Dear Festival supporters,
We are now less than a week away from this year’s Festival. In the next couple of days I will posting some highlights of this year’s program for those of you who may not have made your selections yet. This particular post will also be important to those of you who purchased Full Festival passes and intend to participate in the Session Playing Series.
This series of three workshops is one that we are particularly excited about. Do you play well with others? What does it take to play well with others? Regardless of your skill level, you are likely drawn to good musicians and have the desire to play along. But what does it take? Is simply knowing the key and the tune enough? Learning the nuances of ensemble playing is what this series is all about.
The first class, led by Adam Agee and John Sousa, will give some of the background information and concepts of group (ensemble) playing. The second class will divide participants into rhythm instruments (Aaron Jones and Donald Hay of the Old Blind Dogs) and melody instruments (Jessie Burns, Jonny Hardie, and Mike Coult, of HighTime) in order to give specific information that pertains to those groups of players.
The t
hird class, led by Take Down the Door, will bring everyone together to give a sense of what it takes to play in a performing group or session setting. As you can see by the teacher names this is truly a priceless opportunity!
So that the time can be devoted to the concepts, and not wasted on learning tunes, we are providing the tunes in advance. These three reels will be the primary tunes used, and these jigs will be a bonus depending on class progress. Linked here are some additional thoughts on the series from Adam Agee.
