The Eclectic Banjo - Posted - 08/18/2024:  10:25:31

Hello, this year was my first Blue Ridge Banjo Camp at the gorgeous Brevard Music Center in Brevard, NC. There I was able to meet for the first time Bela Fleck, Tony Trishka, Kristin Scott Benson, as well as talented banjoists Greg Liszt and Adam Larrabee, and among so many lovers of the banjo I heard many wunderkind types coming either as students or as the conductor for the first ever 100+ banjo BRBC orchestra (except for 1 Bassist, Mark Schatz), Cassidy Beentjes.



Anyway, it was such a wonderful experience to attend but I didn’t collect a lot of contact info. I was hoping we could sound off if you attended, where you're from, which group you were in, the banjo you brought, and perhaps your favorite thing about the camp?



I’ll go first:



Dan, upstate SC, one of the tall guys in Birch, sporting a 2016 Nechville Galaxy Phantom. I enjoyed the orchestral experience the most.

Edited by - The Eclectic Banjo on 08/18/2024 10:29:21

Old Hickory - Posted - 08/18/2024:  11:29:27

Congrats on a great camp experience. I attended the inaugural one in 2018. You can search out my review and comments. I don't want to repeat them here.

I think my group was also Birch.

What I really want to know about the current camp is the level of instruction for groups that aren't Mahogany (essentially the working pros, pro-level amateurs, and potential stars of tomorrow). OK, I'll repeat a bit of comments from 6 years ago.

As of 2018, I had been playing for over 45 years, including several stints in bands, and from the outset transcribing solos off of records, working up my own arrangements, and improvising. I was comfortable with melodic style, though of course there's always more to learn. My group included people who had been playing only a year or two and players with more years than that who still didn't know how to work up their own solos or to improvise in a jam. One of our sessions with KSB included her method for determining how to create an arrangement for a song - by starting with how many measures of each chord you need. Pretty basic.

In conversations with members of other groups, we determined that all the non-Mahogany groups seemed to be of mixed levels and we all seemed to receive the same content from all the teachers.

The camp was not made up of the intermediate to above level that had been promoted.

So: What level of banjo player were you going in? Was your group composed of players at about your level? Were there any who it seemed to you were already capable of or using the material taught? Was the material received really what you needed to advance your understanding and playing?

Did the groups perform tunes at one of the nightly sessions? What, if any, piece did the entire camp perform at the Saturday night public concert?

Again: Congrats on your good time. Depending on the faculty lineup I might audition to go back. My problem, though, is BRBC coincides with our extended family beach week. With the camp adding another day, I'd basically have Saturday and Sunday with the family, then leave Monday to arrive for Tuesday afternoon check in.

Sunrise Lee - Posted - 08/19/2024:  07:52:52

quote:

---

Originally posted by Old Hickory

Congrats on a great camp experience. I attended the inaugural one in 2018. You can search out my review and comments. I don't want to repeat them here.

I think my group was also Birch.

What I really want to know about the current camp is the level of instruction for groups that aren't Mahogany (essentially the working pros, pro-level amateurs, and potential stars of tomorrow). OK, I'll repeat a bit of comments from 6 years ago.

As of 2018, I had been playing for over 45 years, including several stints in bands, and from the outset transcribing solos off of records, working up my own arrangements, and improvising. I was comfortable with melodic style, though of course there's always more to learn. My group included people who had been playing only a year or two and players with more years than that who still didn't know how to work up their own solos or to improvise in a jam. One of our sessions with KSB included her method for determining how to create an arrangement for a song - by starting with how many measures of each chord you need. Pretty basic.

In conversations with members of other groups, we determined that all the non-Mahogany groups seemed to be of mixed levels and we all seemed to receive the same content from all the teachers.

The camp was not made up of the intermediate to above level that had been promoted.

So: What level of banjo player were you going in? Was your group composed of players at about your level? Were there any who it seemed to you were already capable of or using the material taught? Was the material received really what you needed to advance your understanding and playing?

Did the groups perform tunes at one of the nightly sessions? What, if any, piece did the entire camp perform at the Saturday night public concert?

Again: Congrats on your good time. Depending on the faculty lineup I might audition to go back. My problem, though, is BRBC coincides with our extended family beach week. With the camp adding another day, I'd basically have Saturday and Sunday with the family, then leave Monday to arrive for Tuesday afternoon check in.

---

I attended the last three years.  I thought this year was fantastic.  I was in the Ebony group and I brought my Tim Davis custom banjo. 

I think the level of instruction has changed a bit over the last three years.  There are usually some good practical application classes, and some information that would be a short-term or long-term stretch.  I thought the information this year was particularly great as a lot of it was song based rather than exercise based.  I literally have things that I could be working on for years.

Obviously, there are a large amount of banjo players so style and jamming ability can be all over the map.  Since the auditions are based on videos there is the potential to be in the “wrong” group or have folks that might not be as experienced in a more advanced group, but I think Bela does a great job in sorting.  The amount of banjo players that audition has grown from what I understand so you could actually move “down” a group based on a better pool of banjo players.  I have seen a difference in the skill level of the groups, not just Mahogony which are crazy good.  You can always find folks to jam with if you are willing to put yourself out there.  People have been very open, no gatekeeping, and I have had the opportunity to play with folks below my level and far above it.  I even had some of the teachers bust our jam and play with us during my first year (2022).

For the concert this year we played Rhapsody in Blue as a 100 banjo orchestra.  It was very challenging, but they did get the information out earlier this year.  I thought the performance was the highlight of camp.  Everyone really came together, most without orchestral experience, and put out an amazing performance.  I’m proud and fortunate to have been a part of it.  I really hope that a video of the performance makes its way to the public space.  I would really love to hear it.

As far as the teachers, Tony, Kristin and Adam have been staples the last three years.  The wild card spot in the last two years has been Greg Liszt.  I’m not sure if they will change him or not as he has fit in so well.  He is an amazingly gifted player and a great teacher.  He is also kind of awkward in the best kind of way.  It would be great to have that same group next year.  I think the differences in all the teachers playing styles and abilities really offers a unique perspective on banjo playing. 

The Eclectic Banjo - Posted - 08/19/2024:  16:55:35

I was in Birch and had no prior orchestra, jamming, or band experience. I play mostly solo classical music. I felt like it was a fairly good fit, although I did feel advanced in some ways. For instance, I had a good base of knowledge of music theory with my classical music preferences on the banjo. But like the previous poster mentioned, it's hard to evaluate someone's capabilities just through an audition video.



I heard that there were a record number of audition submissions this year, and normally they get about double the amount of all who are accepted (from what the camp administrator told me), so they were probably dealing with 250-300 submissions. I feel pretty good that I was accepted as part of the 100 players to make the cut. Especially after watching a Mahogany's audition video which was crazy good.



The orchestral parts seemed to be fairly matched to the groups. Birch's execution of its notes were fairly easy, quarter notes and eighth notes mostly, but it was made a bit harder because we were the only group to be tuned down to low C, so there were some awkward left hand jumps. There was also a lot to keep track of, which complicated matters. For instance, I wasn't used to counting multi bar rests. And palm muting. And doing right hand work like how the Conductor wanted and not how I wanted. And dissonant chord shapes that were part melody and part harmony oriented. And watching for the Conductor's desired tempo. It was a lot and I am GLAD I had the simplest part.



Now having said that, I also looked at other parts. It looked like Ebony and Walnut had similar parts to Birch.



As far as the classes go, I enjoyed Bela's and Adam's the most. Tony's seemed the most basic, but he had all sorts of stories of him and Earl so I was not at all disappointed. I'm not really interested in learning Bluegrass and Kristin's was the most bluegrass centric, but it was still good info in case I start jamming one day. Overall I was glad how broad the instructors' lessons and pieces were, multiple genres of music from classical to jazz to bluegrass to folk. I was surprised at first by the amount of song sheets I received from all the instructors, but later realized that it was probably a very valid way of teaching and learning new things. I have 15-20 pieces of music and exercises I can work on from camp and likely will work on at least 3-5  pieces in the near future. 



I agree with the previous poster that the highlight of camp was the Rhapsody in Blue orchestral arrangement and concert that we performed in front of a bunch of people. I had my doubts but learned to love the score and my part in it by the end. Bela really took the show though, he played probably 30-40% of it by himself.

Edited by - The Eclectic Banjo on 08/19/2024 17:02:09