DAY 2 – Bluegrass Week @ Augusta

ADVANCED FIDDLE

First things first: move our chairs outside.  Next, review yesterdays tune.  Now, pick a new one. When talking about material the day before with my students, I learned that neither knew a jig (a tune in 6/8). It’s time we remedied that. I could have chosen a really simple introductory one, like Irish Washerwoman, but these are my advanced fiddlers. I chose a three part jig by a current musician, Tim O’Brien. It’s a tune that I’ve loved since I first heard it when I was a wee lad. I teach it often in hopes that it may work its way into the jamming repertoire.  The tune is Land’s End (D).

In the afternoon, we expanded our backup chops by learning a 6/8 groove to play with Land’s End. Though starting off with basic chop mechanics, the end of the session had a realized chop with bass notes and weaving melodic lines.

Tomorrow, I’ve asked them to bring mandolins to fiddle class.

CASEY’S CAMP JAM

My buddy Mark Schatz (great bassists, old-time banjoist, clogger) is here at the camp working with Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble. We met up in the camp jam location to rehearse a few tunes for the upcoming Footworks concert, and then morphed into a jam. We visited tunes recorded for Mark’s latest record, Steppin’ In the Boiler House. Mark writes great new interesting fiddle tunes that sound like old fiddle tunes.

Arkansas Traveler (D)
Old Dangerfield (A)
Duck River (D)
Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss (D)
Calgary (D)
Rig Root (G)
Cajun Stomp (A)
Last Old Dollar (G)

Happy Tuesday. See you Wednesday,

casey