2014 L.A. Old Time Social – Workshops!

DOWNSTAIRS ::

• 12:00 – 1:00 Clawhammer Banjo From the Ground Up with Steve Lewis
Learn the basics of this popular banjo style and put them to use on a couple of great tunes! No experience necessary. Bring your banjo and start having fun!

Steve Lewis discovered the banjo and old-time music the same year he began his teaching career. Since that time he has been a regular performer, instructor, workshop leader and contestant at festivals and fiddler¹s conventions from San Diego to San Francisco. Steve began playing for contradances in 1989. He currently produces and plays for the 4th Saturday dance in South Pasadena. He also leads the 1st-Sunday Oldtime Jam at the Viva Fresh restaurant in Burbank (11:00 – 2:00 pm). Although he plays in several local bands, makes banjos in his ³spare time² and does little else, Steve denies any banjo obsession.

•  1:00 – 2:00 — Fiddle & Banjo Duets Workshop with Brian Vollmer & Ben Townsend
Brian Vollmer & Ben Townsend present mountain styles of playing fiddle & banjo. The workshop will examine fiddle tunes with banjo accompaniment.
Ben Townsend, of Romney, WV was introduced to the world of old-time music by Paul Roomsburg of Hampshire County West Virginia. Since learning the basics, he has studied with Riley Baugus, Ron Mullennax and Paul Brown. He was awarded a Scholarship from the Augusta Heritage Center to further his studies on the fiddle with Dave Bing of Roane County WV. As a member of both The Fox Hunt and Old Sledge, Ben has traveled across the country and around the world spreading his take on West Virginia old-time music and has shared the stage with acts varying from Ralph Stanley to the Henry Girls of County Donegal Ireland to the Taiko drummers of Yamagata Prefecture, Japan.

Brian’s musical background started with his family. Born into parents who loved, listened and played Bluegrass and Old-Timey music, he went everywhere from festivals, shows, and “pickin’ parties” with them as a toddler, a youth, and eventually he picked up a banjo and started to perform in his father’s Bluegrass band (on the side of his punk band) when he was 14. His early banjo work (both 3-Finger and Clawhammer) was based on a week long study with extraordinary banjoists Reed Martin and Bill Keith at the same music camp. He practiced all the time back at his parent’s home in the thick woods off the Patuxent River in Howard County near Skaggsville, MD in a community known as Holiday Hills…

• 2:00 – 3:00 — Fiddle Chording or, How to Play Tunes You’ve Never Heard with Tricia Spencer & Howard Rains
Tricia Spencer will teach her technique for chording fiddle tunes, an ideal method for learning tunes on the fly. Fiddle chording also allows a fiddler to focus on bowing rather than those pesky notes and opens up a new way to play old time music in jam settings. Howard Rains will provide guitar accompaniment and humorous commentary.

Spencer & Rains play old time fiddle tunes and sing old songs in the style of their home states while also exploring other American regional styles of fiddling. Both multi-instrumentalists deeply absorbed in traditional music, Howard and Tricia preserve, present, and teach old time music while at the same time making it their own. Not only do they love to play dances, festivals, and house concerts, Spencer & Rains are highly sought after as instructors and  love to teach old time music at camps, workshops, and private lessons. Have a look and a listen and enjoy!

• 4:00 – 5:00 — Italian and Mexican Mandolin Styles with Paul Rangell
Paul Rangell will introduce a selection of Italian and Mexican tunes on mandolin. Emphasis will be on learning the simple melodic lines, then gaining strength with support from adjacent strings and chords. Guitarists are encouraged to join this workshop too, as we will cover the guitar chord back-up through the nimble fingers and delightful rhythm guitar playing of Emily Abbink.

Paul Rangell has been playing guitar and pursuing traditional music since a boy in the 1960s. He plays guitar in several bands, focussing on rhythmic accompaniment to fiddle music of many lands.  He also plays mandolin, violin, tenor banjo and guitarron in various configurations. Locally, you can hear him every Sunday morning at the Buttery Cafe with his family band, The Rhythm Rangellers, with The Percolators, with Adam Rose, and with Irene Herrmann in groups that specialize in selective instrumental repertoire. He is a regular at the Farmer’s Markets and plays Italian and Mexican mandolin tunes every Tuesday night at La Posta (Seabright) with his wife, Emily Abbink. He loves old-time American songs, Brother Duets, early country, Western Swing, and classic Mexican songs. He has taught many summers at The Festival of American Fiddle Tunes (Port Townsend, WA)  and Lark in the Morning (Mendocino, CA) as well as private lessons for several years on guitar, mandolin and fiddle.

UPSTAIRS ::

• 1:00 – 2:00 — Flatfooting with Ruth Alpert
Flatfooting is the traditional, solo percussive foot dance that goes along with Southern Appalachian Mountain Music.  Your feet are a rhythm instrument, keeping the beat for the musicians with much room for personal expression and style.  No previous dance experience is necessary.  It’s easy and fun and very aerobic!  We’ll start with basics, and add on for those who would like more complexity.

Please bring shoes that can slide, but that you won’t slide out of…. leather soles with a chunky heel, or worn out sneakers, etc.  Cowboy boots or shoes with a narrow heel might thrust your weight too far forward onto the ball of your foot.  If in doubt, bring a selection and see which work best!

Ruth Alpert has been flatfooting for 37 years.  She has taught workshops, danced with old-time Appalachian string bands, busked (street performed) in various cities in at least 6 states.   She currently is the percussion section of The Honeysuckle Possums, a local Santa Barbara all female Americana band.  

• 4:00 – 5:00 — Flatfooting 101 with Rebecca Stout
Straight from the mountains of Appalachia this beginner friendly class introduces the student to the funny stories, history, culture, styles, steps and all-out fun of Appalachian percussive step dance. There will be demonstrations, practice sessions, questions, and music for all to enjoy. No partner or dance experience necessary! The student learns the Soldier’s March, Jimmy, Mitchell, Bowman, Leaf Shuffle, Zig Zags, Chugs, Nashville, Coleman and Buck Step and more. 2hrs.

While no special shoes are required, Rebecca recommends a shoe with a hard, slick sole, such as a man’s business shoe, penny-loafers, cowboy boots, granny-boots, oxfords or simple slippers. Flip-flops, sandals and crocs are not recommended.

Rebecca began clogging as a child in Cordele, Georgia, as part of the precision dance team The Dixieland Cloggers. She went on to spend the next three decades developing and fine-tuning her unique “Tennessee Shuffle” style of free-form flatfoot, inspired by friends, relations, masters and mentors throughout Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia. Today, Rebecca teaches traditional Appalachian Flatfoot  focusing on dance as a percussive instrument.