Robin Bullock workshop

Last week I took a week off and went to local "adult summer camp" that despite having lived in this area for 20 years I only just found out about.  Unlike a guitar camp, it's a kind of "social conscience/crafts/music" eclectic mix of workshops - the usual format of a lesson every day with the same person for 5 days.  I was tempted because I didn't have to drive 12 hours to get there, and Robin Bullock was teaching. I'm a great admirer of his, and I figured it would be worth it just to see him play in person.   Well I got more than my money's worth - he is a tremendous teacher and has a dry sense of humor.  I now think of him as the "thinking (wo)man's musician."   He spent one whole lesson talking about the different tunings he uses and what drives his choice of a particular tuning (in addition to DADGAD he uses at least one other D-based tuning plus a couple of C and G-based tunings).  He even went through a song he had arranged demonstrating the process - starting with DADGAD then trying other tunings to get more strings ringing and positions that were easier to reach, then moving on to where it would sound best capo'd.  Fascinating!

Here is a Youtube link of Robin playing his haunting arrangement of "Carol of the Bells"  If anyone is interested in knowing the tuning he uses without experimenting I have it....


I also took another Bossa Nova workshop - I think I might finally have got the rhythm ( I think my English upbringing has left me rhythmically challenged) though chords with #11 at the end of a long string of letters still leave my fingers in a knot.   And in the afternoons I spent many hours and stressed my limited muscular abilities to the max making a Native American flute!  It sounds truly lovely, even if I only know how to play it up and down the G minor pentatonic scale. Yet another project.