CBA Winter Music Camp

Bill Amatneek · #1 01-07-2010, 02:24 PM

Hello all,

I've been lurking on TalkBass for at least a couple of years, and learned much. Some of you may know my playing from the first David Grisman Quintet album. This is my first post to this forum, about an upcoming bluegrass music camp.

The California Bluegrass Association is putting on its first Winter Music Camp at the Walker Creek Ranch outside Petaluma, California, from February 15th - 18th.

Missy Raines will be teaching beginning bass, and I will be teaching the advanced class. There are still a few slots left in each class.

The most important concept I'll be communicating is how to pop the string, to put the "bluegrass bump" into your playing. Most people pizz the string bass with the right hand's index or middle finger. But to lead a group from underneath with authority and volume, one must pop the string. This is a technique that involves the entire right arm and results in a strong, explosive note.

So, we’ll learn how to attack the note and damp it, how to construct a bass part that supports the chord changes and the lead singer or instrumentalist, and how to play ensemble in a bluegrass group. The application of "roots and fifths," passing tones, leading tones, and the creation of smooth, scale-oriented bass parts will all be investigated. Freshening up your bass part, playing bass runs, hearing the chord changes (playing by ear), creating good tone, syncopation, and playing waltz time will all be a part of this class.

This cost of camp is $350 if you're commuting, $450 for commuting and taking meals, and $500 for meals and housing. I understand that scholarships are available.

For more details or to register, please go to www.CBAMusicCamp.org

Best regards to all on this forum,
Bill Amatneek

relacey · #2 01-07-2010, 03:40 PM

Welcome Bill, not only did I enjoy the first DGQ (as well as all the other versions of Grisman's Quartets) but I read your book Acoustic Stories as well. Very entertaining. Hope to see you post more. - Ron

Jake deVilliers · #3 01-07-2010, 05:29 PM

Hey Bill, good to hear from you! Nice playing on that album.

A large blow-up of the 'Acoustic Instrument Portrait' from the cover of that record has adorned our walls for many years.

JBHittle · #4 03-09-2010, 04:36 PM

Do you still have the beautiful old flatback bass?

You came out with "Jesus Loves His Mandolin Player" just about the time that I was working quite often with HIMSELF! I was sitting in his place in Saratoga one bitterly cold January afternoon, not much going on, so I got up and rifled through the mish-mash of videos on the table and found one marked, "Grisman concert." I stuck it the vcr and watched that amazing concert in Mill Valley back when. Incredible.

Hello,

JB

ICBG · #5 03-17-2010, 06:58 AM

I remember the pictures of that cool old bass, with Grisman's mandolin, the old fiddle....

What a great album.

Bill Amatneek · #6 03-18-2010, 06:41 PM

Thanks for all your kind words about the first DGQ album, my book, "Acoustic Stories," and about that gig with Wakefield at Mill Valley's Sweetwater. (Frank calls Ricky Skaggs, "Sicky Raggs," and Rickey calls Frank, "Wrank Fakefield," ... I've heard.)

Yes, I still have that Czech flat-back bass, which I have owned since I was 17. I bought it for $100, and was told by many at the time that I had been taken. It has beautiful tone, gorgeous tone, and Peter Rowan called it "one of the gourmet instruments in the business."

I'm working on the second edition of my book -- revised, enlarged, expanded and still unexpurgated -- that will come out in January of 2011. It will have ten new stories in it: one about playing a cocktail bluegrass gig for then-president George W. Bush, one about pickin' with bluegrass legend Roland White, and another about playing with a Middle-Eastern group on a belly dance cruise that went from Long Beach, California to heaven, as I recall.

Thanks for your responses to my original post. My apologies for having taken so long to reply.

Best regards to all on this forum,
Bill Amatneek

JBHittle · #7 03-21-2010, 06:12 PM

I believe my old Czech flatback bass is very close in the vintage and construction to yours. I also paid $100 for mine back in '74 -- I purchased it from a jazz drummer who needed the $ for his habit....he begged me to make an offer.....I've cherished her these many years.

Frank Wakefield's "backing talkward" is of course legendary. During the three years I worked with him I was introduced to many wonderful artists.....Emmylou Harris among them. Some of the hard-core 'grass people mighte enjoy his names for some of the others he introduced me to: "Kill Beeth" (Banjo genius Bill Keith), "Black Rice" (Wyatt Rice), for example! I was on radio station WAMC-FM in Albany with Frank back then....

His many stories about the business...coming up the hard way from rough and tumble blue collar bars in Dayton (playing with Red Allen and Noah Crase), his years in Detroit, on the road with Jimmy Martin, Baltimore, DC....one of his absolute great stories is about meeting the Osborne Brothers, whom he knew well from Dayton Ohio days, in downtown Detroit one afternoon in the late 1950s....that one is best told offline....but hilarious.

Thanks for all your great music and stories, Bill, especially, "Jesus Loves This Mandolin Picker" and "Tortoise Shell Picks"