• Country Blues Guitar
  with Ron Gordon and Eleanor Ellis
Piedmont Blues for beginning fingerpickers. We will include 2 or 3 classic blues that will be written out. We will go step by step through development of an independent thumb (an educated thumb!) to keep the alternate bass going... and then adding the melody and syncopation.

• Flat Footing
  with Ira Bernstein
Flatfooting is a percussive dance style derived from the clogging of Scotch-Irish immigrants in and around the Appalachian mountains, blended with influences from the Africans and Cherokee Indians in that region. It is usually done to "old-time" mountain music. While definitions vary, flatfooting is often distinguished from performance or competition clogging in that it is more free-form, individualized, and less choreographed.

Ira Bernstein is the director of the Ten Toe Percussion Ensemble, a collective of internationally acclaimed step dance soloists. He has also repeatedly won first place in the Mount Airy Fiddler's Convention old-time flatfooting competition and is the originator of the Festival of Percussive Dance.

• From Discovery to Performance: Preparing a Ballad for Public Consumption
  with Debra Cowan
Ballad singing can be as enjoyable for the person singing the ballad as for the listener. Once you've found a ballad that you like, and you would like to sing that ballad in front of others, there are several decisions that should be made: which version, where to find a tune and the performance itself. Debra will share some of her processes and methods she uses in preparing a ballad for performance and hopes to hear from others some of their methods as well.

• Beginning & Continuing Mountain Dulcimer
  with Annette Lindsey
This is basically a beginning–intermediate mountain dulcimer class, but anyone just beginning will be welcome. We will work with you and give you peer tutoring if needed. We will be working on learning several different songs in the tuning of Mixolydian DAD. Bring a capo and we will learn a tune or two, using it to take us to a different key. We will also be working on learning a few chords so that two mountain dulcimer players can accompany each other and also jam with others when they don't even know the songs! Come to the workshop ready to have a lot of fun just learning songs you can take home and play around with.

• Choral Harmony Singing,
Session I
  with Peter and Mary Alice Amidon
  (Session II: Saturday, 11:15 am,
  Session III: Sunday, 10:45 am)
Come for a feast of harmonies in the Amidons’ choral singing workshop. Peter and Mary Alice will be leading a cappella four-part SATB arrangements of American secular and sacred songs. The repertoire will include some of Peter's own arrangements. Participants are encouraged to come to all three of the Old Songs Amidon choral singing workshops: we will be working on the same songs throughout the three workshops, some of which we will perform on the Main Stage Sunday afternoon. Printed music is provided, along with permission to share the music with your own local choruses and choirs. This is a great workshop for choral leaders looking for some fresh new repertoire. It is also a great workshop for folks who simply love to sing; Peter’s energy and warmth encourage singers to feel relaxed while empowering groups to create rich and soulful harmonies.

• Acoustic Blues & Slide Guitar
  with Scott Ainslie
If you happen to have an interest in playing acoustic blues guitar (the musical roots of rock) including Delta Blues, Slide Guitar, Open Tunings, and Piedmont/Ragtime Blues---then you should plan on turning up for Scott Ainslie’s workshop on Friday afternoon (2:30 - 4:00 pm) at the Old Songs Festival.

An accomplished teacher, Ainslie will spend his workshop time walking guitarists through a portion of Blues and slide guitar technique. Content of the workshop is always influenced by who is being taught, but sections on the ins and outs of slide playing in open and standard tunings, right hand/fingerpicking technique, and the special open bass chord transpositions that pepper any solo acoustic blues guitar performance will be covered in addition to requested material.

Participants should bring a heavy-walled porcelain, glass or brass slide that fits securely on their (little) finger, an audio recording device, paper and pencil. All are welcome.

• Build a Parade Puppet
  with The Puppet PeopleCome help assemble our giant Cat & Fiddle parade puppet which will make its debut before the Main Stage Concert on Sunday afternoon. Puppet building sessions will continue on Saturday, 11:00 am - 12:30, and Sunday 10:30 am - 12:00.

•The Great Groove Band
  with Donna Hébert, Max Cohen, Stuart Kenney & Jane Rothfield
A dance band experience for young musicians (string, wind and percussion). Begins Friday afternoon from 2:30 pm - 4:00 pm and continues on Saturday (9:00 am - 11:00) and Sunday (9:00 am - 10:30 am), with a Main Stage performance Sunday at 12:30. MORE DETAILS HERE.

PLUS:    [Not Classes, per se, but also offered at this time]

• Swing Jam  with Dave Crump
We provide chord & melody charts in the 3 most popular versions: C for C instruments such as guitar, banjo, mandolinetc. Bflat for suchinstruments as clarinet, tenor sax,etc, and Eflat for alto sax etc. Lyric sheets also provided. There are approximately twenty standard tunes from the "swing era" (Gershwin, Porter, Ellington,etc) in each booklet. We start slowly with a vocal and repeat it enough times untill folks get the hang of it, and everyone who wants to solo has a chance. Easy for any skill level to participate.

• Festival Jug Band Session I, 5:00–6:00 pm
with Ron Gordon, Eleanor Ellis and Norbert Hebert
Kids of all ages: come on by and play some great old songs with the Festival Jug Band. We will make and play washboards, kazoos, spoons, washtub bass and any instruments brought to the Festival Jug Band.
Session II, Saturday 3pm; Session III, Sunday 9:30am;
Main Stage performance, Sunday at noon.