I will be teaching the following three workshops on Saturday, July 18th, at the Wood-N-Strings Dulcimer Shop in Townsend, TN. This is an all-instrument workshop and will include Clawhammer Banjo. Each of these workshops will give you the tools and skills to give you a new-found freedom to play helping you not only to play by ear, but teach you to embellish on the fly, playing tunes differently every time. It is open to all levels. Only $35 for all three workshops. Following t...he workshop will be a concert. Here are the workshop descriptions...please feel free to share! Thank you!
Canoodling Your Noodle: It’s time to quit relying on other people’s musical compositions and, instead, simply learn to play the instrument right in front of you. In this workshop, you will understand how to play without relying on what is written on a musically-prescribed piece of paper! This is not a “tune” workshop, but takes learning much farther. In this workshop, you will learn to “mix it up” learning to improvise and embellish on the fly. If you play any tune ten times through, you will learn the techniques and skills to play it ten different ways, never having to play the tune the same way twice. This will change how you play and give you a new-found freedom and joy in your playing. Quit playing with your eyes, and start using your noodle!
Running the Stairs: In this workshop, we teach all instruments, the same tune (or a few tunes) at the same time, with no music notation or tab and the tune is memorized and "visualized" by the end of the workshop! The method taught will not only help you learn new tunes quickly, but memorize them as well! This workshop teaches exactly how music is not what is written down on a piece of paper, but what comes from the heart and the hands.
Noodling to Make Music: This is simply a FUN light-hearted, no stress workshop that will teach you to make music, not only on your instrument, but even on an instrument you have never even played! As a group, we will put together original pieces and be jamming and playing WITH NO PRESSURE at all! And its simply cool! I taught this in one of my string band clubs and a visitor who was simply working nearby was blown away by the music! She could not believe how it came about and how simplistic the ideas were and thought the club had been working on the tune for a few months...not something that occurred right then in moment! Trust me, this workshop is a blast and will show you just how easy and fun it is to make music happen!