Prepping for the MBOTMA Duet and Guitar Contests at the MN State Fair

MBOTMA has sponsored the Minnesota Flatpicking Guitar & Duet Championships at the Minnesota State Fair since 2003. From the beginning, Lynn and I have entered the Duet Contests and I've been in the Guitar contest (with Lynn accompanying). In a blog I wrote after the event last year I described some of the reasons I enter. Since I'm writing now a few days before the contests I thought I'd describe some of the ways we 'prep' for the event.

When we first started playing for the duet contests, Lynn and I would often learn new songs specifically for the contest: sometimes we'd be still memorizing words the week before and often playing it in front of people for the first time at the fair. After a particular shaky experience, we decided to use songs that we'd played for a while and had sung 'in performance' Of course, it helps that for the past few years we actually perform regularly. This improved 'comfort' level has probably helped us place in the top 5 the last couple of years. For the preliminary round this year we are doing our versions of 'East Viriginia Blues' and 'Bear Creek Blues'. These are described here. East Virginia has been one of our 'favorites' the last year and we've performed it many times. Bear Creek is newer, but we've been performing it since March (although the first time we played it at Dulono's it was a train wreck!). If we make it into the final round (top 5), we will do Lonesome Pine Special. We've been doing this for a number of years and played it once at the contest (but didn't place). Like many of our songs our arrangement has evolved over the years so it sounds quite a bit different (and hopefully better) than a few years back.

Since this is a duet contest, we like to sing songs that are 'full duet' on both verse and chorus. This eliminates some of the songs we really like, since the verses are solo. Thus far and including this year, I have sung the 'lead' while Lynn sings harmony. Although last year our final round number had Lynn on fiddle, we usually both play guitar. The songs need to be less than 4 minutes which has occasionally eliminated a song from consideration. We've found that trying to 'shorten' an arrangement usually doesn't work.

Although all the songs we are doing this year are in the Carter Family repertoire, Bear Creek is the only one directly based on their arrangement. For East Virginia Blues, we are heavily influenced by a Stanley Brothers version; Lonesome Pine I originally learned from a Hazel Dickens record (but our version is now considerably different). Beer Creek is both the 'newest' (to us) and trickiest song we do. The rhythm is 'crooked' and it is important that we both are ready to sing at the same time.

Our main prep for the contest is to keep singing the songs. We've also been listening to make sure our word usage is consistent (weepin' vs weeping) and that word timing is consistent, although as the harmony singer Lynn has gotten pretty good at following my variations. (But I still work at singing it the same way each time). We also focus on the instrumental introductions and endings. These songs all have instrumental breaks and it is important to sing the next verse in time (without an extra measure or two).

The state fair audience is about as big an audience as we play for (although playing at the Home Grown Kickoff was similar) and you are singing through a sound system without monitors. I remember the first year or two being thrown off by the amplification. Thus for the last few years I've set up the sound system in the living room so that we get used to the 'amplified' sound. I set things up last night with our 'farmers market' setup (portable amps), so tonight will be our first go with the mikes set up.


During the year Lynn and I 'rehearse' on Mondays. As the state fair approaches we add rehearsals and this week we will practice every night. We are set in how everything goes: at this point its the 'reps' that do the most good.

(More on Guitar in a later post).