2011 Hcamp
Welcome to oorts4Hcamp
"Engaging youth of all ages to reach their fullest musical potential"
This is where my students at Hcamp 2011 can find class descriptions and study materials before the course (be prepared!) or after the course (if you lost your copies of the handouts).
I'll be teaching three classes this year:
1. The Social Orchestra class
In this class we take a variety of pieces and have parts written out for various levels of players, and have everyone play together under a "baton", somebody (moi) who keeps things organized, rather than a "jam" where anything goes. Yet we strive to be "social," i.e. Inclusive, although a basic level of proficiency on the instrument and in reading notes or tablature is required.
The name comes from Stephen Foster, who not only composed tunes, but he also arranged a lot of music to play with whatever musicians were available, of whatever level of musical accomplishment, for whatever social occasion. His book of arrangements was published with the title "social orchestra."
Last year the theme was "a Jewish-Italian Wedding," and that was great fun (Hava Nagilah, Wedding Tarantella....). This year we'll make that "a Greek Wedding in New England." Pieces I want to do:
Zorba the Greek
Barberini's Tambourine
2. The chord boot camp class
In this class we will start from the assumption that you already know the basic open position chords (G, C, D, Am, Dm, Em, F), and that you know where the notes are on your mandolin. You will learn to play EVERY major and minor chord in EVERY key, as well as all sorts of dominant, diminished, suspended, altered, extended, demented and augmented chord you may ever run in to (or not).
After this class you will never need a chord picture encyclopedia again!
Full attendance is recommended as the class will build up all week! Don't miss the beginning.
3. The celtic tunes class for plectrum instruments:
The basic idea is to learn some basic repertoire together that will help build your technique on your plectrum instrument (mandolin, guitar, tenor banjo, bouzouki, octave mandolin). I think advanced beginners and intermediate players will feel at home in this class.
Other melody instruments (fiddle, hammered dulcimer, pennywhistle etc. ) are welcome, but the repertoire may not "sit" very well on instruments that are not typically played in the celtic tradition (such as 5-string banjo, mountain dulcimer, sousaphone, theremin…).
Tunes will be provided in standard notation with chords, guitar tab, and mandolin tab.
We will focus primarily on learning melodies, and only secondarily on accompaniment (I say this to warn guitar players they can't get away with only playing chords all the time)
THE TUNES