A comparatively recent arrival among North American summer music camps, a Mandolin Symposium (by David Grisman and Mike Marshall), now in its fifth year, brings together some of the world's finest professional mandolinists and mandolin enthusiasts of every level of skill and experience for six days of classes, concerts, and late-night jamming. Styles of music span the globe and the technical possibilities of the instrument-- Choro, Celtic, Jazz, Swing, Bluegrass, Dawg Music, Classical, to name a few. Specific class offerings and participating faculty change each year.
For 2008, Mike Marshall and David Grisman have brought together faculty from all over the musical and physical world: Danilo Brito, Ashley Broder, Debora Chen, Rich DelGrosso, Paul Glasse, Steve Gilchrist, Caterina Lichtenberg, Dudu Maia, Ronnie McCoury, Herschel Sizemore, Andy Statman, and Tony Williamson.
Classical Session-- held after each evening showcase concert, ~10:00--12:00 For those who would like to practice a few chamber music pieces in advance, downloadable pdf's of some suggested pieces are below. Other downloadable pdf's may be added later. There will be many other pieces available at the session (e.g. Beethoven-- Adagio for Mandolin, Bach-- Brandenburg Concerti, et al). If you are interested in playing the larger, more difficult pieces, please let us know so we can determine if we have critical mass. (Everything below is notation only except Bach Invention No. 4)
Mandolin Symposium information Standard Notation for the Tab-Addicted Mandolinist-- details TBA “Abundant bland comestibles derange eaters; frequent gasps help immensely...”
Could
you have ever learned to read English if you used a mnemonic to
remember its alphabet? Every good mandolinist would do well to forget
the oft quoted fate of ‘every good boy’. There is a better way....This
class series is devised to break the aspiring mandolinist's addiction
to TAB. Instructional material includes carefully designed exercises
from Debora Chen's book, "Standard Notation for the Tab-Addicted
Mandolinist", composed specifically to exploit the idiosyncrasies of
the mandolin to highlight easy note recognition and foster good
technique. With this 4-class series, you can, in less than 4 hours, convert from a
decades-addicted tab reader to a musical literate able to read an adaptation from J.S.
Bach's Partita III for Unaccompanied violin. (Yes, really.)
New section this year will include a class on reading chords, relating the staff the chord diagrams mandolinists know and love.
“Debora Chen has a clear and clean approach to teaching reading music
notation. For you 'pickers' out there who have not been able to crack
that barrier, go see her. She'll make it fun too!”
--
Mike Marshall
"Debora
Chen's Standard Notation for the Tab Addicted class was among the most
well-attended classes of the 2006 Mandolin Symposium. Her clear,
patient teaching received rave reviews from students who
enthusiastically clamored for her return in 2007. We believe learning
to read music opens a vast world to players of all types and
enthusiastically endorse Debora's work to bring musical literacy to the
mandolin world."
-- Patrice O'Neil, Mandolin Symposium Staff
"I cannot possibly tell you how much it means to me to be able to read
standard music and have it come out of my instrument in real time. Her
simple, clear exercises were extremely helpful in getting over this
life-long hurdle."
--
Mandolin Symposium Student