Sue Hoadley, Beginner/Elementary, Saturday 10-12
Cheyenne Brown, Beginner/Elementary, Saturday 2-3
Cheyenne Brown, Beginner/Elementary, Saturday 4-6
Cheyenne Brown, Intermediate/Advanced, Saturday 10-12
Sue Hoadley, Intermediate/Advanced, Saturday 4-6
Sue Hoadley, General Interest, Saturday 2-3
Cheyenne Brown, General Interest, Sunday 10-12
Sue Hoadley, General Interest, Sunday 10-12
Chords Accompaniment
Are you wondering what you could do with a tune to make it more comfortable to
play, more suited to your own harp, or more in your own style? With a bit of
a brush-up on some chordal theory and a few useful exercises to familiarize
yourself with chord patterns, keys and inversions, soon the world of
accompaniment will open up before you!
Traditional Scottish Tunes
Learning by ear is a great way to get those tunes really stuck in your head.
Some of the easiest Scottish tunes are also the ones that can sound the best!
And you can use all your knowledge of chordal accompaniment to make up your
own left hand as well as going over some possibilities in the class to get you
started.
Intermediate/Advanced Classes
New Scottish Tunes
Learn some of those great new tunes flying through the Scottish session scene!
Those fiddlers and box players just keep writing amazing tunes that sound
fabulous on the harp! Limber up those fingers for some dexterous jigs and
reels taught by ear but with plenty of repetition and analyzing of the shapes
and patterns.
Expressing Your Inner Creator: More Advanced Techniques
This workshop is for anyone (timid or otherwise brazen) wanting to become more
joyful, adept and creative at improvisation. Feel free to take it by itself or
as a sequence to the first workshop. We will play a familiar piece by ear and
in a variety of keys; we will improvise on a familiar piece. We will take the
structure of a piece and use it as the basis for an improv. We will take a
familiar piece, (For example: "Pachelbel's Canon", "Oh, Susanna", "Jesu, Joy
of Man's Desiring") and experiment with using a variety of rhythms; we'll take
those pieces and change, redirect and alter them, using them as a basis for a
delightful improv. We'll break up into pairs and trios for jams. Do not be
daunted by this description! We will have fun and experiment freely. You'll
come away with some new segues into creativity.
General Interest Classes
Bringing Heart and Soul to Performance (and No Sweaty Hands!)
This hour will be lighthearted with a balance between silliness and Serious
techniques and tips. We will explore different ways of bringing musicality,
dynamics, expressiveness and the element of surprise to your music. We'll go
into some techniques for relaxing before and during performance and how to
engage an audience, not just play at or for them. We'll cover preparation for
concerts, deportment and the importance of intention and passion while
playing. Not necessary to bring your harp but fine if you do.
Bluegrass Tunes for Harp
Who ever heard of such a thing? These crazy chromatic tunes aren't actually
so inaccessible for the harp if you work out some logical lever flipping
strategies. There is a big connection between Irish/Scottish tunes and their
American counterparts. A few standards from the likes of Bill Monroe and Jay
Ungar. (Jay Ungar wrote "Ashokan Farewell"; he's got some other great
tunes as well!)
The Heart of Therapeutic Music
This is a stand alone workshop or if you've taken the improvisation workshops
you will have an opportunity to improvise in the therapeutic "style". I will
talk about the joys and dilemma's of playing at the bedside, playing for
patients in all conditions and at the end of life and briefly outline the
broad definitions and features of "anxiolytic" music. I will cover some of
the spiritual aspects of being wholeheartedly with the suffering and yet not
getting exhausted or burned out. We will cover some of the "how-to's" of
gaining work as a therapeutic musician and some of the training programs
available.
Harper's Ferry Getaway
Revised: 9/01/08