Advice on Our Program

Here's some advice about how to get the most out of the Camp.

Regular Class Program

Following in the traditions of the Tennessee Banjo Institute and the Maryland Banjo Academy, SBC offers highly specialized classes taught by experts in the field. Each day is divided up into anywhere from two to four sessions, and most sessions offer several options. During each session, just select the class whose subject matter seems most appealing, or the one that seems most appropriate to your playing level.

Old-Time Banjo Program

Although we offered three tracks in old-time banjo last year -- Novice, Intermediate and Advanced -- many students requested an even more detailed system for rating class levels. This year, therefore, we are offering four tracks -- Novice, lower intermediate, upper intermediate, and advanced.

Novice Track: The novice track is for true beginners -- those who have been playing banjo for less than a year. It's designed to be cumulative, so you'll get the most out of the program if you attend every class. If you're relatively a new player but find the novice program not challenging enough, we recommend that you move up to our new lower intermediate program.

Lower Intermediate Track: The lower intermediate track is for those players who are above the novice level but not quite up to our more specialized classes. The focus here is overwhelmingly on acquiring the skills you'll need to grow as a player. Our best guess is that students who have been playing between nine months and two years will feel most comfortable here.

Upper Intermediate Track: This track is for students who have been playing at least two years. Classes in this track are not necessarily technically demanding, but they generally require that students have considerable familiarity with the instrument.

Advanced Track: These challenging classes offer our instructors the opportunity to offer students the full depth of their expertise and experience.

Bluegrass Program

Intermediate Classes: This level is for students with roughly one to three years' experience. It is taught by Janet Davis.

Advanced Classes: For students with at least two year's experience: taught by Bill Keith.

Recommendations on Choosing Classes

Conflicts: It's very likely that sometimes you'll look at our schedule and wish you could be three places at once. This is quite normal, and not grounds for alarm. In fact, Ken feels he wouldn't be properly doing his job as programmer if you didn't want to be three places at once! The first time this happens to you, just follow your instincts and make your selection (you can't go wrong, all the choices are good!). The next time you feel torn, try to select a class offered by a different teacher, the time after that by a third teacher, and so on.

Be diverse!: Try sample at least one class by each of the instructors in your genre over the course of the weekend. Don't feel intimidated about attending a class offered by an instructor who is well known or whose playing is complex. After all, if he or she can do the complex stuff, he or she can probably explain the simple stuff, too (and all our teachers are great explainers, or they wouldn't be here!)

Hands-on vs. Demos: Most of our classes are "hands-on," meaning that teachers have a set of skills or a tune or two in mind to impart, and that students should have their banjos in hand during class. On the other end of the spectrum are the few sessions labeled "demo." Demos are presentations or mini-performances combined with explication and Q & A sessions (students will probably not have banjos in hand for demo classes). Somewhere in between are those classes labeled "demo-instructional." Where they fall precisely in the continuum is up to the discretion of the individual teacher, but do have your banjos available.

Other Kinds of Classes

Special Events: This may be a 5-string banjo camp, but we do also offer instruction in backup guitar and old time fiddle. These classes are listed in the Special Events column of your schedule. Also in that column is our special African Roots Program, which is explained on the website.

Jamming

We'll have a number of guest musicians on hand, who will assist by playing instruments like fiddle and guitar at our various scheduled jams. All the scheduled jams are led by our faculty. Here's how the jamming choices shape up:

- slow jams: really, really, slow and aimed mostly at novices

- jamming workshops: For those who can play but need help figuring out how to function at a jam session

- intermediate jams: slightly faster than slow jams, mostly well-known tunes

- advanced jams: These jams are for the more experienced players, but our leaders will still try to keep tempos within a reasonable range; they are also asked to keep crooked tunes to a minimum

- Spontaneous jams: After the round of supervised jams is over, you're free to start your own in designated areas.


Artists' CDs and Instructional Matierials

No doubt you'll want to take home lots of CDs, books and vide os by your favorite banjoists. We'll have an artists' sales booth, run by volunteers, to help you fulfill this aim. We won't be able to take credit cards at this booth. To make things easier for our volunteers, please bring along at least several personal checks or a reserve ofcash. Thanks in advance for your cooperation on this!