details of the year 2001 courses
Report of the 1999 course
I am just back from one of the most productive weeks learning that I have ever attended. All the good things that people said about Barry Mitterhof's teaching were evident. I guess a description of the general facilities followed by a day by day account would be best so here goes:-
The course is held in Kingham near Chipping Norton in the lovely Cotswold hills of Oxfordshire at a public school (for the Americans an English Public School is the preserve of the rich and is NOT open to the offspring of the public (unless they are rich)). the accomodation is in small dormatories with mainly bunk beds so a little agility is necessary (there are some low beds available). The cost of the course including teaching, food and accomodation is about £240 (thats about $385). Showers and toilet facilities are all communial (a bit of a shock to be washing in the morning in ones jammies and have a pretty girl wander in in a nightgown!)
We started Monday evening with an evening meal followed by a session in the bar until midnight. but the real work started at 9:00am Tuesday after breakfast. There were 11 of us in the class and we had a wide span of experience. Barry spent the first day covering mostly basic stuff and sussing out where we each were on the learning curve. some work on left hand and right hand technique and a couple of simple tunes (Banks of the Ohio). Barry put considerable emphasis on ensuring that the pick hit the strings flat on and played through the pair of strings ( I have worked on this since the course and it really does improve the tone and volume that can be achieved). We worked on chord shapes (Barry prefers the 3 finger D shape without the F# on the top string) and tremolo - I was amazed by the control he has when tremoloing - he seemed to just switch it on and off so cleanly. This took us up to lunch.
In the afternoon first period there was a choice of activities - scratch bands, slow jam or private practice. I chose to be allocated to a scratch band and my fiddle playing friend Greg and I worked with a couple of beginner banjo players and a good singer and flatpicker, none of whom had played in a band before, to develop a couple of songs.
The second period in the afternoon was back to the classroom and we were taught some techniques for playing up the neck, Barry called these "boxes" and they are based on 2 double stops . I found this part starting to stretch my knowledge and improve my abilities. We spent the rest of the afternoon workin on this.
In the evening, after dinner there were again a couple of possibilities. There were "dip ins" where anybody could try something a bit different (I went to the Autoharp dip in) there was a couple of these each evening and the topics were Harmony singing (Ginny Hawker) Make your band work, getting the best from the PA, old time banjo (Tony Triska), and Carter style guitar. After these it was back to the bar and more session playing. There was a non-smokers session in the school hosted by Tracy Swartz and his wife Ginny and, for the more adventurous, a session in a local pub (I can't report on this as I never went).
Wednesday we started working on Bill Monroe tunes. Barry would teach it to us a couple of bars at a time until we had worked right through the tune and understood how the Bill Monroe sound was achieved. We then had the Tab passed out and we ran through the tune fully. This usually took about a full period for each tune (about 2 hours).
The rest of the week was very similar. We did Honky Tonk Swing, Blackberry Blossom (straight and Texas style), Lebonon ( a great Tex Logan tune), Florida Blues, Lonesome Moonlight Waltz, the Monroe break for Blue Moon of Kentucky, Impulse *!"£$ (a David Grier tune), Katy Hill (including some "up the neck" variations), Bluegrass Stomp. We spent a morning cross picking and working through Dill Pickle Rag. There were more tunes but my memory fades
The evenings were spent jamming in the bar and the time passed very quickly. On the Friday we had a student concert in the evening where the scratch bands played, all very light hearted.
The course finished with a Tutors concert on the Saturday night. Barry Tony and David chased each other to ever greater hights of virtuosity, Ginny and Tracy did some wonderful old-time songs, Mike Fenton demonstrated again why he is one of the top autoharp players in the world.
Barry really went to great lengths to give his best. He gave up most of his free time to give each of us a one on one 1/2 hour lesson. He really is a great teacher as well as nice guy. He has a CoMando sticker on his mando case but no Email address (I did exhort him to get one and join us!)
I recorded all the lessons (except for the first day) on mini disk ( using a J Coon style home made microphone)so I will have the opportunity to revisit anything I need to work on. I wish I had taken a camera as I have no pictures for my web page. My new "free wrist" right hand technique held up for the week so the intensive week change over from a posted pinky seems to have worked. I need to work on my left hand to get closer to the economic movement that Barry has - one of his rules is "once a finger has been put on a string, don't take it off until you need to" having watched him play this seems to reduce the number of finger movements significantly.
I would be interested to hear comparisons with the US mando camp format (how many to a class, how is the teaching done etc)
If you want to find out more or even join us in 2000 more information can be obtained from
Andrea Preston
12 Waterford Road
Ashley
New Milton
Hampshire
BH25 5BH
Courses:
Bluegrass Banjo: Tony Trischka (20 places)
Newgrass Banjo: Leon Hunt (20 places)
Mandolin: Mike Compton (20 places)
Bluegrass Fiddle: Fletcher Bright (20 places) Hear a sound sample of Fletchers playing here or see a picture of the man in action
Bluegrass Bass: Dominic Harrison (20 places)
Dobro: Stacy Phillips (20 places)
Guitar Intermediate: Chris Moreton (20 places)
Guitar adv masterclass: David Grier (12 places)
Harmony Singing: Kate Brislin (20 places)
Autoharp: Mike Fenton (20 places)
Old Time Banjo: Kate Lissaeur (20 places)
Beginners (any Instrument): Jody Stecher (20 places)
john@sorefingers.co.uk John Wirtz
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© 1998 mike.nelson@camcon.co.ukDetails will be added here as soon as they are available
If you want to find out more or even join us in 2001 more information can be obtained from
or
andrea@sorefingers.co.uk Andrea
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