Last month, it was once again my honor to teach the young banjo players and bluegrass pickers at the Minnesota Bluegrass and Old-Time Music Association’s Grass Seeds Academy music camp with my bandmates in The High 48s!
Grass Seeds runs concurrent with the annual Minnesota Winter Bluegrass Weekend festival and is 2 1/2 day bluegrass band workshop for kids ages 8-18 who play guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, upright bass, Dobro, ukulele etc..
The Grass Seeds Experience
The kids arrive on Friday evening and we start by putting them into groups and helping them pick out a couple of tunes that they will ultimately perform as a band in front of a live audience on Sunday afternoon on the festival’s main auditorium stage.
Over the course of the weekend we work with the kids on learning their individual instruments, singing lead vocals and harmonies, arranging songs, using a microphone, stage presence and banter (plenty of banjo jokes of course) and other tips and tricks that will help them at their performance on Sunday afternoon.
Once again this year, every one of the groups blew me away at the Sunday afternoon recital! It is always amazing to me how much these young pickers accomplish in such a short period of time.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The future of Minnesota Bluegrass looks awfully bright!
PS. If there is a young picker in your life that you think might be interested in Grass Seeds, feel free to contact me with any questions you have.
I also love to teach children of all ages to play the banjo, so if you know of any that are interested in learning to play the banjo, please visit my lessons page for more details.
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