Call me a total nerd, but September rolls around and I am ready to go back to school! đ¤ As musicians, itâs a great opportunity to refocus after our summer adventures and reconnect with basic skills in a way that allows us to go deeper and keep growing.
Beginning next month, Iâll be offering two different workshop series that I hope will serve you well on your continuing musical journey. Learn more in the video below and/or scroll down for more detail:
Musicianâs Toolbox Workshop Series
Over the past year or so, Iâve had several students ask a question in class that gets at what I call the skills of musicianship: hearing chord changes, finding the starting pitch of a song, knowing which strum pattern to use, etc. Iâve done my best to answer these questions in the moment, but itâs time to give these questions their due.
The 5-week Musicianâs Toolbox Workshop Series Iâm offering is focused on the essential skills that support everything we do as musicians, but donât always get center stage in a typical class. Instead of learning a new repertoire of songs, weâll revisit familiar songs from recent classes and use them as springboards to explore the building blocks of musicianship: ear training, rhythm, and music theory. Each 75-minute session will focus on a different âtoolââa skill that strengthens your overall musicianship and makes playing more intuitive, expressive, and fun:
- Week 1: Ear Training ~ Hearing Melody:Â Learn to recognize melodic movement by ear, follow a tune more confidently, and connect what you hear to what you play or sing.
- Week 2: Ear Training ~ Hearing Chord Progressions:Â Learn to recognize harmonic movement underneath a melody, catch common chord changes, and predict what chord might come next.
- Week 3:Â Music Theory ~ Beyond the IâIVâV:Â Many of you have learned the basics of song structure with me. Letâs take some more steps to learn about other chords in the Nashville Number System, and expand our repertoire of common chord patterns in different musical genres.
- Week 4: Rhythm ~ Feeling the Beat:Â Explore rhythm through your first instrument, your body! Deepen your sense of rhythm to help you feel better grounded in strumming patterns, time signatures, and the overall groove of a song.
- Workshop 5: TBD â Your Toolbox Questions, Explored
Weâll design this final session based on the themes, questions, and challenges that come up in the first four workshopsâso we can go deeper where it counts most.
You can participate in the Musicianâs Toolbox Workshop Series in one of three cohorts:
- Wednesdays, 6:00-7:15pm in Southwest Portland
- Thursdays, 6:00-7:15pm in Southeast Portland
- Saturdays, 9:45-11:00am (PT) live and recorded Online via Zoom (find your time zone here)
Click on your desired class location above to learn more and register.
Whether youâve been playing for a little while or youâre deepening your practice, this series is designed to help you connect the dots and build confidence from the inside out. Youâve already got the toolsânow letâs learn how to use them!  đ
Intro to Songwriting Sessions
The creative process can be an inspiring, fulfilling, yet sometimes lonely journey. This introductory Songwriting Sessions series is designed to introduce you to the basics of songwriting and support your individual writing experience in meaningful community with other songwriters. This term, weâll have 4 bi-weekly in-person sessions, and 4 at-home self-directed sessions with prompts and studies for guidance.
Each in-person session runs approximately as follows:
- Participants reflect on their engagement with the creative process since our previous class.
- Iâll bring a song or two to study together as a group, discussing different approaches one might take to the lyrics, music and/or a songâs arrangement.
- Weâll have some time for participants to work independently on a piece in progress and/or explore the possibilities for a piece in the âcreative sandboxâ
- Weâll close with an opportunity for participants to share what they worked on and/or learned during workshop time
Self-directed study exercises will be emailed on off-weeks between classes for participants to work through at their own pace, including additional song studies, prompts, and questions for reflection.
You can participate in this Intro to Songwriting Sessions in one of three cohorts:
This class is offered in THREE different cohorts:
- Thursdays, 7:30-8:45pm in Southeast Portland
- Saturdays, 11:15am â 12:30pm PT live and recorded Online via Zoom (find your time zone here)
- Entirely Self-Paced: Canât make it to class regularly? Take the class by email, and receive a weekly email with materials, instructions, and resource links, and may submit song material for feedback.
Registration for all cohorts of Intro to Songwriting Sessions is open here. I hope you can join us!