Workshops are first-come, first served and may sell out. Register today!

11 a.m.–12:30 p.m. Session

Improvising on the Fiddle - It Doesn't Have To Be So Scary! with Megan Lynch (Bill Evans & Megan Lynch), $30. Ever wonder if there were some tricks of the trade when it comes to improvisation? National champion and professional bluegrass fiddler Megan B. Lynch will share them with you in this workshop. Learn how to play over chord changes, how breaks and solos are created, and last but not least, learn when and when not to play! Also, learn how the bowing arm makes all the difference in your playing. This workshop is best for beginning through intermediate fiddlers who would like to improve their musical interactions with others.

Megan won her first National Championship at age 8 and followed that with three consecutive wins at ages 10, 11, and 12. In 2003 Megan returned to serious competition and captured two more National titles in 2003 and 2004. During the last 24 years of on-and-off competition, Megan has also won 6 California State titles, as well as the Minnesota State Championships. Megan is in high demand as a private and group teacher. She counts dozens of State and National Champions among her students, and recently added several prestigious bluegrass camps to her list of accomplishments. More on Megan at fiddlestar.com.

Melodic Style Banjo with Bill Evans (Bill Evans & Megan Lynch); $30
Melodic style banjo is a three-finger bluegrass banjo technique that relies upon scales rather than rolls and offers an exciting, contemporary complement to Scruggs style. Melodic style allows you to play fiddle tunes note-for-note and also opens up improv possibilities. In this workshop designed for players with one or more years of experience, Bill Evans unlocks the secret of understanding melodic style, showing its application in different keys, how it’s used up and down the neck and can be combined with Scruggs style. Tab examples will be presented and video/audio recording is encouraged.

San Francisco Bay Area musician and Virginia native Bill Evans has been involved with bluegrass music and the banjo for over twenty-five years as a player, teacher, writer and historian. He occupies a unique niche in the banjo world: celebrated worldwide for his traditional and progressive bluegrass banjo styles and his innovative original compositions, he also enjoys a reputation as an outstanding instructor and an expert player of 19th century minstrel and classic/parlor banjo styles. He authored “Banjo for Dummies,” and since its release in 2007, it has become the largest selling banjo book in the world. More on Bill at nativeandfine.com.

Harmony Singing with Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum (Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum), $30. There is almost nothing better than close harmony singing. Critically listening to classic examples from the bluegrass masters, we’ll analyze two and three part harmony (taking special care to shed some light on the elusive baritone line), and we’ll work on blending, breathing and phrasing. We’ll take a song and teach the various harmony options for two, three and four voices.

You can’t measure Laurie Lewis’s 30-year career with the usual commercial yardsticks. She has won a Grammy (“True Life Blues: The Songs of Bill Monroe,” 1997) and twice been named Female Vocalist of the Year by the IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association). Lewis’s performing companion is ace mandolinist-singer Tom Rozum. Their 1996 CD, “The Oak and the Laurel,” was nominated for a Grammy. More on Laurie and Tom at laurielewis.com.

Intro to Jamming with Dave Zimmerman (Homespun Rowdy); $15. Getting into jamming can be an intimidating process until you realize that there are countless other pickers out there thinking the exact same thing. This workshop will take the form of a jam where we’ll go around the circle calling out songs. We’ll learn how to introduce the song to the group, run through chord changes, and even throw together a harmony. You’ll learn how to keep the song moving by coordinating breaks, doing some simple arrangement on the fly and the standard signals and vocabulary for communicating these choices to the group. Bring a song you’d like to sing or join the circle to strum along.

Dave Zimmerman plays mandolin for Homespun Rowdy (homespunrowdy.com/) and runs The Pick, a resource for bluegrass and acoustic-based music in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Pick offers a program called PickUp Bands where Dave assembles groups who work together for 8 weeks to develop a short opening set for a Bluegrass Monday Show at Amnesia. He’s also been an instructor for the Take the Stage program offered by the Freight & Salvage and runs the 3rd Monday Jam at Amnesia. More on Dave at thepicksf.com.

12:45–2:15 p.m. Session

5 String Banjo with Mark Petteys (Ida Viper), $30.This workshop is designed for banjo players who seek to learn to play “by ear.” Learning to hear chord changes along with essential banjo rolls is emphasized. Playing these essential banjo rolls in several different keys is addressed in terms of a broad scope of songs and rhythms. Backup playing and lead playing are discussed as chords, chord modulations and chord transpositions. Music theory is discussed in the context of these methods and participants will receive workshop handouts with music/tablature and diagrams.

Mark grew up in Eastern Oregon and played throughout the U.S. as a teenager. He has performed at McCabe’s in Los Angeles, The National Old-Time Fiddle Festival in Idaho, and played with Tex Williams, Grandpa Jones, Tiny Moore, Mark O’Connor and the Country Gazette. In the 1980s he performed as a duo, Mark and Joey (McKenzie -World Fiddle Champion) for many years in the Portland area. He was the Northwest Regional Banjo Champion in 1984. In 2005 he formed Ida Viper, a bluegrass and western swing band with mandolinist Brian Oberlin. More on Mark at markpetteys.com and idaviper.com.

The All Purpose Mandolin with Brian Oberlin (Ida Viper), $30. The workshop will start with right- and left-hand techniques, touching on melodies, chords and solos applicable to bluegrass, swing, folk and more. We’ll discuss chord construction and tricks for grabbing chords and playable, understandable inversions to make your playing fun and unique sounding.

Brian Oberlin is a singing, multi-instrumentalist who resides in Portland, Ore. He spends his time teaching, performing solo gigs and playing mandolin with Ida Viper, a three-piece western swing and bluegrass band. Along with teaching private lessons, he teaches a course at Portland Community College and is planning a three-day mandolin camp in June of 2009. More on Brian at mandoberlin.com and myspace.com/mandoberlin.

Bluegrass Rhythm Guitar with Kathy Kallick (Kathy Kallick Band), $30. Kathy’s Bluegrass Rhythm Guitar workshop will give an overview of essentials like holding the rhythm while you’re singing, embellishing the rhythm when you’re not singing and playing rhythm behind each instrument in a bluegrass band. Open to guitarists (and interested non-guitarists) of all levels.

Hot bluegrass and cool originals has described the music of Kathy Kallick since co-founding the internationally-acclaimed band, Good Ol’ Persons, in 1975. Along the way, she has: toured North America, Europe and Japan; released 14 albums, with over 100 of her original songs, three of which each spent a year in the upper echelon of the the charts; received a “Lifetime Achievement Award” from the California Bluegrass Association; won a Grammy and two IBMA Awards for her part on “True Life Blues: The Songs Of Bill Monroe;” and collaborated with some of the country’s top acoustic musicians. More on Kathy at kathykallick.com.

From a Jam Sound to a Band Sound with Dave Zimmerman (Homespun Rowdy), $15. When a group of musicians comes together into a band they establish a dependency on each other that requires communication, awareness and cooperation. In this workshop, participants will learn through examples both general and specific ways to create this relationship within a group of players. We will look at the role of material selection, arrangement, band dynamics and harmonies in showcasing the strengths of the members and challenging them to develop their potential. We’ll also look at how you can use these techniques within a jam setting to get a group of pickers working together to make the best sound possible.

2:30–4 p.m. Session

Bluegrass and Old-Time Mandolin with Caleb Klauder (Foghorn), $30. In this workshop you’ll learn a few tunes by ear and then work on techniques to get around the fingerboard easier. Additional time will be spent on tone and rhythm, including solo playing to demonstrate some of the different sounds the mandolin can produce. A basic knowledge of chords and scales is helpful and beginners, while welcome, may feel a bit left behind as attention will be paid to keep more advanced players moving forward in their playing. As always, questions are appreciated.

Caleb Klauder hails from Portland, Ore. He cut his musical teeth in well-travelled northwest folk-rock group Calobo, who put out five self-released titles throughout the 90s. He currently plays mandolin and sings with internationally acclaimed old-time ensemble, The Foghorn Stringband. His first solo record “...Sings Out” was released on Padre Records in 2000 and featured a combination of self-penned folk, rock’n’roll and country music. His new disc, “Dangerous Me’s And Poisonous You’s,” is a collection of originals and covers in the honky-tonk vein. More on Caleb at calebklauder.com.

Old Time Fiddle with Steve Sammy Lind (Foghorn, Dirk Powell Band), $30
Steve Sammy Lind will host an old-time fiddle instructional workshop for intermediate to advanced fiddle players. The workshop will consist of Sammy teaching tunes by ear, breaking them down phrase by phrase, emphasizing bowing. The rhythms of old time fiddling can be very complex, so it is very important to break down tunes phrase by phrase to capture the desired sound. Alternate tunings will also be explored during the session. Repertoire will include fiddle tunes from Northern Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Missouri and Southern Illinois.

Sammy has toured the world playing old-time music with his bandmates from the Foghorn Stringband, as well as with Dirk Powell and Riley Baugus. He has collaborated with Irish fiddle great Kevin Burke for a concert series out on the Oregon Coast. Steve Sammy Lind has had many opportunities to teach old-time fiddle workshops at festivals and schools, and gives two workshops a week in his home in Portland, Ore., when he’s not on the road. More on Sammy at myspace.com/foghornduo.

Bluegrass Guitar with Mike Wilhoyte (Blue & Lonesome), $30
Playing rhythm is the primary role of the guitar player in any bluegrass band, yet it’s not often discussed. This workshop will cover rhythm techniques, variations that support other band members and how to achieve dynamics in a band. Topics will include right hand techniques and how to get power out of G and bass runs. Mike will also discuss lead playing, including approaches for creating breaks that respect the melody without sounding like a bunch of licks and runs thrown together. Right hand techniques for flatpicking and cross picking will also be covered, along with basic musical structures that allow you to move up and down the neck and play out of any chord without feeling lost.

Mike Wilhoyte has deep roots in the traditional bluegrass style. Mike first heard Bill Monroe, Doc Watson and other first generation players, when he was 13 years old, in his hometown of Toledo, Ohio. He soon decided that bluegrass music was the music he would play. Before moving to California in 1989, Mike defined his energetic and melodic guitar style in numerous bands in northwest Ohio and most notably, The Raisin River band with longtime friend Jim Hurst. Since moving to the Bay Area he began playing with the nationally known band Roanoke and more recently with Blue & Lonesome. More on Mike at edneff.com/bands-blue-lonesome.html.

Band Ensemble Workshops with The SFBOT Coaches, $30
Would you like to work with a group of likeminded pickers to put together a few songs you can all be proud of? Then sign up for one of these workshops and we’ll match you up with a band and get you ready for the stage. In these workshops, we’ll assemble bands based on instruments, ability and interests to work with our SFBOT coaches to put together a 2-3 song mini set to be performed at the Bluegrass & Old-Time Revue immediately following. You’ll get personal attention from one of the professional-level SFBOT musician/coaches who will help you sound your best .

Workshops are first-come, first served and may sell out. Register today!