Mon, 16 Oct 2006
The Bluegrass Festival Was Awesome
1:00 I had my guitar clinic which I called “Increase your bluegrass vocabulary”. It’s a clinic on how to build bluegrass guitar solos by thinking of each riff as a vocabulary word. Eventually, the goal is to play solos as easily as you can construct a sentence. While I was pretty proud of the analogy of riffs to words I think it just confused a lot of people. I also think that I was a bit nervous and I let my thoughts wander more than I’d have liked.
But overall it went well. I had handouts and we eventually had about 8 people show up to the clinic and several of them asked about guitar lessons. I think it was a success.
Then we had the final rehearsal for the kids group “The Placer County Porch Pickers”. We had a bit of drama that had us a bit frightened. Our lead guitar player and a friend were wrestling around at school and Ben fell to the ground and slammed the back of his head against the concrete. He was out like a light.
His dad came to our Sunday rehearsal to let us know that Ben was in the hospital with a concussion. So we decided that I’d take all his solos and "The Show Must Go On" Well, the next day I talked to Ben and his mom on the phone and Ben wanted to try to do it. So they showed up just before our rehearsal, played the gig, and then went home to rest. Ben, the whole band hopes you’re feeling better and that you heal up soon.
So the band did their set and I have to say that we rocked the house! I don’t think that the audience was expecting a band of kids to sound so good. We were easily as professional sounding as the paid performers. Lexy’s voice was in top form, Meghan brought tears to the audience’s eyes with the song "Traveling Soldier", Sean played some serious mandolin solos, Josh lead us into “In The Pines” perfectly and hit his solo riff right on time and Ben held it together with a rock solid bluegrass rhythm.
A lot of people came up to me afterwards to let me know how much they enjoyed the performance. I lost count of how many times I was able to say “I’m so proud of my kids”.
I have to brag a bit. 3 of the 5 of the kids in that band hadn’t played bluegrass at all just 2 months ago. I’m really proud of the work they all put into the band.
Then I had a bit of a break so I had a moment to get some food. But the next act was some clog dancers so I really didn’t get a chance to hear any of the bands. From 5:00 to 6:00 I lead a Slow Jam at the upper stage. We had a great time, we got a lot of folks to sing along and I met a few more potential students.
Hey Barry The Bass Player! If you read this then give me a call or email me at greg@gbguitars.com We need to play together some more.
By this time it was getting late and the rest of the gang wanted to go out for dinner so we packed it up and headed over to The Club Car for dinner. I was tempted to head back to the festival to hear some of the bands but it had been a long day and we were all pretty tired so we headed on home.
Jam Sessions
Several of the folks I met at the festival asked me about jam sessions. The two that I know of are:
My Slow Jam: I run a slow jam at Music & More on the 2nd Tuesday of each month at 7:30 pm. The next one will be November 7th.
My friends Betty and Terry host a jam session every Tuesday night at “The Wild Chicken” in Loomis. The Wild Chicken is a coffee shop at the end of Horseshoe Bar road in Loomis. Park in the same parking lot as the railroad station. Their jam goes from 7:00 until 9:00. It’s a good jam and if I wasn’t teaching on Tuesday evenings I’d be there every week.
So the festival was a success and everyone seemed to be having a great time. I met a lot of potential students and I’m looking forward to hearing from them, setting up lesson times and working together. I saw a lot of passion for music in general and I always enjoy teaching passionate people.
What I’m listening to today:The Bill Monroe CD Box Set
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