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Instructors: Seamus Connolly; Don Roy
All Levels; All Instruments
Performance/Lecture
It’s difficult to imagine that our own musical heros also have their own heros. During this hour, Seamus and Don will talk about who influenced them and who they looked up to at the start of their respective musical journeys. You’ll hear these two recipients of the National Heritage Fellowship award join together to trade tunes and stories from their humble beginnings.
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Instructor: Mairi Rankin
All Levels; Fiddle
This workshop sends you home with a new reel to play. Mairi will offer insight to the driving force behind the Cape Breton reel as well as specific reel techniques that give this style of tune its infectious energy.
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Instructor: Mairi Rankin OR Wendy MacIsaac
All Levels; Fiddle
While the jig style is ubiquitous across many genres, the Cape Breton jig stands out with its particularly Cape Breton touches. Learn from one of two of Cape Breton’s finest teachers. This class is so nice, we are listing it twice!
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Instructor: Wendy MacIsaac
All Levels; All Instruments/Fiddle
Wendy comes from the land of the ceilidh, where dances are plentiful. Her insight into how playing for a dance differs from playing in other scenarios is steeped in experience. Learn the nuances involved in communicating with the dance caller, as well as reading the room for the type of dancers present. Consider the art of the dance set list, and how to prepare for the unexpected. Playing for dances is high energy, infectious fun!
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Instructor: Wendy MacIsaac
All Levels; All Instruments
What elements are considered when putting tunes together to make a compelling set? Discover the crossroad at the science and art of this endeavor. Some artists approach this from a purely musical theory point of view, others group like styles together (all reels for example) still others will select tunes by their titles, to tell a story that way. In both Scottish and Cape Breton traditions there is the MSR formula, for a march, strathspey, reel combination. Learn how a seasoned recording and performing professional has approached this lingering question, and bring your own tunes to play with and contemplate.
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Instructor: Wendy MacIsaac OR Mairi Rankin
All Levels; Fiddle
We are offering this class at two different times, with two different masters of the style. Maybe you just learned a strathspey (see Learn a Strathspey with Wendy MacIsaac) or you already have a few-or a lot!- in your repertoire. This class will focus on refining the specifics of this style that make it truly unique. Strathspeys are known for their complex timing along with ornamentations (the Scottish snap for one) that give this style of tune a unique feel. Learn how to harness these techniques from some of the most admired fiddlers from Cape Breton and elevate your own strathspey playing.
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Instructor: Wendy MacIsaac
All Levels; Fiddle
Strathspey is unique to the Cape Breton and Scottish repertoire. Wendy will teach a tune in this unique style, adding particular Cape Breton embellishments.
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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!
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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!
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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.
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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!
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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.
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Instructor: Andy Reiner
All Levels; Bowed Stringed Instruments
This class combines both chopping techniques as well as the Strum Bowing Method. Both are described below:
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.READ MORE
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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Instructor: Rob Flax
All levels, Fiddle
This class focuses on unpacking the underlying structure of the jazz standard “Ja-Da,” a simple melody from the pre-bop era, which features a ii-V-I progression that pops up in thousands of jazz tunes (and many other places).
Tunes
Ja Da, by Bob Carlton (1918), as performed by the legendary jazz violinist Stuff Smith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=15&v=S9WM0W-pQSg
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Instructor: Rob Flax
All Instruments
The violin family of instruments has remained virtually unchanged for hundreds of years, a feat unmatched in any other realm of technology. But with the advent of instrument amplification the modern string player has access to a whole new world of sound possibilities.READ MORE
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Instructor: Elaine Malkin
All levels, All Instruments
This is a hands-on workshop on improving technique for both hands, tone and intonation tips, and fiddler tricks to make a tune come alive.
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Instructor: Elaine Malkin
We will learn a tune from Quebec with the traditional style and ornaments.
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Instructor: Robert Miller
Available throughout the weekend in a central location, this workshop will cover how to care for your instrument and what you should and should not do, as well as when to see a luthier. Subjects for discussion will include (but not be limited to): basic instrument set up, types of strings, changing strings, keeping your bridge straight, re-setting your fallen bridge, when to re-hair your bowREAD MORE
