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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
Urbana, IL Festival includes Brandon and Deak
Urbana, IL Festival includes Brandon and Deak
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dougharps
275 posts
Sep 25, 2012
9:16 PM
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We have had a Folk and Roots festival locally now for a couple years. I volunteer and help present a beginners harp workshop at the local Folk and Roots Festival. I also volunteer to run sound at some venues. They always bring some great music to town for this festival. A favorite from last year, Jerron "Blind Boy" Patton is coming back again this year.
This year I see that Brandon and Deak are each going to be part of the Fest. If you are in the vicinity of Urbana-Champaign Illinois, you might consider coming to the fest to hear some good music.
Here is a link to the most recent news:
CU Folk and Roots Fest News
I hope some of you in the area come check it out!
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Doug S.
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HawkeyeKane
1223 posts
Sep 26, 2012
10:41 AM
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I may very well have to drive over there Doug! I'll see if I can coax Hessing and Fedor out of hiding too. ;-)
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Hawkeye Kane
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dougharps
287 posts
Nov 04, 2012
11:30 AM
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The Champaign-Urbana Folk and Roots Festival was great. I ran sound at different venues for part of Friday and Saturday evening. On Friday I was invited to sit in with a jazz quartet, and played Summertime on chromatic. Both nights I stayed for the 12-2AM jams. The time change helped, but I hope to get more sleep tonight.
On Saturday there was a performance by Deak Harp at the venue where I ran sound. There were also 2 performances by Brandon Bailey with Jerron "Blind Boy" Paxton at different venues. There was also a good harp (among other instruments)player Rick Sherry who fronted the Chicago band "Devil in the Woodpile". The band disbanded in 2009 and reformed for a reunion show at the festival.
My Saturday morning beginner harp workshop reportedly had 13 attendees (I didn't count them). They learned the basics about harp including straight and cross harp, playing Mary had a Little Lamb, train chugging, and culminating in a group basic 12 bar chord song.
Brandon's afternoon harmonica workshop had fewer attendees despite my promotional email to a list of people in our community who have previously expressed interest to me about learning harmonica or improving skills. Those who missed it missed a great opportunity to learn about harmonica from masters of the instrument.
Brandon brought Jason Ricci along, and Deak dropped by the workshop as I had told him Brandon was coming. Brandon led the three of them in an excellent presentation about ways of establishing a rhythmic groove, then implying the continued groove as you branched out into more melodic lines. This was a very cool presentation with discussion and each of them demonstrating. There was discussion of embrasures, with the consensus that you should use whatever works best for the music. Jason noted seeing sheet music at SPAH that was annotated indicating tongue block and lip block on different passages. He also instructed 3 beginners in bending notes, recommending staring with the 1 draw, because that hole is the easiest for a beginner to get a single note isolated to bend. One attendee was given a free harmonica left over from the earlier beginner session, and having never played, he took it from the box, followed Jason's instructions (the eeeeeee...ooooooo sound when drawing, similar to Adam's kamikaze sound recommendation in his quick blues harp video). The guy bent the first note he played! Impressive! I think I will also recommend the 1 draw to beginners in the future.
I felt sad that so few attended a workshop with these three great players sharing their knowledge, but glad that I had the chance to attend. I want to thank Brandon, Jason, and Deak for sharing their knowledge at our folk and roots festival.
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Doug S.
Last Edited by on Nov 04, 2012 11:31 AM
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