Beginner and Intermediate Classes
There will be a variety of classes offered on Thursday before the festival officially begins. Master Classes are for advanced students, Mid-Course Development Classes are for intermediate students, and Fast Track Classes are for beginners.
The cost of these three-and-a-half-hour classes is $50 ($55 for non-members), and you don’t need a ticket to Joe Val to take a class. Class size is limited, and we encourage you to register as soon as possible.
All classes (for beginners up to advanced) will meet on the same schedule (from 1 until 5 pm with a half-hour break at 3 pm on Thursday, February 12), so you can only sign up for one class.
Fast Track Classes
Get a jump on learning your instrument or jamming with the Fast Track classes. To register for one of the classes, all you need to do is email your teacher directly with the subject line “Joe Val Fast Track Class Registration”.
Nate Lee (Mandolin)
Class Description
In this 3.5-hour workshop, I’ll show you the real stuff and leave out the fluff, so you can hit the ground running as a new player, or start breaking into the intermediate level! See full class description at sign up link below.
Biography
Nate Lee is an International Bluegrass Music Association award-winning instrumentalist and renowned teacher of private lessons and music camps. A veteran performer, Nate has played with the best, including Alan Munde, Tony Trischka, Becky Buller, The Kentucky Colonels, David Grier, Irene Kelley, Town Mountain, and the Jim Hurst Trio.
Teaching professionally since 2003, Nate has gained a loyal following of students who enjoy his comprehensive teaching methods and relaxed, encouraging demeanor. With an affinity for turning beginners into jammers, and jammers into professionals, Nate has developed a curriculum that teaches you to play well with others, and become the player you’ve always wanted to be!
[email protected] sign up here – https://natelee.mykajabi.com/offers/KGE4dhKY/checkout
Mid-Course Development Classes
Take the next step in your playing with Mid-Course Development Classes. To register for one of the classes, all you need to do is email your teacher directly with the subject line “Joe Val Mid-course Development Class Registration”.
Betsy Rome (Guitar)
Class Description
Intermediate Guitar
You should be able to strum with a flatpick, change chords to the beat, play a song and/or fiddle tune or two.
We’ll cover bluegrass flatpicking rhythm and lead, including:
- Pick technique
- Clean up your strum
- Count-off’s, pick-up notes
- Adding bass runs
- Music theory basics
- Finding your way on the fretboard
- Soloing, playing melodies
Festival ticket not required for class.
Biography
Betsy’s guitar playing has been featured in Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, and she is one of a the few female performers in this demanding style of rhythm and lead guitar.
Betsy Rome is well-known for her flatpicked guitar in the regional bluegrass scene. Her playing blends bluegrass, old-time, Celtic, & swing. Noted for her rock-solid rhythm and inventive leads, she has won or placed in contests including Roxbury CT and the Pizza Hut International Bluegrass Showdown, as well as the fiddler-voted Best Accompanist award at the Arizona State Fiddle Contest. A talented writer, two of her compositions are featured on Too Blue’s CD, Trouble With the Grey. Betsy teaches bluegrass guitar and mandolin both privately and with The Bluegrass University at regional bluegrass festivals.
Contact: [email protected]
Rich Stillman (Banjo)
Class Description
Intermediate Banjo
This 3 ½-hour class is aimed to advance the skills of people who have learned the basics of bluegrass banjo – right hand rolls and left hand chording – and have learned some tunes from tab. The goal is to help develop improvisational skills that will allow you to translate melodies you hear into banjo solos without the need to work from written material.
The class will be split into a section on ear training and separate sections on the use of the left and right hands, with some time for wrap-up at the end to put it all together. By the end of the class, you should be able to:
- Listen to a common bluegrass song and recognize and play the chord progression
- Recognize the intervals that move a melody from one note to another
- Combine melody notes and chord shapes so you can play the melody and turn it into a banjo break
- Understand the structure of right hand rolls, and how to use them to create rhythms
- Combine roll rhythms with chords and melody to create syncopated banjo breaks that “sound like the song”
We’ll work with melodies that are familiar to everyone, but the ideas will apply to any common bluegrass song. While you won’t be playing banjo breaks in real time by the end of the class,
Biography
Rich Stillman has been a bluegrass banjo performer, teacher and writer for over fifty years. As a teacher, he has taught literally hundreds of students to play banjo, both face-to-face and worldwide through Internet lessons. Mel Bay has published his book, Bluegrass Banjo From All Sides, and he has a chapter in Gene Senyak’s book Banjo Camp! on Lark Books. He has taught at Banjo Camp North for all but one of its years of existence, and is in demand as a workshop presenter and jam leader at festivals and camps around the Northeast. He has taught banjo as an adjunct faculty member at Concord Conservatory of Music, Phillips Andover Academy, Concord Academy and Tufts University.
As a player, Rich has formed or played in a number of bands, including twenty-five years in Massachusetts band Southern Rail as well as The Bogus Family, Adam Dewey and Crazy Creek, and his own band WayStation, which toured for eight years as far away as Kentucky and recorded a successful CD. He has been banjo player for New England performances of Carol Barnett’s Bluegrass Mass and arranged and performed a banjo part for Aaron Copland’s Hoedown. Rich also played memorable festival sets with Peter Rowan and James Monroe, and recorded a 71-tune series on YouTube during the Covid pandemic.
Rich is two-time New England banjo champion and six time winner of the Lowell Bluegrass Banjo Contest, where he now teaches annual banjo classes.
Contact:[email protected]
Here are some photos of past jams and workshops.
