Guitar
Photo by Mike Melnyk
Guitar and vocals, level 1 -- Sylvia Herold—Learn a fun selection of country, bluegrass, honky-tonk and cowboy-themed songs while taking your guitar playing to the next level. Expect lots of in-class playing and singing as you explore sumptuous alternate chord voicings and right-hand techniques for power and accuracy. De-mystify the fretboard and build your repertoire of jam-friendly songs. Lyric/chord charts will be provided.
Prerequisites: Students should be very comfortable playing basic first-position chords: A, C, D, E, G, F and Am, Dm and Em. You should have experience using a flat-pick and be able to follow chord charts at tempo.
Sylvia Herold has taught guitar and song repertoire for more than twenty years. Her performance credits include Cats & Jammers, Wake the Dead, Euphonia, The Hot Club of San Francisco and Sylvia Herold and the Rhythm Bugs. She’s been a teacher’s assistant to the vocals classes and taught guitar electives for the past two years at our winter camp, and each year the students responded very enthusiastically to her contributions, with comments like, “She could teach this class!” So this year she’s teaching the class, and we are very glad to have her on staff.
www.sylviaherold.com
Guitar, level 2, rhythm—We’ll cover strum patterns that include and build on the simple bass-down, bass- down strum. From there we start covering the upstroke and some mute strum patterns, bass lines, the Lester Flatt G run, and common bass walks in the keys of G, C, and D. There will be heavy emphasis on dynamics within a strum and in a band context. We'll work in depth on tone and timing, with a strong emphasis on tone.
Prerequisites: Be able to play with a flatpick, and move through chord changes smoothly, keeping time.
Jim Nunally is a musician, composer, teacher, recording engineer and producer. He has performed on recording sessions with numerous artists. He’s received two Grammy Award certifications and awards from the IBMA. He's a featured artist on the critically acclaimed CD Tone Poets released in 2005. He recorded with David Grisman and Sam Bush on the album Hold On, We’re Strummin which was nominated for two IBMA awards. Jim is a two-time Western Open Flatpicking and Master Picking Champion. As a record producer, he has produced over 40 CDs. Jim performs with the David Grisman Bluegrass Experience, John Reischman and the Jaybirds, and in duos with Nell Robinson, Dix Bruce, Keith Little, and Judy Forrest.
Jim is a highly respected teacher at music camps across the country, including the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, Bluegrass at the Beach, California Coast Music Camp, and many more. He has been a favorite teacher at CBA Music Camp since our first year, and even longtime guitar players always seem to learn something new in his class.
www.jimnunally.com
Guitar, level 2, solos—The focus of this class will be on making up leads to bluegrass songs and fiddle tunes. We'll explore preparing a solo or parts of solos prior to performing. Our starting point will be the melody but we'll learn to add interesting ideas to customize the solo. A broad range of bluegrass techniques, such as hammers, slides, bends, blue notes (and possibly double stops, playing up the neck, crosspicking, etc. depending upon the level of the students) will be used. We'll learn several solos as a class, all of which will be provided on photocopies in standard notation and tablature.
Prerequisites: Students should be able to play solid rhythm and some simple leads. Audio recording devices welcome. Spiral bound music notebook with standard notation and/or tablature (TAB) recommended.
Dix Bruce is a musician, composer, writer and award-winning guitarist. He performs and records with guitarist Jim Nunally. They have released four CDs of original and traditional duets. For several years Dix and Jim have been clinicians for the C.F. Martin Guitar Company conducting guitar clinics up and down the West coast demonstrating the finest instruments the company has to offer. Dix also does studio work on guitar, mandolin, bass, and banjo, and has recorded two LPs with mandolin legend Frank Wakefield.
Dix has published over fifty instructional book/CD sets and DVDs. He writes a regular column for Flatpicking Guitar magazine. He has authored or co-authored six separate editions (for mandolin, guitar, banjo, fiddle, dobro, and bass) of the massive "Parking Lot Picker's Songbooks" of bluegrass, old time, and gospel repertoire. He has taught at the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, The California Coast Music Camp, Greater Yellowstone Music Camp, Camp Bluegrass, and the American River Music Camp. His latest guitar book/ CD set entitled Christmas Cross Picking Solos for Guitar. Dix has taught both guitar and mandolin classes at our camp, always to happy campers, and we’re pleased to have him back.
www.musixnow.com
Photo by Mike Melnyk
