Edinburgh Banjo Tuition Day #1 - Sunday 9th August 2009

[patcoolhand]

Hi Everyone...
Just a quick post to advertise my 'Edinburgh Banjo Day' which is happening this Sunday 9th August in the Leith area 9:30am - 5pm (with an evening bluegrass jam as a follow-on nearby from 7pm as well for those interested)...
It's £20 for the day and there's already about 17 people attending but still room for a few more...
Mail me on patcoolhand@gmail.com or call on 07986 485048 for more details...
Here's the day's schedule...

Edinburgh Banjo Tuition Day #1 - The Schedule

Venue- Cafe Area, Leith Acorn Centre YMCA, 1 Junction Place, Leith, Edinburgh, EH6 5JA
(it's near the foot of Leith Walk - across from Leith Victoria Swimming Baths)

9:30-9:45am arrival - check in - grab some tea/coffee & biscuits

9:45am introduction and talk over schedule for the day - perhaps at this point write a list of anything else that anyone would like me to talk about - also will hand out photocopied sheets on each topic/tune/thing as we go...

10am-11am - The basics - a quick revision (we could easily spend all day on this if we wanted to)

a) reintroduce and remind ourselves of what the simple things we need to do in our playing (how we hold the banjo, etc) to make ourselves sound better
b) basic chords - the three different positions (first, second and third positions)
c) basic rolls - the six most common rolls & example of them being used
d) the importance of steady timing when playing and practicing - use of metronome/drum machine
e) the concept of thinking about the details of how we play before we begin

11am-11:15am - quick break for tea/coffee

11:15am-12:30pm - Tune #1 - 'The Red Haired Boy' (my version) To demonstrate the basics we just talked about we'll all go through this classic 'standard' bluegrass tune together

a) play through the tune a few times/point out where all the similar bars & riffs are
b) a bar by bar breakdown of the tune...as a group we'll learn and play through some of the harder bars and look at how we join them together
c) get to play and join up those fragments all together with the drum machine keeping us in time

12:30-1:30pm - break for lunch (there's a few places nearby you can get food - sandwich shops, chippers, a wetherspoons pub, etc)

1:30pm - 3pm - Bluegrass Riffs & Licks on the banjo - the most common ones & how to incorporate them into our playing

a) licks out of the basic three chord positions
b) hammer on, slide and pull off licks
c) a few up the neck licks
d) linking a series of licks to make a basic solo

3pm - 3:15pm - quick break for tea/coffee

3:15pm - 4:30pm - Tune #2 - 'Old Home Place' - Another classic bluegrass standard that we can use as a structure to utilise some of the licks we learnt earlier in the afternoon

a) go through the tune as it is - look at the challenging parts of it and break it down into familiar rolls and fingering
b) look at where we can substitute riffs/licks into the tune both around the vocal (as backup) or over the whole tune as an extended solo (bearing in mind when you take a solo on a tune you'd usually play the tune itself the first time through)

4:30pm - 4:45pm - Wrap-up chat, questions, etc

5pm - deadline for being out of the building

Evening Jam...(slow jam)...
With chord charts - 7pm at The Victoria Bar on Leith Walk...
(no need to pay or have attended the day tuition to come along to this)

Also if you not free for the tuition day I do continue to teach one-to-one 5 String Bluegrass Banjo lessons here in Edinburgh - contact me for further details...
Cheers
Pat