Upstairs
12-1 Appalachian Flatfoot Dancing with Charmaine Slaven
1-2 Flatfooting 102 with Ruth Alpert and Rebecca Stout
2-3 Square Dance Calling Workshop with Susan Michaels and Charmaine Slaven
3-4 Square Dance Calling Workshop continued
4-5 Harmony Singing– Kelly Martin and Sabra Guzman
Downstairs
12-1 Early Italian Mandolin & Guitar with Paul Rangell
1-2 –Fiddle/Banjo Duets with Travis and Trevor Stuart
2-3 –Old-Time Guitar with Beverly Smith
3-4 Old-Time Fiddle with David Bragger
4-5 Beginning Fingerpicking Guitar with Devin Champlin
5-6 Old-Time Banjo with Riley Baugus
Paul Rangell & Emily Abbink
Old Lively Dance Music from Italy on Mandolin/Fiddle & Guitar
This will be a workshop to play music, not to watch. Paul will go through tunes phrase by phrase for melody makers on fiddle or mandolin, while Emily will play the chords on guitar. We have our own style of chord charts for everyone. We’ll teach a tarantella and a mazurka. We will introduce a few tunes from our recent visit to the Caffaro Valley in Northern Italy, where we collected tunes from a fiddle band playing for the village dancers. If time permits, we may share a video of the dancers and musicians in action.
Paul Rangell and Emily Abbink play traditional music from the old country and the new world. They specialize in tunes from Italy, Mexico, New Mexico, Arizona, and the Carribean that feature angular and distinctive rhythms like tangos, mazurkas, shotis, boleros, tarantellas, pasodobles and marches. They are founding members of Bayou Seco (New Mexico) and performed for seven years with El Teatro Campesino (San Juan Bautista, CA) in theatrical productions. At home in Santa Cruz, California, they collaborate with several notorious musicians in maintaining three weekly public gigs where people are eating and drinking. Together they have forged a large repertoire and recorded two CDs Tuesday Nights (2012) and Noche Azul (2014). This year, a six-week music residency in Venice, Italy allowed contact with traditional musicians in the mountains of Northern Italy.
Travis and Trevor Stuart:
Fiddle/Banjo Duets
This workshop will focus on the repertoire of WNC tunes, waltzes, and the dynamic interplay of these two instruments in a duet setting. Through demonstrations of tunes and techniques, the brothers share helpful tips on: playing together as a duo, matching rhythms, and the role of each instrument in a duo setting.
The Stuart Brothers are world renown for their masterful performances of Appalachian fiddle and banjo duets. Trevor and Travis were born and raised in Bethel , a rural farming community in Haywood County, NC — an area of magical beauty where the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains meet and once the ancient Cherokee settlement of Sonoma. These majestic ranges surrounded the young brothers with the rich musical and cultural environment of Appalachian fiddle tunes, Baptist spirituals, banjo pickers, all night square dance shindigs and poetic tale weavers.
With deep family musical roots, their great grandfather was the legendary fiddler Rev. Henry King, and great uncle the banjoist and singer Austin Stamey. The brothers learned some of the oldest regional fiddle and banjo styles from masters such as the Smathers Family, Byard Ray, Oscar “Red” Wilson, Gordon Freeman, and the Sutton family. They formed their first band in junior high and played for local clogging teams, local functions and fiddlers conventions. Since then they have toured extensively throughout the US and several foreign countries, teaching and performing at major festivals and music camps.
Charmaine Slaven
Appalachian Flatfoot Dancing:
Learn the art of accompanying Southern fiddle music with your feet! We’ll start with the basic rhythm foundation steps, and learn accent steps as we go, with an emphasis on dancing with good musicianship. All levels are encouraged to participate, as we’ll start by building a foundation of basic rhythm steps, then build upon those steps, learning how to accent melodies. Flatfooting is an excellent way to improve your rhythm as a dancer and/or musician. You’ll be learning to let your entire body “hear” the music. It’s also an excellent work-out, as you’ll be so entrenched in the music, you won’t even realize you’re working up a sweat! This class is physical, so be cautious if you suffer from back, hip, knee, ankle issues. Comfortable clothing, a full water bottle, and low-heeled leather-soled shoes appropriate for dancing are recommended. Please feel free to contact me in advance with any questions atcharmaineslaven@gmail.com
Charmaine Slaven, the guitar player of venerable Northwest bands, The Tallboys & Squirrel Butter, is well-known for her skill as a flatfoot dancer, singer, and, of course, caller extraordinaire! She has committed years of time and energy into promoting traditional square dance & old-time music around the West coast, and is a founding member of the Seattle Subversive Square Dance Society, has helped shepherd the Dare to be Square West conference, and organizes dances, jams, and concerts around Seattle, including the Tractor Tavern Square Dances, & NW Folklife Festival Square Dances.
Devin Champlin
Beginning Fingerpicking Guitar
Learn some basic finger picking patterns that are the foundation of many forms of rural blues music. We’ll cover the driving single string thumb style of greats like Mance Lipscomb, and the alternating bass style of Mississippi John Hurt and others. We’ll also go over a few embellishments that can apply to many songs. Participants should be comfortable playing and switching basic chords, open to all!
Devin Champlin plays guitar, fiddle, mandolin and more in bands like The Gallus Brothers, The Hi-O Revelers, The Crow Quill Night Owls, and Maria Muldaur’s Garden of Joy Jugband. As a guitar player he mostly sticks to the country blues and is a dynamic fingerpicker. On the fiddle and mandolin he plays for square dances, honky tonks, and is very fond of rags and blues. He is passionate about music, loves to share it, and has taught at various festivals along the West coast. When not playing, he builds and repairs guitars in Seattle, and is known to make pretty good waffles.
Beverly Smith
Old-Time Back-Up Guitar
Welcome to the wonderful world of back up guitar! This class is for new comers and experienced players as well. If you can move comfortably between A D G E and C you will have an easier time. We will be working with backing up a fiddler, finding the chords, the groove, and adding some cool embellishments. I will mostly be teaching with a flat pick so bring one along if you can. More advanced players will have the opportunity to explore a variety of bass runs and chord choices. Be prepared for fun!
One of the most respected guitar players in old time music today, Beverly Smith is also in demand as a singer, fiddler, and dance caller. Besides her three highly praised recordings of early country duets with mandolinist Carl Jones, her guitar playing has been featured on recordings of fiddlers Bruce Molsky, Rafe Stefanini, Tara Nevins and Brad Leftwich, and her singing with Mick Moloney, John Doyle, Laurie Lewis and others. Along with June Drucker, Rose Sinclair and Tara Nevins, she was a founding member of The Heartbeats Rhythm Quartet. She has taught guitar, fiddle and dance at music camps including Ashokan Southern Week, Augusta Heritage, Swannanoa Gathering, Blue Ridge Old-Time Music Week, Festival of American Fiddle Tunes and Summer Acoustic Music Week as well as Sore Fingers UK; Haapavesi, Finland; and La Fuente del Musica in Spain. She has been a featured guest on A Prairie Home Companion, ETown, Mountain Stage and Voice of America.
Ruth Alpert and Rebecca Stout
Flatfooting 102
An intermediate course in the art of Appalachian flatfoot dance with Ruth Alpert and Rebecca Stout. Refine your technique! This class is for folks who feel they have the basics down and are ready to move on to a higher level of difficulty. Learn the classic Tennessee Walking Step, Snake Legs and The Indian. Get in-depth advice on musical phrasing so that you are not only keeping the beat, but playing the tune with your feet!
Ruth Alpert has been flatfooting for 34 years. She has taught workshops, danced with old-time Appalachian string bands, busked (street performed) in various cities in at least 6 states, and is a two time National Champion in Senior Buck Dancing, 2013 and 2014. Currently, Ruth is the percussion section of The Honeysuckle Possums, an all-female string band playing original and traditional music.
Rebecca Stout began clogging as a child in Cordele, Georgia, as part of the community mountain-style clogging group 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 and buck dance, inspired by friends, relations, masters and mentors throughout Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia. Today, Rebecca teaches and performs traditional Appalachian dance with a focus on dance as a percussive instrument, while encouraging students to develop their own personal style. More info at www.flatfootandfancyfree.com
David Bragger
Old-Time Fiddle Tunes and Bowing
This workshop is for all levels! The objective is to get the fiddler playing some incredible tunes with a focus on rhythm and interchangeable variations. I’ll be drawing from a vast repertoire of Kentucky, West Virginia and Louisiana fiddle tunes that are rhythmic and easy to grasp. As always, my workshops emphasize the key ingredient to old-time fiddle: bowing!! All workshop attendees will receive audio files of the tunes with phrase by phrase instruction. Please email davidbragger@yahoo.com for registration and questions.
David Bragger plays banjo, fiddle and mandolin in the old-time stringboard Sausage Grinder and in several local dance bands. David teaches old-time fiddle, banjo and mandolin to students of all ages and levels. He is also the host of the Old Time Tiki Parlour (oldtimetikiparlour.com) which produces concerts, workshops and films by the best old-time musicians alive, including Kirk Sutphin, Dan Gellert, Bruce Molsky, Bob Carlin, Eric & Suzy Thompson, Bertram Levy, etc. His students have won awards at festivals from Topanga Fiddle Banjo Festival to Galax, Virginia. Most importantly, he shows you how to have a foot-stomping good time!
Susan Michaels
How to Call a Square Dance
Learn how to call squares for your friends and family. Beginners welcome. Or just show up and get your dancing shoes on.
Susan Michaels is a teacher and a caller of traditional American dancing, especially contra dancing and square dancing. She has called and taught dances at local evenings, weekend workshops, week-long elementary school programs, week-long family camps and dance weekends throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Kelly Marie Martin and Sabra Guzman
Harmony Singing
Grabbing from early Country Music groups such as the Carter Family, E.C. & Orna Ball and the Delmore Brothers, we will work on how to best find the harmonies that fit for not only this genre of music but also for your voice and your singing partner. We will look at how harmony and melodies can best compliment each other by listening to and learning songs that are in the American Folk Canon. No experience necessary, just a desire to sing!
Kelly Marie Martin sings and plays guitar in Triple Chicken Foot and Chicken Liquor and in her yellow kitchen in Historic Filippinotown. She loves close harmony and loves to sing with Sabra whenever she’s in town.
Sabra Guzmán has been a part of Virginia since 2007, where she’s become a fully entrenched member of the burgeoning old-time & country music scene of the Appalachians and beyond. A founding member of the award winning old-time bands Old Sledge and Old Buck, Sabra is well known for her solid guitar & bass skills, her unique vocal stylings, and her captivating stage presence. She has been seen at many prestigious venues & festivals – Freight & Salvage, Pickathon, Blackpot, Club Passim, The Los Angeles Old Time Social, The Ark, Floydfest, Bristol Rhythm and Roots – and received a coveted first place Traditional Old Time band at the Clifftop Appalachian Stringband Festival.Sabra brings a musicianship and her unique approach to all projects, regardless of genre or instrumentation.