[BOTMC_announcements] Reserve a spot at a BOTMC workshop!

Sat Sep 10 02:05:36 EDT 2005

There are some great workshops coming up at the 52303th annual Berkeley
Old Time Music Convention.

We'll only be accepting reservations over mail/email through September 10th. 
There will also be a table set up during the contest on Saturday if you forget, 
and you can *also* show up without a reservation and hope for the best on Sunday. 
If you want up-to-date information, check the workshops page on the BOTMC website:

http://www.berkeleyoldtimemusic.org/scheduleWorkshops.html

Here's a quick rundown (longer descriptions follow towards the end of
this email):

All workshops will be held on Sunday, September 18th in private
residences in Berkeley (well, one's in Rockridge... close enough :) The
exact address will be provided over email.

Fiddle workshops:
- 11:00am: Michael Drayton, Midwestern Fiddle
- 1:30pm: Rafe Stefanini, Old Time Fiddle

Banjo workshops:
- 11:00am: Mike Seeger, Old Time Banjo Styles
- 1:30pm: Molly Tenenbaum, Clawhammer Banjo

Guitar and Singing:
- 11:00am: Eric Thompson, Carter Family Guitar Style
- 1:30pm: Jody Stecher & Kate Brislin, Duet Singing

Dance Calling:
- 11:00am: Bill Martin!

[Don't forget about Evie's clogging workshop on Saturday night before
the dance... it'll be at Ashkenaz from 6:30->7:30pm, and it's $10. No
reservation required for that one.]

In order to guarantee yourself a spot, you've got to send a check for
$20 -- made out to the workshop instructor -- to my home address

Ben Sigelman
243 Fillmore St
San Francisco, CA 94117

Please also send an email to workshops at ... for our
records. Feel free to call me at 415 613 1409 if you have any
questions.

Here's more information about our illustrious workshop instructors and
their respective workshops:

-----------------------------------------------------------
Missouri Fiddle with Mike Drayton
In the "Missouri Fiddle" workshop Mike will play and teach some tunes he
learned from Missouri fiddlers Pearl Sivetts and Clyde Martin. These two
fiddlers had very different styles in spite of the fact that they lived
in the same county. Mike will also play recordings of these and other
Missouri fiddlers showing individual style variations. Anyone who
attends is invited to play a midwest tune of their choice.

Mike Drayton is the grandson of a fiddler on one side and a tenor banjo
player on the other, but he learned his fiddling from the late Pearl
Sivetts of Unionville, Missouri. In addition to Pearl's ragtime style,
Mike plays Irish fiddle, Texas style, and North Country tunes, and has
been playing fiddle for about 35 years, first with the Iowa Corn Dodgers
and later with the Arkansas Sheiks.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Old Time Fiddle with Rafe Stefanini
This workshop is intended for fiddle players of intermediate/advanced
level. The teaching will be hands on, by ear and without written music.
However, a recording device and a tuner are strongly recommended. I
stress the need for the students to listen before playing along.
Everyone learns at a different speed so I invite the students to join in
the playing as they feel comfortable and ready. Then I am going to
repeat the tune, or parts of it, for as long as it takes for everyone to
capture the core of it. Then I can break down sections in detail and
answer questions about specifics. I find that this way most people are
able to learn a tune in about one hour.

Rafe Stefanini has played and taught fiddle for 25 years, and has
established himself as one of the most accomplished interpreters of
Southern Old Time fiddle styles of his generation. His work with The
Wildcats, The L7s, Big Hoedown and The Rockinghams is showcased in many
critically acclaimed recordings. He is currently performing solo and
with Beverly Smith and Carl Jones.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Old Time Banjo Styles with Mike Seeger
Based on his acclaimed three video series, Mike will present a survey of
southern banjo styles, teaching important historic pieces to help you
develop a full range of repertoire and traditional techniques.using a
variety of old-time picking styles including up-picking, clawhammer,
multi-finger brush technique and others from the early African American
and Southern Appalachian traditions.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Developing Banjo Style with Molly Tenenbaum
How do you give a song character and feeling? How do you play a song so
that it sounds like it's always been meant to be played that way, even
if it hasn't been played that way before? How do you find your own
style? In order to find out, we'll play with various banjo-y noodles and
doodles of the right and left hands, consider ways to keep strings
ringing and rhythms galloping, and apply these bits of banjo language to
the playing of some of my favorite songs.

Molly Tenenbaum has been playing old-time banjo for more than thirty
years, and is known for her traditional approach and subtle originality.
Influenced primarily by scratchy old recordings of fiddle players from
all over the United States, she loves to spend her time figuring out
ways to make strings ring as rhythmically and richly as possible. Her
goal is to make the music personal and new in secret ways that sound
anonymous and old. Molly Tenenbaum lives in Seattle, where she writes
poetry, teaches English and banjo, and is a member of two string bands,
The Queen City Bulldogs and Dram County. She has a solo CD entitled
Instead of a Pony.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Carter Family Guitar Style with Eric Thompson
The style of lead guitar pioneered by Maybellle Carter is a great way
for guitarists who are comfortable playing rhythm to expand into picking
out melodies. In class, we'll look at "Carter-style" from three
different angles: we'll learn some "classic" breaks to Carter Family
songs. We'll also work on using her style to play ANY song melody
(within reason). Lastly, we'll look at some of more unusual breaks that
Maybelle recorded, including bluesy fingerpicking, drop-D tuning, and
single note flatpicking, that show the breadth of her guitar mastery.

Eric Thompson is a well known and patient teacher. He has taught at the
Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, Bluff Country Gathering, Augusta Heritage
Old-Time and Cajun-Creole Weeks, Port Townsend Festival of American
Fiddle Tunes, Ashokan Fiddle & Dance Camp, and Lark In the Morning.His
three recent guitar instructional videos are distributed by Stefan
Grossman's Guitar Workshop. Eric is featured in the Mel Bay publication
Flatpicking 2000 and has been writing columns for Flatpicking Guitar and
Acoustic Guitar magazines. He's been playing in bands since the early
60's with luminaries such as Jerry Garcia, David Nelson, David Grisman,
Joe Cooley, Kevin Keegan, Kate Brislin and of course, Suzy Thompsn.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Duet Singing with Jody Stecher & Kate Brislin
Jody Stecher and Kate Brislin will conduct a participatory workshop in
which the nuts and bolts of their approach to duet singing is revealed.
They will teach by example, through description and analyisis, and
through gentle guidance. Some of the aspects of duet singing touched on
will be harmony, phrasing, dynamics, rhythm, coordination with
instruments, and adjusting one's musical approach to that of each
singing partner. This is a workshop for those who have already sung, or
have made some attempt to sing, some sort of early oldtime country music
with another person, and want to improve their skills. This is not a
workshop on how to find a harmony part. This is a workshop on how to use
and expand that skill in the context of old-time country music and early
bluegrass.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Dance Calling with Bill Martin
The workshop is purely practical. I'll teach the neophytes how to call a
simple dance, and I'll teach the experienced callers how to call a
simple dance. They will get some experience calling in the supportive
safety of the group. Most of the workshop will be about teaching.
Teaching is the hardest part of calling and the area we all fail at
regularly.

Bill Martin has been calling square dances, contras and Irish ceili
dances for 19 years in the Portland, Oregon, area. He is a guitar and
cello player in the Uncle Wiggily old-time string band, and performs
old-time music with his wife, Nancy. Bill is the "bubba" of
bubbaguitar.com, an admirer of Southern mountain square dancing, and
mentor to Portland's new young callers.

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