVING -Starting 3:00 PM - 8020 Benaroya Ln.

3 , Huntsville ALSATURDAY May 14th HARBORCHASE RETIREMENT HOMES tarting 10:30 AM - 4801 Whitesport Cr., Huntsville AL SATURDAY May 21st REGENCY RETIREMENT VILLAGES tarting 3:15 PM 2004 Max Luther Drive, Huntsville, AL *Please check with Jim England for firm dates and timesHTMA Executive Board President - JERRY LECROY 256-880-6234 President & Public Service Chairman JIM ENGLAND 256-852-5740 PAT LONG 256-539-7211 Chairman BOB HICKS 256-683-9807 Chairman Position Open Please Volunteer! Operations Chairman GEORGE WILLIAMS Webmaster/ Jeri Ann Payne Newsletter Editor Jerry LeCroy 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! 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.

4 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 Page | 3 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.

5 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.

6 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. 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 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.

7 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.

8 Moral Take care of your instruments like your babies or pets. None of them should be left in a parked car, ever. Page | 4 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. 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 years, I haven t had any issues with pages tearing out by accident.

9 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: Review by Jerry LeCroy Former HTMA president Bill McCampbell, who started the association s program of retirement home performances Page | 5 Do you have an item for sale?

10 Are you looking for an instrument? Are you wanting to acquire, trade or sell musical gear, recordings, books, get something 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 (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 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.