Instructor: Barry Saunders
Advanced Levels; All Instruments

In this class we will build on the basic understanding of major scales and their corresponding diatonic chords to introduce secondary dominants and changing keys.

Instructor: Barry Saunders
Advanced Levels; All Instruments

We will explore idiomatic considerations when improvising, i.e. rhythmic and/or harmonic specific language of the idiom.  We will also cover community improv and sharing the joy of music.

Instructor: Barry Saunders
All Levels; All Instruments

Here we will cover how to recognize a key to aid in developing your improvisation. We will also cover community improv and sharing the joy of music.

Instructor: Bonnie Black

We all want it: the ability to play FAST! Not just speedy, but clean, beautiful, steady, dancey, and easy-sounding all at the same time. It’s the gold standard for instrumentalists wanting to jam, play for dancers, or simply make those fast tunes sound like they’re meant to — and, weirdly, you can’t get there just by practicing slowly! In this workshop, Bonnie will show you the techniques and practice strategies you need to start playing fast tunes with ease and excellence. Come demystify the “secrets” of achieving those top tempos!

Instructor: Bonnie Black
All Levels; All Melody Instruments

“So many tunes, so little time” — and the faster you learn them, the more you can get to! Come learn some incredibly powerful techniques that can help you understand, digest, and master tunes in a fraction of the time you’re used to. No matter whether you are learning by ear or reading music, the skills are the same, and Bonnie will have you feeling like a tune- learning ninja by the end of the workshop! Open to any melody-playing instrument.

Instructor: Bonnie Black
All Levels; Cello

Us cello players can sound great on melodies….but sometimes those tunes are just so high up! How do you navigate all those treble clef tunes without shifting up and down endlessly? Enter Thumb Position, a great tool that opens up the treble clef range for cellists, without the need for tiresome shifting. Come explore some common “high tunes” and extend your range to be able to join those violinists on the melody with ease!

Instructor: Bonnie Black
Intermediate-Advanced Levels; All Instruments

This workshop will dive into the joy of helping new fiddlers get started from the very beginning — or more specifically, how to take folks who have never even held an instrument before and turn them into enthusiastic fiddlers for your local fiddle orchestra! Drawing on her decades of experience raising musicians of all ages, Bonnie will show you how to teach beginners of any age (yes, including “I’ve always wanted to play” adults!), starting from scratch and arriving as quickly as possible at a repertoire of classic fiddle tunes that any fiddle orchestra or band would be happy to play. Open to anyone with the desire to teach bowed string instruments (violin, viola, ‘cello, bass) — bring your instrument, your sense of playfulness, and your curiosity!

Instructor: Bonnie Black
All Levels; All Instruments

Every good fiddle group has players of mixed levels …. but every GREAT fiddle group knows how to harness the skills of its less-experienced players and use them to help the whole group sound way better than it would without them! In this workshop, we’re going to throw out the idea of “easy” or “beginner” parts, and learn instead how to create simple, but clever and catchy parts designed for every level of player in your orchestra. We’ll work with classic tunes that any fiddle group would be proud to play, and explore how to create a multi-level arrangement that not only maximizes the skills of every player, but also uses them to build a rich, interesting, and fun arrangement that everyone will love! Open to all instruments — bring your “axe”, and be ready to play!

Host: Andy Reiner Special Guest: Rob Flax
All Levels; All Instruments

Be part of a live recording of River of Suck Podcast – the evolution of Andy’s “Healthy Musical Attitudes” from a decade of fiddle camp workshops.  “You have to suck at something before you can be good at it.”  River of Suck is real-talk about struggles with confidence, self-doubt and becoming the youest you.  Host Andy Reiner and Special Guest Rob Flax will parse tough questions about maintaining a healthy attitude in the face of impossible obstacles.

Instructor: Andy Reiner
All Levels; All Instruments

Instruments in hand, we’ll explore techniques to create different sounds and textures.  We’ll listen to each other’s ideas to arrange a tune together, using our new strategies as an ensemble.

Instructor: Andy Reiner
All Levels; Bowed Stringed Instruments

Andy Reiner grew up playing twin fiddle with his Dad, Dave Reiner, in the Reiner Family Band. Learn the essentials of creating harmony “twin parts” to fiddle tunes, alongside backup strategies, counterpoints and other arrangement possibilities.  Some sheet music provided.

Instructor: Andy Reiner
All Levels; Bowed Stringed Instruments

Using ornaments, tune skeletons and smaller phrases, we’ll learn strategies for on-the-spot rhythmic and melodic variations.  Keeping tunes fresh, alive, and 3-Dimensional.  (Can you find the mysterious fourth dimension of fiddle tunes?)  Game-changing for contra dance tunes as well as taking solos in bluegrass jams.

Instructor: Andy Reiner
All Levels; All Instruments 

Tunewriting is for players who want to explore the compositional side of traditional music. In this workshop, we’ll dissect fiddle tunes to find out what makes them tick, explore different compositional strategies, discuss how to use melodic development to turn a small phrase into a coherent fiddle tune, and learn how to open ourselves up to receive those magic bits of inspiration. As a group, we will collaborate on writing a new tune together, and attendees will leave with a new skill set and inspiration for writing new tunes into the future!

Instructor: Andy Reiner
All Levels; All Instruments

Featuring small group musical explorations in a welcoming environment with a strong focus on listening and musicality.  A perfect introduction to improvising, and just as appropriate and deeper for more experienced players.  It’s time to get weird!

Instructor: Andy Reiner
All Levels; All Instruments

With our instruments, we will explore rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic improvisation strategies that enhance our musicianship in any style, while working to cultivate a healthy musical attitude – removing mental barriers and freeing ourselves to be creative, improvising musicians.

Instructor: Andy Reiner
All Levels; Bowed Stringed Instruments

Chopping – unpitched bow noises that turn the violin into a drumset.  Learn the technique and feeling at an incremental pace.  Take the oath and learn how to chop wisely, musically, and tastefully.  You will emerge with the tools and strategies to practice your chopping into the future, and employ the technique wherever your creativity takes you.

Instructor: Andy Reiner
All Levels; Bowed Stringed Instruments

Tracy Silverman’s recently developed Strum Bowing method encompasses all the different alternative bow techniques – shuffles, ghost notes and chops – by targeting the common thread linking grooves in all styles: the subdivision of the beat.  With Strum Bowing, you physicalize the subdivision with your bow as if you were strumming a guitar, creating grooves by bringing out accents and ghost notes.  In this class, Andy will take you on a strum bowing journey – get ready to groove!

 

Instructor: Steve Muise
All Levels; All Instruments

Steve Muise is a celebrated musician on so many levels: teacher; orchestra leader; band leader; composer; and versed in many different genres. Come to this class with Steve Muise and ask him about ANYTHING! Want to learn how to play in harmony?  Want to learn how he collaboratively arranges
tunes with the Franklin County Fiddlers? Want to learn something that he knows? This is your chance to get the low down on Steve’s expert knowledge and his undivided attention.

Instructor: Steve Muise
All Levels; All Instruments

“Don’t be afraid to be awesome!” This is the guiding principle embraced in all of my teaching. Come learn about school orchestras and fiddling programs through my lens. We’ll talk about ways that you may promote music in your own communities. I’ll bring 30 years of experience of teaching orchestra and traditional music in schools.

Instructor: Steve Muise
All Levels; All Instruments

In this workshop we will demystify chords and jazz chords for improvising. We’ll take a look at how to navigate some common basic chord relationships that happen in many styles of music, especially in jazz and swing. Rather than go in depth in theory, we’ll use call and response to start building a starting vocabulary that you can begin to build on.  If you already have a vocabulary of “licks” started, come and share yours, and learn new ones! We may look at a few popular standards, and more.

Instructor: Steve Muise
All Levels; All Instruments

Join a collaborative experience in tune writing. We’ll write a group tune together while gaining some take-away tips
for continuing composing tunes on your own.  We’ll talk about inspiration, tune types,key and phrase structures, call and response, resolutions, a bit of theory and more.

Instructor: Steve Muise
All Levels; Bowed Stringed Instruments

How to employ notes, chords and grooves when accompanying other players, singers, etc. You will learn some basic music “string theory” that you can use to jam, play duos, use as a springboard for improvisation and more.   We’ll play some basic chords, go over left-hand finger patterns, and bow grooves.

Instructor: Steve Muise
All Levels; Bowed Stringed Instruments

Techniques will focus on: intonation, shifting, vibrato and tone production.
Learn ideas that you can take away to improve your overall playing, and apply to any style.

Instructor: Erica Brown
All levels, All Instruments

We will touch on a little bit of everything in this class: from exercises to improve your intonation and speed; vibrato; double stops and chords; chopping; slurs; and more!

Please come prepared with a question to address a specific issue you are dealing with. My favorite thing to do as a teacher is to help my students work through challenges they may be experiencing and help them figure out the best ways to work through them. My goal is to give you a new tool to add to your toolbox, one that will help you overcome not only your current struggle, but future musical hurdles, too.

Instructor: Karen St. Clair
All Levels; All Instruments

Just imagine being able to calm any anxiety that you might have before a performance. Do you get anxious at the thought of performing or even jamming socially? Attending this EFT Tapping class will teach you how to calm any level of anxiety that’s been holding you back. Learn how to manage stress and anxiety by gently tapping on your energy meridian points (we all have them!) Enjoy the freedom of peaceful playing.

Instructor: Fred White
All Levels; Guitar

 

Instructor: Fred White
All Levels; All Instruments

 

Instructor: Elaine Malkin
Intermediate and Advanced Levels; Fiddlers

How do you make your tunes come alive and tell a story? In this workshop we will take a simple tune and discover how to reveal the energy, tone, color, and emotion within the piece. By focusing on phrasing, dynamics, and expression, we will play with the many stories that can be created with these tools allowing the tune to speak in a new voice. You will leave with many ideas to play with in your own repertoire.

Instructor: Elaine Malkin
All Levels; Fiddle/Violin

Just what are the differences between being a classical player and being a traditional musician? How do you switch between the two roles and why might you wish to incorporate some techniques from the “other side” into your playing? Many musicians get their start in classical training then find themselves drawn to traditional music, while some traditional players pursue classical training to develop their sight reading skills and other techniques. Explore how these two modes of approaching the fiddle (ahem, violin) overlap and differ, and how to merge the strengths of both in your playing.

Instructor: Matt Shipman
All Levels; All Instruments

People make a living not only songwriting, but interpreting traditional songs and tunes and even other people’s songs. Learn more about thinking and hearing out of the box and using your own style and creativity to reshape and arrange or a song or tune. We may even choose a song and/ or tune and do this together as a group!

 

Instructor: Erica Brown
Experienced Fiddlers with Chord Knowledge Only

Chopping* is a rhythmic, percussive bowing technique that is used to provide backup to singers and while another instrument is taking a solo. It sounds a little like beat boxing on the fiddle using chords and different rhythms to create a really cool sound. It was made popular recently by fiddlers like Casey Driessen and Darol Anger.

*Being able to play and have a general understanding of chords is a must!

Instructors: Erica Brown and Matt Shipman
All Levels; Vocals

In this class we will illustrate the fundamentals of harmony and harmony singing for duets and trios as done in Bluegrass and Country styles of singing. We will learn to sing and identify different harmony parts and to sing specific songs in harmony with the rest of the group.  This class is open to anyone who is interested in learning to sing or who already has some singing experience.

Instructor: Erica Brown
All Instruments; All Levels

In this class we will demystify the (what some might call scary) world of improvisation. We’ll talk about what it means to improvise and learn a few tips and tricks to improvising. You can use this skill to embellish a simple fiddle tune or to work up a solo to a song.

Instructor: Erica Brown
All Levels; All Instruments

In this class we will go over all the dos and don’ts of backing up a singer*. We will talk about how songs are structured, what to do in those little spaces between the lyrics, what to do and not to do while the singer is singing, when to chop, how to create a solo and some basics on how to arrange a song within a group.

*Please familiarize yourself with the following song before coming to the class:
Katy Daley- https://youtu.be/o8bmCZMOSpg

Instructor: Mac Morin

The Cape Breton piano accompaniment style has become an inseparable sound to the traditional music of the island. This class is to point out some major aspects of the style with some examples of how it has evolved over the last 50 yearrs. Participants will be able to learn the Cape Breton approach of accompaniment to a small medley of tunes.

Instructor: Neil Pearlman
All levels, All Instruments

At sessions it’s not uncommon to be have a fiddler call out a key and start playing, but how does the accompanist follow along if they don’t already know the tune? Do guitarists and pianists have to develop an encyclopedic repertoire of tunes just to survive? Happily this is not the case.READ MORE

Instructor: Barry Saunders
All levels, All Instruments

In this class we will cover how to use scales, keys and chords to build improvisations and comping for tunes.

Instructor: Barry Saunders
All levels, All Instruments

This class will dig a bit deeper into covering forms and structures when improvising. More fun improv games and the blues form will form the basis for this class. We will also cover community improv and sharing the joy of music.

Instructor: Barry Saunders
All levels, All Instruments

This class will go over some of the fun ways to get your feet wet and create your own sounds! We will cover creative improv games and getting through the tinge of anxiety that can be there for some. We will also cover community improv and sharing the joy of music.

Instructor: Matt Shipman

Backing up tunes in a session or in a band can really help lift the music. In this workshop we will work on skills to help us be a better backer of tunes. We will go over right hand technique in various time signatures such as 6/8, 9/8, 4/4 and waltz time.READ MORE

Instructor: Wendy MacIsaac

You will learn how to play a strathspey and reel in the Cape Breton style, learn about why the strathspey is almost always followed by a reel, and how to transition from one to another.READ MORE

Instructor: Cindy Roy

Have you ever wanted to try stepdancing but the time is never right? In this class, you’ll learn very basics of steps to a simple routine you can use at a party or anywhere the music lifts you. It’s easier than you think! We’ll work on simple mechanics and you’ll be dancing in no time!!

Instructor: Wendy MacIsaac

You will learn how to make steps sound percussive to match the tunes and then apply them to the Inverness Square set you will also learn. You’ll leave being able to attend the next dance in Cape Breton with confidence!

Instructor: Bill Olson
All Levels

There are few better ways of building a musical community than to start a local dance, either regular or occasional. We’re talking a community dance or “barn dance” where everyone is welcome regardless of age or experience. To make this happen in your community you need musicians, a place to do it, and most of all a dance leader to teach and call the dances. READ MORE

Instructor: Pam Weeks
All levels, All Instruments

Are you used to trying to figure tunes out by ear but have no idea how to read music notation? Or you can sort of use the ups and downs of the dots music to jog your memory of a tune, but there’s a lot you don’t really understand? We will start at the beginning of what it all means, with the goal of sending you home with the understanding and tools you need for practicing and improving your music reading skills!

Instructor: Pam Weeks
All levels, All Instruments

A class to exercise our “rhythm muscles”. We’ll be clapping, tapping, stomping, strumming, drumming, creating polyrhythm with the whole class, learning how to entrain our bodies with the beat of the music. We will explore rhythmic notation, how to count accurately using subdivision, and how to translate that to our instruments.

Instructor: Pam Weeks

This class is designed to get you past whatever roadblocks are preventing you from improving your playing. We will start at the beginning with improving (LH) fiddle and (RH) bow holds, then will work on both LH and RH technique, using exercises and simple tunes to encourage body awareness while playing. Our goals will include improving tone, intonation, flexibility, speed, and ease in the body, working towards creating expressive playing at any tempo

Instructor: Pam Weeks
All levels, All Instruments

For folks who have been playing for a while but primarily from sheet music. Folk music is, at heart, an oral tradition, and it’s important to become comfortable learning by ear. This class will break down and de-mystify the process!

Instructor: Pam Weeks
All levels, All Instruments

There’s a method to the madness of being creative that can give you greater success at writing your own music. We’ll take a little time analyzing common tune and chord structures, and and then spend the session brain-storming techniques to open up your creative well We’ll also check out alternatives to conventional music notation so you can remember what you’ve just composed!

 

Instructor: Pam Weeks

In 1755 French people were expelled from Canada when the English gained control of Quebec and New Brunswick. Those who settled in SW Louisiana are the source of the vibrant, passionate Cajun music of today. We’ll learn a Cajun two-step and/or waltz and how to “second” (chordal accompaniment), concentrating on the markers that separate this music from other fiddling styles.