JC Rockwell Music
PO Box 79
Guysville, OH 45735

Phone, FAX, Voicemail:
330-264-0469

Email:
jerry@jcrmusic.com

Augusta Heritage Arts Workshop at Davis & Elkins College
in Elkins, WV, is a series of intensive theme weeks that offer a chance to polish your skills in music, dance, various handcrafts and performing arts. I enjoyed team-teaching there during Blues Week for several years with Leo Kretzner (Mountain Dulcimer) and Niles Hokkanen (Improvisation for all instruments) as well as during spring dulcimer week.

Augusta offers the chance for very intensive concentrated work that can make a real difference in your music and playing skills.

Irish Week at Augusta

July 22-29, 2001...Celtic Repertoire & Arranging for Mountain Dulcimer

Dear Student:

I will be teaching a class in "Celtic Repertoire and Arranging for Mountain Dulcimer" at Augusta from July 22-27, during Irish Week (the 20th Anniversary!).

There will be a distinct emphasis on choosing and arranging your own material, though we will also cover rhythms, some theory, and we should be able to learn a bunch of tunes from a variety of sources, including tunes contained in my three books of mainly Celtic material:

• The Blackbird and the Beggarman
• Dulcimer Solos Volume 1
• Dulcimer Solos Volume 2

The first day of the class will be spent looking through tunebooks, as each student will choose a tune to arrange and perform for the class. The two main criteria will be that the tune must NOT be (already) arranged in dulcimer tablature, and that it be somewhere within the vast Celtic realm.

I will bring a large stack of tunebooks--mostly with just the melody, but some with chord symbols--and you may bring in tunebooks of your own to choose from as well. The bulk of the class from this point on will be like "arranging by committee": we ALL learn from going through the decision-making process for each and every student's tune choice, as its put up on the blackboard for everyone to see.

We'll help you choose a tuning or capo-setting, identify the mode, work out the chords, and, finally, get you started on arranging your own TAB. Interspersed within our arranging activities we will do some supplemental study: we'll cover some of your favorites from my own tunebooks, which should give you some insights to apply immediately to your own arranging; we'll do a Celtic RHYTHM BOOTCAMP so you can really polish up your rhythmic "feel" and learn about the major categories of rhythm in Celtic music; and we'll also do a "spot" of theory, so you can identify the four main modes and where they occur in various tunings on the dulcimer.

The finale of the class will center on each student's performance for the class.

WAIT! .... before you panic, let me just say that you will find this very enjoyable---I guarantee it! I have taught several of these arranging classes, and the performances were a blast for everyone. You won't believe how supportive the other students can be---it's the BEST possible audience. In addition, you'll have GREAT freedom in choosing your performing situation.

You can:

1. solo
2. bring in anyone else from the class in a duo or trio
3. enlist me on back-up guitar or dulcimer.

In summary, this class will get you started in building your own unique repertoire of Celtic tunes, and making them "work" on the dulcimer--both idiomatically as "dulcimer tunes", but also as music---without reference to any specific instrument.

Hope to see you in July!

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