Workshops- Will Resume In The Fall

 

Monthly GLAMA Jams are at The Knights of Columbus located downtown Kalamazoo.Directions

Recent Workshops

March 6, 2010
MANDOLIN
Instructor: Josh Rilko
Mandolin pickers, you can’t afford to miss this one!!
A member of Michigan’s new generation of young bluegrass players, Josh’s workshop focused on fiddle tunes, improvisation, Bill Monroe style, and rhythm.  He showed how fiddle tunes relate to different major scale positions, and demonstrate different improvisation “tricks” once the tune is learned. Josh also explained the distinction between fiddle tunes and bluegrass by demonstrating how to solo out of the Bill Monroe bluegrass “chop chord” position. Using closed position chords, he revealed how a solo can be built around it for a bluegrass song.  Other aspects of this workshop included using double stops in fiddle tunes and bluegrass solos, Bill Monroe “downstroke style” and its importance in playing bluegrass, various ways to play rhythm, and different chord shapes for use in different situations.  

 

 
 

 

April 3, 2010
BACK-UP GUITAR
Instructor: Joel Mabus


It takes two hands to play a chord on the guitar.  This workshop concentrated on the right hand (or left hand if your guitar points the other way).  The right hand controls the rhythm and pace of a song.  Joel looked at the deceptively simple “boom-chuck” of a fast bluegrass song, as well as the “chunk-chunk-chunk” of swing music. Also the on-beat strums of Irish music and the off-beat strums of a variety of other styles.  What to do with a waltz, a jig, a reel, a hornpipe and other dance music. Joel spoke and demonstrated guitar to “advanced beginner” through intermediate level.