Gama Guitar Workshop Day 2, 3 & 4

On Tuesday we arrived and there was a stack of 4x4's cut into 8" sections. These were our footstools. It wasn't really high enough for me but it gives you a good idea as to what you can do with some homemade foot stools. Suzanne told me she usually does them in 3 different heights. She takes 2x4's and cuts them into 8" sections. Then she screws two of them together for some and three together for others. She then has 4, 6 and 8 inch footstools because the stacks of 3 can be turned on their sides to give you the 8 inch height.

Suzanne also overheard Thad and me playing jazz in our dorm room Monday night and asked if we could play for the group. Thad called it jamming. I called it a lesson from Thad. I have never actually played jazz in front of anyone. We set that up for Thursday around lunch time.

During our afternoon break-out session with the high-school people we talk some more room set-up. Hand sanitizer is necessary for kids using school instruments. One of the guys mentions that Finger Ease is good for "acid hands'.

We do more methods stuff with Suzanne on rhythm strumming. We start with the Left Hand muting and working on "missing" strums to create different rhythms. Jim introduces new chords. (He calls D7 "Dog Seven" to not confuse it with E7 when he says it over students' playing.)

He introduces the idea of "divide and conquer". Some of us are having trouble changing chords. So he divides us up into 2 or 3 groups. "You guys make sure you cover this chord every time. If you can get some of the others great, but make sure you're covering this chord". We learn that "guides slide".

We work power chords, root-5th bass patterns, pima, rest strokes and free strokes. Suzanne introduces Travis picking and teaches us "Dust in the Wind". We work E-form and A-form barre chords and learn the "Chaconne" (Am G F E).

After class we all went to Guitar Center because a
lot of the folks in the class had never been to a guitar store. Then we went to Maple Street Guitars, the place to go if you're ever in Atlanta. They're much smaller but have a lot of great guitars and sheet music. We finished up Wednesday with a meal at California Pizza at the mall in town. I ordered the Jamaican Jerk pizza. Good Stuff!

I got to meet my dad for lunch on Thursday. Then Thad and I played Autumn Leaves, Black Orpheus and Pride and Joy by Stevie Ray Vaughn in Spivey Hall for our group. We also had Mike, a Jazz woodwind instructor from a college in NC play tenor sax and flute with us. His wife was in Atlanta taking the class with us. Both of these guys are pros and I was glad to get to play with them.

In the afternoons Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we worked on our ensembles. We were preparing for a Friday mini-concert in Spivey Hall, a very nice concert hall at Clayton State. The groups were supposed to be of mixed ability levels and our was pretty well balanced. I had Gene and Kathy in my group. Kathy had a good bit of experience growing up with guitar but had not played in a while. Gene was pretty new to the guitar.

I'll try to close out the week in my next post.