Intermediate/Advanced Clawhammer Workshop with KEN PERLMAN

Saturday , October 16, 2004
01:15 pm - 3:15 pm
Location: Elderly Instruments
workshop ($35.00)

A. V. Shirk told a good story about Ken Perlman in the Winter 2002/03 Old-Time Herald: as a young man learning the banjo, Ken was told by musicians during jam sessions that some tunes couldn't be played in clawhammer style due to its limitations, that he should sit out those tunes. Years later in a 1997 Banjo Newsletter interview, Ken explained his response: "At first, I would just accept that. Later, though, I would go home and think, 'Let's see if I can.' Quite often, I would be able to find a way that would work. Eventually, it became...something that had a beauty and an esthetic all its own--the idea that playing tunes in clawhammer style was a lovely and legitimate thing to do on the banjo."

Ken's Intermediate/Advanced Clawhammer Workshop illustrates and reviews many of these "legitimate" things that can be done on a banjo. In this hands-on workshop students will refine and perfect right-hand mechanics; learn to use drop- and double-thumbing techniques on virtually every string and possible permutation; adapt hammer-ons and pull-offs to complex melody and ornaments; focus on such "alternative" techniques as the off-string pull-off and arpeggio; learn to adapt clawhammer playing to the back beat, swing eighths, and alternative meters such as 3/4 and 6/8. And more...if time allows.

Please note as you read this that Ken is also offering a Beginning Clawhammer Workshop in the morning--and a "two-fer" deal as well: you can attend BOTH workshops (each priced at $35) for just $55.

Like to learn more left-hand technique? Want a right-hand review? Both? We read with interest that while The Banjoist's Broadsheet (a U.K. publication) noted in 1981 that Ken "manages to frail melodically elaborate tunes by the use of well-thought-out left hand techniques," Michael Miles in the September 2002 Banjo Newsletter, on the other hand [pun!], informs readers that Ken "cites the importance of controlling the right hand...to deliver the proper attack and to articulate the phrasing." Whatever techniques you might want to work on, you're in good hands in Ken's workshop.

Check out recordings we carry featuring Ken Perlman