Shrewsbury folk festival august bank holiday weekend ( see website for full info on this great festival)
I will be leading a series of 5 DG specific workshops 2 sat morning, 2 sunday morning and one ( a so called masterclass) on Monday morning.
The workshops will be progressive but I may have to adjust the programme depending on the experience and skill of the participants. However the general plan will beon the lines of.
workshop 1. This will NOT be an absolute beginners workshop (but absolute beginners are very welcome to come along and hopefully pick up some useful stuff they can apply later and to generally 'soak up some melodeon stuff and meet other players)) We will start off by playing a very well known tune together as a sort of ice breaker and because its a fun thing to do. This will be followed by some discussion and demonstration ( not necessarily by me) of basic techniques and exchange of ideas on such matters. All being well we will then make a start on getting the basic hang of a lively but relatively easy 4 button English tune.
Workshop 2. Which follows directly after workshop 1! In this we will continue our efforts on the tune started in workshop 1 , with hopefully any good players helping those who are less experienced . Following perhaps a bit more discussion on technique we may have a crack at the second tune which will not be English or indeed British but is a cracking tune for English ceilidh/ barn dance or session playing. This will be a bit more complex than the 4 button tune but is nor unduly difficult to get the hang of in basic form.
Workshop 3.We will mostly be spent consolidating the 2 tunes and bring them a bit nearer to 'performanace' standard. All being well we will have time to introduce tune 3 which will be a waltz of English origin.
Workshop 4 . We will ,all being well , make some progress with tune 3 and then start to add some interesting additions to all three tunes i.e move away from playing the tight notes in the right order to playing the tunes with 'musicality' . Some will get the hang of this fairly quickly whilst others will have the knowledge to apply a bit further in their playing career
Workshop 5, The so called 'master class' will ,in the main, enable us to further develop advanced techniques using the 3 tunes and if time permits will enable us to have a general discussion and exchange of ideas on how to add musicality to our playing.
That's the general idea but obviously I may have to make adjustments here and there depending on how we progress.
And before anybody asks I will not be revealing the names of the 3 tunes in advance so that everybody has a level playing field so to speak.
The workshops will hopefully be fun and whilst I will not be able to slow things down to absolute beginers level I will certainly not be catering for smart arses who would perhaps be better running their own workshops.!
george