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Songcrafting and the Fingerstyle Guitar Toolkit
Level 1/2
This workshop will include a variety of hands-on exercises aimed at building songs and arrangements with fingerstyle guitar embellishments. We will develop a set of musical tools based on the CAGED system including chord inversions, passing chords, and licks typical for a given chord position that may then be employed in giving color and individual personality to cover favorites (possibly drawn from Hot Tuna, John Hurt, Gary Davis, and some familiar standard folk tunes) as well as for building original songs. Specific songs will be taught that demonstrate these principles and can then be used as laboratories for variations and accompaniments. We will also address the development of a song from a poem or original lyric set, considering how lyrics "speak " in various keys, along with creating groove and feeling with refrains, wordplay and defining riffs.
Note that the Toolbox is extended to the concepts underlying effective lead soloing and improvisation.
- 05/20/11 - 05/23/11
- Mississippi to Maxwell Street
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Fundementals of Fingerstyle Guitar with Jorma Kaukonen
Level 2: Intermediate
This workshop explores essential fingerstyle fundamentals using Jorma's repertoire as a vehicle. We will emphasize alternating bass, and melody lines that break out of pattern picking. Variations used within the songs will include chord inversions up the neck, as well as typical licks and fills characteristic of songs in different keys. It will be assumed that students have familiarity with first position chords, and may even have substantial experience as lead or rhythm guitarists. Examples of some songs covered in recent classes include Keep on Truckin; Nine Pound Hammer; Search My Heart; I Know You Rider. Jorma will break down each piece methodically and provide individual attention to each student as the songs are built. Teaching assistant Marjorie Thompson will support this instruction with the individual mini- tutorials in class, after class review sessions, and class notes that reflect each piece as it is developed, with partial tabs, chord patterns, notations and alternatives. She will also make clean recordings of Jorma's renditions reflecting the class notes. These and other handouts (lyric sheets, etc), along with CD copies of the recordings, will be assembled and sent to each participant in the weeks following as a "Jorma pack" for continued study.
- 04/15/11 – 04/15/11
- Keys to the Highway
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- 08/26/11 – 08/29/11
- Special Weekend with Jorma and Marjorie Thompson
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- 10/15/11 – 10/18/11
- Tribute to the Rev. Gary Davis
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About Marjorie Thompson
Marjorie Thompson is a guitarist, songwriter and performer whose originals evoke the time- honored genres of the country blues, rags and roots music characterized by Rev Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt, Dave Van Ronk and many other pioneers of this field. Her four recordings since 2003 are reflective of this style but are drenched with contemporary and personal, often humorous twists. Originally from New York City, she took up the guitar in the mid sixties and thus began a lifelong passion for fingerstyle guitar. She has also for 25 years served as dean of undergraduate biology at Brown University. Her relationship with Fur Peace Ranch stems back to 1999, and at present she serves as a workshop instructor, as Jorma's assistant in his Level 2 Workshops, and as the Camp Educational Consultant. She tours actively, and specializes in workshop/houseconcerts as well as a broad range of venues in the US and Europe. She has been featured in Acoustic Guitar Magazine, More magazine, and on the Oprah Winfrey show.
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Here's a video of Marjorie performing her new single, "Don't Look Back," from her exciting new album Right By Me. Now availble at marjoriethompson.com
