Hi all,
I just returned today from teaching at the third session of Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, and taught a "Religious Songs from the African-American and Old-Time Traditions" class that might be of interest to some of you who hang out here. The idea of the class was to teach the participants a song from each tradition in each class period. Here are the songs we got to, though I had many more ready to go on the class disc that I prepared.
* Day one--Doc Watson and Gaither Carlton--"The Lone Pilgrim" and Leadbelly--"He Never Said A Mumbling Word"
* Day two--Roosevelt Graves and Leroy Graves--"Woke Up This Morning With My Mind Standing on Jesus" and Blind Alfred Reed--"There'll Be No Distinction There"
* Day three--Alfred Karnes--"We Shall All Be Reunited" and Washington Phillips--"I Had a Good Father and Mother"
* Day four--The Watson Family--"When I Die" and Blind Joe Taggart--"In that Pearly White City Above"
For the songs that have more than one part, like the Graves Brothers' "Woke Up This Morning" and the Watson Family's "When I Die", we figured out all of the parts, not just the one carrying the lead. Both of those songs were particularly challenging to get, but I was really happy with the results and I think the folks in the class were, too. They were really game and willing to try anything. It was one of the most fun classes I've ever taught, I think. Emphasis was on the singing, not the accompaniments, though I would show how most of the songs were accompanied or mention if there was something unusual about the accompaniments. On the last day of class, after going over all of the songs we had sung thus far, we listened to most of the other songs I had brought along as possibilities for the class.
My other class was an "Introduction to Fingerstyle Arrangements of Jazz Standards", also really fun, but less pertinent to the Weenie site, I guess. We used no TAB, and the arrangements were created in the class.
Thanks to the coordinators of PSGW for allowing me to teach classes that were a bit off of the beaten path.
All best,
Johnm
