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Steve Kaufman's Acoustic Kamps Maryville, TN June 14-21 and June 21-28, 2009 You can Register On-Line Securely for the Gold Award Winning 2009 Kamp Series Now by downloading the Registration PDF form and Mail or Fax it to Flatpik Central!
Readers Choice Gold Award Winners since 2002
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Things To Do Before Coming To Kamp
Our Kamp is an instrumentally based Kamp. We have vocal classes but the core of instruction is based on instrumental work. This can help you back-up yourself or another vocalist. Learn the exercises, scales, rolls and fiddle tunes that will make you a better musician. The use of fiddle tunes in your plectrum (pick) repertoire helps to coordinate right and left hand, strengthen hands, develop ear skills, sight reading and scale work plus they give the player something to share with another player - a jam.
Fingerstylists will learn new right hand patterns, songs, style and much more.
Fiddlers, Dobroists (tm), Bassists, Old Time and Bluegrass Banjo players will learn techniques, songs patterns and rolls to propell them to the next level.
In order to help you get through our Gold Award Winning Kamp series, we have put together a small list of pre-Kamp essentials.
1. Prioritize Your Goals What do you want to get out of Kamp? To be a better picker? To be a better jammer? To develop a particular style? To try out a new instrument? Narrowing your focus can help you prioritize so you will gain the most out of Kamp. Decide on a few topics of interest before you arrive. Listen for those topics or ask about them and let the rest of class go. Focus on a few things for this coming year and the following year work on a few other topics. Don’t expect to master these or any topics at Kamp. You learn it and understand it here in Tennessee and then practice and perfect when you get home.
2. Arrive Well Rested Get plenty of rest before you come to Kamp. You will be busy from the AM to the PM to the AM again. You will probably return home exhausted, so don’t start out that way.
3. Strengthen Up Your Calluses and Vocal Cords The month before Kamp, ramp up your practice time. You won’t want to sit out of the evening jam sessions because your fingers have given out on you. If you will be doing a lot of singing, try to strengthen your vocal cords as well.
4. Examine Your Instrument Check out your instrument for any work that will need to be done. We are one of the very few Kamps that has Kamp Doctors on hand. You may want to take care of instrument issues before Kamp but you can also make appointments and discuss any repairs with our staff luthiers – The Kamp Doctors. During Week One Ken and Virginia Miller will be on hand to do repairs. Bryan Kimsey and Jim Grainger will be on hand during Week Two. You can follow links to their sites and get all their contact info. A well set up instrument makes life so much better.
5. Review Your Repertoire Avoid having to stop and say. “I used to play that song” by going over the tunes that you know. You can link over to a List of songs that many people play at Kamp. This will give you the chord structure. Many of these tunes can be found in Steve’s Four-Hour Bluegrass Work-Out (Book and 4 CDs).
6. Write Your Name on Your Stuff Use a laundry marker or similar to label all things that you bring. You will be amazed at what turns up in Lost and Found. Thank you through the years for all those capos, straps, T-shirts and more left behind.
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Send mail to
steve@flatpik.com with
questions or comments about this web site.
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