Index
Every piece
The full roster — twenty-eight pieces across six sections. Each entry says what the instrument or the convention is doing in the sound, not how to play it.
The mix is made by walkingWith one microphone there is no engineer balancing anything: a player steps forward to solo and back to blend, and the whole arrangement is choreography around a stand.
Stepping inThe half-second before a break, and where the player has to be.
The bass stays putOne instrument that does not move, and why.
Feedback and positionWhy the wedge is where it is, and what happens when it is not.
Why it survivedA practical constraint that became an aesthetic and then a tradition.
The roll that never stopsA three-finger banjo pattern running continuously underneath everything, so the instrument functions as motion rather than as melody.
The chopA closed mandolin chord on the offbeat, standing in for a snare drum.
The fiddle answersFilling the gaps at the ends of vocal lines.
The guitar holds the floorBass runs and rhythm, and the one instrument everyone else is listening to.
The resonatorA guitar with a metal cone, played flat with a steel bar.
No drumsThe absence that defines the sound, and what fills the role instead.
Stacking above the melodyThe lead sings the tune and the tenor sits above it, which is the opposite of most popular harmony and produces the characteristic strain.
The high lonesomeA voice pitched at the top of its comfortable range, on purpose.
Baritone and bassThe parts underneath, and how a quartet is built.
The trio chorusVerses solo, choruses in three parts — the standard shape.
Songs everybody knowsA shared body of material large enough to fill a night and standard enough that strangers need agree only on a key.
The key questionThe only negotiation before a tune starts.
Standard formsVerse, chorus, break — and the predictability that makes joining in possible.
Borrowed from elsewhereSongs taken from older traditions and reshaped by the arrangement.
InstrumentalsTunes with no words, used as vehicles.
The car park jamThe parallel event to any festival: circles of players in the campground, open to anyone who can hold the form.
Circle etiquetteTaking a break in turn, and the unwritten rules that keep it working.
The slow jamA circle run deliberately under tempo so more people can join.
Who calls the tuneRotating the choice, and what that does to the repertoire.
Capturing a band that movesRecording an arrangement built around one microphone, and what happens when you give everyone their own.
The single takePlaying it through, and the tradition of not fixing it afterwards.
Close mics changed itIsolation made the mix editable and quietly removed the reason to move.
RadioLive broadcast as the format the music was arranged for.