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Original Post By:
fbrown627
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Date: 1/16/2012 1:55:45 PM
(Updated: 1/16/2012 6:26:47 PM)
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It's official, ukulele has been demoted to an "also ran" for Swing Week at Augusta. No uke classes but we're "invited" to join their ensembles."
I guess it's time to find somewhere else to go.
Anyone know of a good week long uke festival where there are dedicated uke classes with great teachers and in the eastern half of the U.S.? |
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Posted By:
Gerald Ross
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Date: 1/16/2012 10:58:06 PM |
I will not be teaching Swing Uke at Augusta this summer. I taught ukulele classes there for five consecutive years. I love Augusta and have made many dear friends there - both my fellow instructors and camp attendees. Music camps are always reinventing themselves. Programs come and go and come back again. Augusta is a wonderful place with exciting, fun music programs - and you will become a better musician just by attending. I know I will teach there again.
If your vacation calendar includes the Augusta Swing Week time slot - I encourage you to attend.
But if you can only get away the last week of June, I will be teaching a week of Swing Uke and Beginning Lap Steel Guitar at the Ashokan Western & Swing camp in the Catskill Mountains of New York State.
Ashokan is an great camp with excellent approachable instructors, nightly dances, enthusiastic people and many chances to jam and have fun in a beautiful wooded setting. Great food too!
Here are the websites:
http://augustaheritagecenter.org/
http://www.ashokan.org/ashokan/camp.shtml
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Posted By:
ricdoug
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Date: 1/16/2012 11:48:21 PM |
Not in the eas, but in the west fbrown627. Here's a message from Elaine:
Elaine de Man
Hey Ric. Happy New Year!
We've just put the finishing touches on a new event that might be of special interest to your members: Camp Oo-Koo-Lay-Lay, at the Lair of the Golden Bear, August 18 - 24. Our goal was to keep it fun and affordable while still offering everyone who attends the time of their lives. Hope you can get the word out to the membership: http://campookoolaylay.wordpress.com/ ...
Soon,
Elaine
I don't know what the acoustic music scene is in Augusta, GA, but it's huge all over California. In San Diego we have large ukulele groups meet up every day of the week, except Friday. I was told by the organizer of another uke fest, that the Ukulele Society of America kanikapila on Thursday night in Carlsbad, CA was larger than that festival. There's a lot of time, resources and money that go into these events. I know there's a festival in Florida, but I do not know how many days it lasts. Ric
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Posted By:
fbrown627
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Date: 1/17/2012 12:34:09 AM |
I don't know what the music scene is like in August, GA either. The "Augusta" I was referring to is in West Virginia. :)
http://www.augustaheritagecenter.org
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Posted By:
Kathy Reitz
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Date: 1/17/2012 12:16:25 PM |
| It would be fun to travel all over and attend every one of these uke camps and then be able to spend every minute at home practicing what we learn. This will be my 24th year at Swing Week at Augusta, held at Davis and Elkins College in WV. Ours is just a small part of the highly esteemed and magical 5 week program. We had ukuleles at Swing Week before we had specific ukulele classes. I have happily used a uke in jazz guitar classes. In our case it is about being immersed in the genre of swing music and being part of a multi-instrument environment, which includes the voice and feet too. You can read all these tunes off of charts and people do that at uke camps all the time. But can YOU swing?
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Posted By:
fbrown627
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Date: 1/17/2012 6:27:57 PM |
I'd much prefer becoming a better uke player than worrying about swinging. That's what was great about Augusta in the past....dedicated classes to the instrument and the option to join in on ensembles. Now, just the ensembles--at least for ukuleles.
I've attended Blues week at Augusta and what I liked was individual attention by experts on my instrument (piano) and then the ability to join other players on other instruments to make music.
Is a "swingin" fiddle player really going to teach me to be a better uke player when he can't play the instrument? And, BTW, you can read all the swing tunes off of charts as well.
I think I'll spend my money elsewhere.
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Posted By:
Gerald Ross
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Date: 1/17/2012 10:16:23 PM
(Updated: 1/17/2012 10:23:13 PM)
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You can learn a great deal on the uke by listening to and emulating other instruments. I play the lap steel guitar. When it's time for me to create a solo or improvise on the fly I try to think and phrase my melodic lines like a trumpet or sax player.
Horn players must breathe. They can't play two solid minutes of eighth notes without passing out or dying. It's good that they must breathe. It forces them to phrase their lines like a singer and more like human speech patterns. Sentences, phrases, commas and pauses - it's how a good solo is constructed.
String players don't have to blow into an instrument. They can play 10 minutes of eighth notes without stopping - and that is boring music. It's a gymnastic event at that point.
I always learn from listening to other instruments. Much of my ukulele right hand attack is based on snare drum techniques, rolls and fills.
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Posted By:
fbrown627
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Date: 1/17/2012 10:48:27 PM |
To do all that, you must be an accomplished musician on your instrument. You must be an advanced player.
To those of us who are not so advanced, we look towards experts like yourself to teach us, to get us to that level.
Is a fiddle player going to show me fingerstyle arrangements? Is a horn player going to show me chord shapes on a ukulele? And why must we be "included in a jazz guitar class?" Don't we merit a class of our own?
If an accomplished advanced uke player wants to learn how to play with a swing ensemble, then Augusta is a good place to be. If a beginner/intermediate player is trying to learn to be a better uke player in general, then, in my opinion, the new plans for swing week at Augusta is not a good place for him/her to get their money's worth. There is no master player to give pointers. It's like saying "we'll allow you to play with us but you're not as important as everyone else."
Others opinion might be different but that's how I feel.
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Posted By:
Gerald Ross
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Date: 1/17/2012 10:55:25 PM |
You make a lot of good points.
So... if you are in the area, join me at Ashokan Western & Swing in June. I am constantly adding to the library of workshop tunes and techniques I teach. And I am on site 24/7 for the entire week. Many times students will grab me outside of class and ask me to clarify something or show them that "lick" or "chord" again. I don't mind, that's why I'm there.
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Posted By:
Kathy Reitz
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Date: 1/18/2012 9:55:11 AM |
| I think the coordinator of Swing Week has done the best possible job in designing classes under the circumstances. With a limited staff it is impossible to offer a satisfying experience on a specific instrument to a beginner and an advanced player in the same class. But people can swing without playing really fancy licks up and down the fingerboard. And what if you normally use a uke to accompany singing? All the instruments are being treated the same except for fiddle. But for the first time people that don't play fiddle can enjoy the mastery of Buddy Spicher in a class room setting. It would be better, I agree, if there were any number of uke masters on campus and not to slight the others but Gerald will be sorely missed. Swing Week staff is on duty for about 20/24 hours. They are enormously helpful on an individual basis and play with the students. Ashokan, themed also for many instruments, will be fun too, I've always wanted to go there. We'll warmly welcome any and all uke players and we'll have a blast and get more than a few musical pointers. Fortunately there are other fun camps such as Elaine's that focus strictly on ukulele to suit every imaginable taste. I hope everybody has a fun summer playing as much as possible.
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Posted By:
Noel-lele
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Date: 1/20/2012 12:10:39 PM |
| We are having an incredible Texas Uke Retreat, May 9 - 13. Kio Hussey and Mark Guiterrez are the teachers. This is limited to 12 attendees. We will have about 5 hours of class per day as well as lots of playing time and a house concert open to the public. For details go to http://www.LoneStarUkeFest.com
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Posted By:
Cathy Fink
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Date: 1/25/2012 12:16:03 AM |
The UkeFest at the Music Center at Strathmore will be expanding in August to include 4 days of teaching, Bethesda, MD. Last year 2500 folks attended and 962 joined us in a attempt for largest Uke Ensemble for Guinness.
August 11-12-13-14 for classes- and a big outdoor concert on 15.Staff to be confirmed, but includes the Hula Honeys from Maui (tenor and baritone ukes, Hawaiian repertoire & swing), Cathy Fink, MArcy MArxer and hopefully (but not yet confirmed) Keola & Moana Beamer with uke, slack key guitar, hula and more.
For more info or to make sure you get details, email: info@cathymarcy.com OR sign the email list at www.cathymarcy.com
We expect registration to open March 1.
Aloha! Cathy Fink
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