Fingerpicking Ragtime Guitar with Mary Flower
2010-09-22 (7:00 pm - 9:00 pm)
This two hour workshop is appropriate for the advanced beginner to intermediate player who has some fingerpicking experience. Mary will explore the Piedmont or East Coast style of blues by presenting a few tunes and many tips on how to approach this music . Students will explore how to balance melodies, alternating bass and moveable chords, all necessary components that work together to strengthen solo Piedmont style playing.
Fingerpicks are optional, reading tablature is necessary and taping the class is encouraged!
Portland Oregon's Mary Flower is a Blues Music Award nominee and Yellow Dog Records recording artist who tours and teaches internationally. She is renowned for a
uniquely personal vision of roots music that blends ragtime, acoustic blues,
and folk - technically dazzling yet grounded in the down-to-earth simplicity
of early 20th century American music.
With eight albums under her belt, Flower has earned rave reviews from
critics and audiences alike for her unassuming vocals, but it's her
instrumental skill - a mastery of the difficult Piedmont blues guitar that
takes most players a lifetime to hone - for which Flower is most celebrated.
Her fingerpicking forms the basis of a heavily syncopated, ragtime-based
style wherein the thumb plucks a strong rhythmic base as the fingers etch
out the melody. Mary also excels at lap slide guitar, allowing her to infuse
songs with a supremely delicate, plaintive sound that's hers alone while
recalling the blues giants of the past.
Flower performs and teaches internationally, and has released several
instructional DVDs, including a few for highly regarded Homespun Tapes.
Workshop: 7:00 - 9:00 PM Cost: $30