Below is a list of workshops being offered on the cruise. We have one conference room where we will teach at scheduled times during the day. In ADDITION, we will all be offering private lessons and small group workshops in our staterooms or other locations. If there is interest in BEGINNING workshops, we will hold those workshops in our cabins - PLEASE contact us to let us know if you’re interested. Email us at the address following workshop description to schedule Beginning workshops.
(If you'd like to join us for the cruise, there are still some cabins left. Visit this post to get the details on booking your cruise - you can also register for the workshops there. $79 if you're attending the retreat and $129 if you're just doing the cruise. http://www.gulfcoastdulcimer.com/2018/04/2019-registration-now-open-booking-for.html )
*Beginning NATIVE AMERICAN FLUTE - with Bing - will be taught in Cabin - if you don’t have a flute, you can arrange to get one through Bing. bingfutch@yahoo.com or call?
**Beginning PENNYWHISTLE with Guy - will be taught in Cabin - if you don’t have a pennywhistle, you can arrange to get one through Guy. hdggeorge@aol.com or call 386-523-8210
***Beginning UKULELE - with Sharrie - will be taught in Cabin - if you don’t have a ukulele, you can arrange to get one through Sharrie. sharshi2426@aol.com or call 440-478-1302
ALL BEGINNING WORKSHOPS must be scheduled in ADVANCE so we can accommodate all who are interested. Contact individual instructors at email addresses above or by phone - MAKE sure we know you are interested! MAKE SURE YOU GET A REPLY FROM US TO CONFIRM WE HAVE RECEIVED YOUR EMAIL TO SCHEDULE BEGINNING WORKSHOP!
All other workshops will be scheduled in the Conference Room during the day, and if you are registered for the music portion of the cruise, you are welcome to take any and ALL workshops offered, including the beginning workshops above (be sure to let us know you are coming to beginning workshops). We will jam every evening, and will start each night with an Orchestra tune that we will all learn together!
PW 1. Chromatic Magic - Pennywhistle - Intermediate. Guy George
I’ll make playing chromatically on your whistle simple, basic, and easy to follow with practice ideas and exercises that will add that magical sound to your playing!
PW 2. Easy Jazz and Improv on the Whistle - Pennywhistle - Past Beginner-Intermediate - Guy George -
Learn a few tricks to jazz up tunes - some familiar, some and take these tricks to apply to many tunes down the road. - joined by UKULELES - Ukes will learn a few jazzy chords and strums as we back up the whistles!
PW 3 “Irish Soul” - Pennywhistle Past Beginner - Intermediate Guy George.
Learn “Down by the Sally Garden” and “Inisheer” with added back-up and harmony parts. Hear just how beautiful the pennywhistle can sound on a slow and soulful tune. I’ll show you how to make those long notes really sing, creating that haunting feeling we love on those tunes.
Reggae & Island Feel - Pennywhistle - joined by UKULELES - - All Levels Guy & Sharrie George
Learn some fun “Cruise” tunes and get your Reggae on! Joined by the Ukuleles, we’ll work on “A Pirate Looks at Forty”, “One Love”, & “Rum and Coca Cola”! Ukes - Review and practice your Island and Reggae strums!
The Secrets Of The Night - Mountain Dulcimer - Intermediate Bing Futch
There are secrets to creating simple-yet-powerful musical arrangements and we’ll learn how it all comes together while working on “The Music Of The Night” from “Phantom Of The Opera.” DAD tuning, and you'll need the 1 1/2 and 8 1/2 frets.
Slaving Over A Hot Fretboard - Mountain Dulcimer - Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced Bing Futch
Though it’s easy to play the mountain dulcimer, making it look easy isn’t always easily done! A professional player won’t always reveal how much muscular positioning, stretching and grabbing that sometimes must be done in order to pull off a smooth performance. We’ll get into exercises to prepare your hands and then put your fingers through a series of workouts that will open your eyes to a whole new way of playing.
Power UP With Selective Strumming - Mountain Dulcimer - Intermediate/Advanced Bing Futch
If you’ve been wanting to put a little get-up-and-go into your playing, this workshop is for you! Selective strumming is a technique that uses eighth and sixteenth-note rhythms to form a solid groove foundation for simple melodies and chord progressions. By treating the strings as separate instruments, we can fire up a more dynamic voice with the mountain dulcimer and put more than a little get-along in your songs!
10 Things You Should Know If You’re A Beginner - Mountain Dulcimer - Beginner Bing Futch
You’re a beginner if you’ve just started playing or have been playing for a bit but still trying to get your head around this fun little instrument. In this workshop, we’ll touch on the basics and go over some fundamentals that every beginner should know. And if you don’t know, I’ll teach you. This workshop will introduce basic concepts of tablature-reading, keeping time, strumming, fretting and learning the notes on the fretboard plus a few challenges to prepare you for a meteoric rise to intermediate level playing!
Be a Rhythm Machine! - Ukulele - All Levels Sharrie George
Whether you’re a beginner or an advanced player, there’s always room to improve your strum chops - and find out just how powerful the rhythm of the music really can be! We’ll work on a variety of different strums and apply them to some fun tunes!
Location, Location, Location! Finding Notes & Easy Finger-Picking - UKULELE - Intermediate WITH PENNYWHISTLE - Pennywhistle Melody Practice of Irish Tunes - Intermediate
Learn where your notes are, how to read tablature, and an easy way to back-up a slow tune with a finger-picking pattern or two. We’ll invite the pennywhistle players to play the melody to a few slow tunes as we back them up with our ukes. Strumming is just the beginning of what the ukulele can do - stretch your skills as a player!
Ukulele Orchestra! - All Levels - We’ll do a quick review of tablature reading and then launch a few tunes with parts for every level of ukulele player - with emphasis on reading and playing single line melodies, harmonies and back-up. Great to take home to play with any other instrument or form your own ukulele orchestra! Get ready for our group orchestra session at night! (Different tunes will be taught from the nightly orchestra)
Strum Magic! Strum and play on Ukulele - Past Beginner-Intermediate Sharrie George
Add some fun tunes to your repertoire as we discover just how easy it is to find chords up the neck of our ukes! We’ll learn a few tunes using this method, discuss “first position chords”, and when is best to use which chord. A fun way to get some new info and learn some great tunes! Learn simple jazz patterns to play over chords of your favorite tunes - can be applied to many styles of tunes, fast or slow.
Stretch Your Chord Vocabulary - Ukulele - Intermediate
Learn great sounding, more difficult tunes that you thought were beyond your ukulele reach! Learn some left hand exercises to make these new chords easier to reach and make learning lots of chords - even bar chords - a piece of cake! Fun tunes to take with you!
