Expectations Being Met

It's 10:00 pm and John and I have made our way to the hotel in Big Rapids, Mi to settle in for the night. Two days of the Original Dulcimer Players Festival are now history. We have spent the last two days shuffling our instruments to and from various sites within the festival venue. The setting for the festival is the county fair grounds outside of the town of Evart, Mi. Yesterday we attended workshops on music theory and Irish music. I have found that it is pretty easy to discern whether a workshop will meet my needs. Sometimes well meaning presenters just do not have their act together. I found that rather than politely suffering through a weak presentation, it is better to quietly exit and spend my time focusing on the music I am trying learn and perfect. John and I are pretty like minded in this respect and we are happy to search out a spare space within a barn to play our instruments.

The weather has been a bit of a challenge. Yesterday started out stormy but by mid-day clouds cleared enough to allow temperatures to rise into the high eighties and produce steamy conditions that my body just does not appreciate. Both of us were feeling heat stressed by the time early evening approached so we headed back to the hotel around 5:00 pm. After dinner I settled into about a two-three hour practice session which suits me just fine.

My favorite workshop from yesterday was the Irish session. It was taught by David James. He is actually from South Bend and is the resident expert on Irish traditional music. David is an excellent instructor who fully engages his students. His enthusiasm for Irish music is contagious. I confess a love for the genre as well. This affinity was sparked decades ago when as a curious teenager, I came across an album by the band Pentangle. The rhythms and sounds hooked me. Here it is forty years since that fateful find and I have a couple Irish tunes that I play on guitar daily and this coming September I will be heading to Ireland for the Clonakilty International Guitar Festival.
When all is tallied, I did actually manage something like 5 hours of practice yesterday.

Today we arrived on site at around 11 am. I abandoned my guitar comfort zone for the workshop portion of the day. I own an octave mandolin(larger and deeper voiced than it's little brother)and a workshop that taught a simple version of "Wayfaring Stranger" was my first destination. I like the octave mandolin because I can use fingerpicking techniques since the neck is both a bit wider and longer than a regular mandolin. I really enjoyed the experience and the instructor did a fine job and was genuinely enthusiastic. I actually did okay reading the notation and making the adjustments to the GDAE tuned mandolin.
The second workshop covered adjustment and setup of a banjo. The instructor was quite prepared with excellent handouts and he clearly had decades of experience.
The third workshop was conducted by David James and he did a superb job of teaching basic bodhran(Irish hand drum). I've owned a bodhran for about 6 months but was pretty clueless about the methods associated with playing it properly. My interest in this instrument is motivated by desire to improve my sense of rhythm and timing. My difficulty with those musical elements has been a constant challenge.
Once this workshop was completed we headed on over to the main stage and watched performances until around 8pm. Tomorrow promises to be another busy day of workshops, practice time and the intention of participating in some jam sessions. We expect to stay late into the evening tomorrow. If it is anything like last year, there will be jam sessions at several locations that will extend into the wee hours.