Jane Keefer

Jane Keefer first became involved with old time stringband music in Southern California during the mid 1970s, acquiring a banjo, fiddle and dulcimer to go along with the guitar she had begun playing in college. When the budget was trimmed in 1977 and she was laid off from her science research job she began teaching and performing both traditional and modern material on these and other instruments.

Although self-taught in the time-honored “folk” approach, her analytical skills as a former scientist led to the development of more than 1300 arrangements for banjo, dulcimer, mandolin, guitar and fiddle in both tablature and standard notation. These arrangements, in turn, generated a modest mail-order business, published tablatures in Banjo Newsletter and other magazines and formed the basis for a number of adult education classes for both beginners and intermediate players, including an “old time stringband ensemble” class that introduced advanced beginners and intermediate players to the joys of group and jam session playing.

Other musical activities have included playing in numerous bands and a recording with Truman Price entitled Songs & Tunes of the Oregon Trail. An academic librarian for the past 15 years, she has continued to teach and perform, along with creating and maintaining the Folk Music Index to Recorded Sources at www.ibiblio.org/folkindex.