Sorry, I didn't attend but I can't wait to hear detailed reports, perspectives, anectdotes, secrets, etc. Of course some more pics would be greatly appreciated. Anyone?
Sorry, I didn't attend but I can't wait to hear detailed reports, perspectives, anectdotes, secrets, etc. Of course some more pics would be greatly appreciated. Anyone?
It was my first one and I had a great time. Andy Statman was my personal highlight, but there were lots of great musicians and musical moments. The instruction was quite good.
Sorry, but I don't have any pictures to share...
Jeff
I'm chomping at the bit to hear about it! See you guys there next year....
The Mandolin Symposium was terrific. #The camaraderie among the participants was worth the price of admission. #
The guest artists were a nice addition this year. #Hamilton de Holanda is amazing – one of the World’s greatest mandolin players -- passion plus incredible competency. #Andy Staman exposed new possibilities for the mandolin. #Evan Marshall's duo style and Sam Bush's rhythmic right hand were well demonstrated. #
The five main faculty members/instructors (DAWG, Mike Compton, Mike Marshall, Don Stiernberg and Tim O'Brien) provided a variety of teaching styles and techniques.
Regarding images, I posted pictures on my Website (link on front page of Cafe). #More will be posted there when I receive a disk from Phil Goldman (a gifted and professional photographer).
Mark
Thanks for the photos, Mark. What is that blondie Dawg is holding?
The Symposium was outstanding. It was a joy to see the the shear happiness of the instructors experiencing each others music and styles. I think they come away from the Symposium with creative bursts that will benefit us in the future as fans.
Thanks to Dawg, Mike Marshall, and Steve Ruffo for making this the highlight of the year for many of us. Great facilities and great instructors.
The jamming was great. For me being a fairly new player( 3 years), This was the first year I felt could keep up with #some talented guys. OK Arthur, I'll have the minor chords down by next year and maybe keep up on the Dawgie music. Mark, Always a treat to try and keep up with you. If you only had a better mandolin and worked on that tremelo a little, Steve G. said he had something being shipped to you. Can't wait to here it. Jeff, Dude, you are like a sponge absorbing knowledge. Loved you Gil.
It gets better every year and I already am looking forward to the next one.
Jeff
Jeff A
Alan, you are most welcome. #DAWG's mandolin in the picture was made by Corrado Giacomel from Genoa, Italy.
Mark
Were we at the same symposium?Originally Posted by
My opinion of this year's symposium is not as wonderful as other people's opinions.
Greg B
http://www.gbguitars.com
Dru Lee Parsec,
It sounds like they need a person like you to help run and organize the symposium. It sounds like they could really use the help.
I wandered again to my home in the mountains....
DLP,
Thank you for taking the time to analyze the Symposium. Your blog piece was well-wriiten and made me wonder about the whole event, its effectiveness from a learning standpoint and the whole "Was it worth the money to attend?". I imagine there will be the spectrum of "Definitely" to "Definitely No" answers. Reading your impressions, I would think the Nays might outweigh the Yeas.
1200 bucks to go? I'd be pissed too.
I live 20 minutes from UCSC and toyed with the idea of going. I couldn't afford the time. I figured I could take my mandolin, somewhere for a week and spend $700 on great wine and learn a bunch of new tunes.
What was the experience level of the attendees?
Thanks
Bob
This was the third year for me... it was just phenominal as usual. It may not be the best in terms of organization, but Ruffo and Patrice sure work their tails off to ensure that the students' needs are taken care of.
To me the beauty of the whole thing is the more casual approach that they take. Most of the learning takes place in going to the late night jams, talking with other students and jamming with them, and rehearsing the heck out of the ensemble piece for the performance (the learning takes place during rehearsal, not during the performance!)
The high point was Hamilton's solo set on Thursday evening. I just do not have words to express how deeply moved I was by that guy's playing.
I'll have some pictures up soon... still have to pull them from my camera.
Well, we all have different expectations and perpectives regarding these things. It's surprising to hear that things were a bit disorganized and that some classes were free-for-alls without preparation. I was planning to go next year so, we'll see.
Greg, I find it hard to believe that you were unable to see/hear all the instructors playing/jamming, etc. I've never been to the symposium but I've attended Bluegrass week at Augusta Heritage a couple of times where after class time, the instructors were always around jamming, chatting, etc. I'm sure if you'd approached Compton and asked him to show you some stuff, he would've obliged.
Were the instructors accessible after the structured class times?
Dru Lee Parsec thanks for the straightforward analysis of the Symposium. #Perhaps you should send that to the organizers so they could work on some things. #I'm sure they'd love some honest feedback.
How many students were there? #And did you guys take anything home with you regarding instruction, i.e. notes, etc.?
I agree that if I had gone to their classes I could have heard them. But in the past two years they symposium made sure that each of the instructors had at least some time during the evening concerts to play for the entire group of students. My frustration came from not having that kind of performance. However, there was time at the final concert for each instructor, and while the young lady that Mike Compton brought on stage was a wonderful fiddle player, we still didn't get a chance for Mike to really play.
So I understand what you're saying and I agree. I hope this clarifies what I was saying in my blog.
I also think that's true. I certainly learned more at the swing jam than I did at most of the classes.
Perhaps my tone in my blog was too negative. Jamming with folks in the organized jams and in our dorm room was indeed great. But in my view, that wasn't the point of going. I just wish that the class instruction with the best players in the country was as instructive as jamming with a bunch of strangers.
One more edit:
Ruffo and Patrice did indeed work their tails off. No doubt about it. Much of the symposium was a sucess and Ruffo, Patrice and Mike Marshall deserve credit for that. I just think that the disorganization that did occur shows that the symposium may be too big for the two of them to handle alone. When you come right down to it there really were only a half a dozen little things that needed to be improved for the whole symposium to run smoothly. It felt to me like far too much of the organization was happening at the last minute and things just wern't getting done on time.
Greg B
http://www.gbguitars.com
It occurs to me that the symposium is right in the middle of the festival season. Maybe if it were held at another time the instructors would be better prepared. Of course, that might make it hard to get the space at UCSC.
Just talking out of my hat. I'd probably have a blast if I went, even if some of the instruction wasn't topnotch.
I disagree with DLP's assessment. I feel it is important to point out that, as students/paying attendees, we were not privy to the decision making process in the realms of pedagogy or administration. DLP's assessment was likely created from a less than complete understanding of the amount of time allowed to organize the symposium, the process that the principal players went through in creating this year's class schedule, and the degree of difficulty that the organizers had in communicating with UCSC services.
Improvement is always possible and the organizers' communication with students during the symposium about UCSC services could have been better. This would have made finding the dining hall easier, turning in the keys easier, getting meal tickets more easily, etc. But both UCSC and the symposium organizers were flexible and conscientious. If an individual was peeved about any of these things,... well some people will just find things to be annoyed about. It certainly was NOT a "cluster f&*k of disorganization."
Regarding the assessment of pedagogy, none of the principal instructors is trained in pedagogy the way school teachers are specifically trained and the way grad students are shown by example. Evan Marshall is likely the best teacher (in DLP's assessment) because he's had the most schooling. I'd be surprised if any one of the other guys has a bachelor's degree. So it is true that you'll need to get a feel for how each of them teaches, and avoid the guys you have difficulty with. This is not a hard thing to do. In fact the organizers recommended that if you didn't like the class you were in you were perfectly free to go to another one at any point. Point is, you're responsible for your own learning experience.
Personally, I like Don, Mike M's and Mike C's classes the best. But I have learned a great deal from Tim O, Dawg, Radim Zenkl (last year) and Wayne Benson (last year). I even took Mike C's "Black Mandolin Tradition" class again this year because it was such a pleasure last year.
Another thing to remember is that Dawg & Co. are learning every year what it means to provide this kind of a learning experince to more than 150 people from 150 different backgrounds who play at 150 different levels of skill in several different genres. This is a tall order for any instructor in any given subject.
Sam Bush was such a breath of fresh air! I'm with DLP on that. Last year, the tension level was a little higher and maybe Dawg & Co. took themselves a little too seriously last year too. This year, Sam set the tone by out-goofing Don Stiernberg. Sam left on Tuesday, but the mood seemed to stay light into Thursday.
My assessment is that it was WELL worth my $1200. (The price went up because UCSC's service and boardig fees increased. To my knowledge, the "tuition" has remained the same every year.) I am impressed with the care and effort that everyone associated with the symposium shows. Every one of the instructors honestly wants to help everyone of his students get as much out of the experience as possible. Dawg himself told me, "If you need something, ask for it." I don't know what else you can expect from them.
I don't think Dawg's group got ripped off. I was in Don's group and had the opposite experience. Carlos Olivera's arrangement of "A Night in Tunisia" by Dizzy Gillespie was a fingerbuster. We attempted but failed to grasp the introduction, so it was left out entirely. We didn't have enough players on the low end, and the one guy we did have playing 'cello was inadequate to the task. (I can say that without being harsh because *I was that guy*.) Carlos himself was called in to help us get the piece to a passable level.
I saw Dawg's group and said to myself, "I'm doing his ensemble next year." This is because I want to be able to relax a bit and join the jams at night instead of staying in my room pounding away at a piece that is beyond my capability.
I'll repeat it: you're learning experience is your own responsibility. And I'll add: you get out of it what you put into it.
Daniel
I'm with JT......I thought it was one of the best weeks of my life. And a few of the classes Dru hated were the ones where I had personal breakthru moments.... where a door opened and I saw the light. I've taken enough ideas away to study for the next year, or more. I've been there before & if I had to choose between having visiting scholars & hearing the instructors jam with them.....or just the main guys doing their music.....I'm with hearing guest specialists there.....even if only for one day. Statman's arrival while Sam was playing & having Andy joining Sammy, David, Mike, Donnie & Compton was a highlight for me. I was moved to tears by the music I heard that night. Donnie & Sam doing a Jethro style duet that night was awesome.
I definitely was in the not ripped off part of Grisman's group. He treated us like his band & seeing how he works was inspiring. He rearranged till right before the performance & worked us hard, we stayed at least 30 minutes late every day. There were a lot more guys playing parts than Dru heard, there were 3 sections with parts, plus dola & cello parts. If you couldn't handle a part you could option for chords only & those Gypsie upstroke chops were a challenge, as well as the transitions between the 3 tunes and the increase in tempo. Hearing the crowd reaction, clapping the rhythm as we played was pretty darn cool. No rip off for me, I have the charts & can add a Gypsy Dawg tune to what I play. I liked the way he let us choose the tune....if we had yelled out Dawgology or Dawg's Rag in class, we might have played them instead. In Grisman's performance group we had Crusher, a Loar dola, and a rare Loar mandocello handed out for us to play, how cool is that?!
How about Donnie & Tim's swing tune, or Donnie & young Brice Milano. There were so many cool moments. The wunderkinds were everywhere & I heard growth in everones playing who attended previously.
I was in awe of Statman's performance which IMO was only trancended by De Holanda's. I was surprised to hear a number of folks who just didn't get Andy's performance at breakfast the morning after. I was totally moved by his tightrope walk......and the clarinet improv. was only the beginning. His Roots Waltz sounded like old Delta blues on mando & had the heart & soul someone like Compton puts into his old time stuff. Compton was blown away by Andy's performance. I think some of the instructors saw the instrument used in different approaches than theirs & had the opportunity to learn too.....
I too was blown away by Hamilton, but I think hearing him play Grisman's EMD with Dawg & Mike...... or Grisman's Tune for Tracy at the performance illustrated how big his ears are & his improv skills......this impressed me even more than him playing his native Choro. I've heard him in duet with Mike, but he was truly outstanding at the Symposium. Just goes to show how different we all are.....I was moved by the music, had doors open in my thinking about what I need to work on, came home with lots of charts for tunes I want to work on....definitely enough inspiration to last till next year.
Hey I got to jam with guys from Norway, Canada, Germany, Italy etc. How special is that? Music is a universal language. And DUUDE that Holter kid can really pick & he has an amazing Gilchrist. Seeing friends from last year & hearing how much better they all were was inspiring. That kid JT was pickin' a storm on the bigger mando beasts & he had FUN, I could tell....Getting to visit with my Bay Area Comando friends for more than a one day pickin party was great fun too. Some have moved away & getting to catch up was cool....Having Mr. Nugget himself there & Steve Gilchrist showing up to talk mandos with was fun for me, as well as talking to instrument collectors & dealers. Hey how about sampling Loars etc .....what a treat. You could play any kinda mando there, if you asked nicely. And folks were generous in this regard.
Just getting away from phone, TV, computers, regular life in general & hangin with a buncha mandocrazed brothers & sisters was just what my spirit needed. I'm still high from the experience. I thought I got my money's worth when it was only half over! I can understand how for some it might not have met their expectations, but it is impossible for an event like this to be everything to everyone. It was the unexpected moments that I remember most, like Mike Marshall playing my mandolin for an impromptu Bach recital outside the lecture hall one morning.... I'll be back next year!
Hmm, I knew that that we had to check in in the Symposium Office since I read Patrice's email of June 22. That also told us when the meals were:
Also, the meal hours and meal location were in the binders that you were supposed to pick up at the office.
That said, it was a bit disorganized. I opted to pitch in where I could rather than complain about things, though.
I thought it was a great experience and I'm going again next year.
Pete
Pete Braccio
"The Rules: Play nice and don't run with scissors"
http://www.braccio.me
Check out my web site for:
Jack Tottle music files
BBC Virtual Session files
O'Neill's PDFs
ITM Tunebooks, and more
Hey maaan,
I agree with Arthur wholeheartedly. #I felt like I had gotten my money's worth on Wednesday night. #And I had only one class where the instructor wasn't prepared - but guess what - he taught us a lot anyway, because all of the info was in his brain. #
Sure there were some things that could've been done better, or differently, but overall it was a great experience for me.
It was great to hang out Arthur and Mark and Jeff - thanks fellas! #Made my week even better!
In going back through my old emails I see that I did miss Patrice's email that had some of the information in it. So that part of my frustration was my own fault.
As far as the pedagogy argument I can see your point that great performers are not always great teachers. I understand that Evan is probably the best teacher because he's had the most experience. I would only add that if I'm going to a symposium to take classes then I don't think it's a valid argument to say "If these guys aren't really teaching anything it's ok becasue they're great players. They're not really teachers." If you're ok with that then that's great. For me, it's not. So I'm just not going to go again. That's all. No problem, nobody needs to be upset. It just didn't meet with my expectations. If the problem is that the teachers have been on tour or that they're not professional teachers then I'm sure they have connections with folks who would be glad to write up a lesson plan for each class for them.
Regarding the comment about taking David's ensemble next year because you may need a break I would say this: Last year David's ensemble played "Dawg's Bull". It was quite complex with difficult rhythms and multiple harmony parts. This year it was quite a bit less difficult. So without a preview of what the ensemble piece will be it's difficult to make an educated choice. I just wanted to make the point in my blog that if, like last year, each of the teachers played the piece that their ensemble would be doing then the students could more easily make good choices. But the teachers didn't each play their pieces and in Dawg's case he didn't even know what the ensemble piece would be. So the students didn't have the information they needed to make that choice. And as I discovered myself, if you miss a day of practice or if after a day you find that your ensemble piece isn't right for you then it's REALLY hard to pickup after that missed day.
As I said im my blog, it's still worth going to at least once. But for me, there were quite a few things that were frustrating for me and I know from talking to other students that I wasn't the only one frustrated. Several other people said things to me like "It just doesn't seem like the teachers are prepared for their classes" and so on. But the experience is worth having at least once. For me, it just wasn't worth having twice.
But the main thing is that I don't want my bad experience and my frustration to turn into a big fight here on Mando Cafe. We each have our own opinions and mine just arn't as bright and shiney on this topic as others. So if you're reason for going to the Symposium is for the jams, the friends, and to be around amazing musicians, (and those are all valid reasons) then Cool! The Symposium is for you.
But if the main reason for going is for the 2 classes each day and you're looking forward to well taught classes with well organized lesson plans then it's hit and miss. And that can be frustrating.
Greg B
http://www.gbguitars.com
Gotta love the different points of view! I think seeing Andy Statman alone would've made the whole thing worth it for me. I think w/ these big workshop/camps, what you may not get in detailed instruction, you get in the bigger picture of ideas, possibilities, inspiration, and a sense of community, etc. For really intensive learning there is always the one-on-one, private lesson route. In any kind of learning, there has to be a balance in terms of what the teacher brings and what the student brings, imo. I agree w/ Dnestler in that, ultimately, learning is the student's responsibility, imo, and it's up to the student to make the most of his/her educational opportunity.
Thanks for the reviews; Arthur, Dawg is one of my musical heroes - it must have been amazing to work side by side, if only for a short time. How 'bout some more pics?
I went to the Symposium for the first time but since I took the builder's workshop, I can't give too much insight into the player's classes. Heck, I don't even know what pedagogy means.
But the person who started this asked for pictures so I'll post a few to give everyone some insight into what the experience is like.
First, the campus is breathtaking. Many of the Califonia natives take this for granted, but even though I'm from Colorado and get to see some very nice places, this is a campus planted right in a redwood forest. Everywhere you go is gorgeous. There's tame little Bambi deer everywhere mowing the grass as you walk to class or the dining hall.
This is the view from my dorm room. There's as much of those redwoods down below that you can't see as what you do see. Although there is one thing that might make you apprehensive, they're growing right on the San Andreas fault.
It turns out the Symposium is also a physical fitness retreat since there's no level spots on the campus and the dorms are quite away from the mess hall and my class was a good hike from where most of the mandolin classes are. On my first try to find it on my own I took a wrong turn and got good and lost. However a university worker in an electric cart saved me.
I was complaining at first but by weeks end I realized this was a good thing and it makes me want to keep it up now that I'm back.
Here's the view from outside my classroom looking out on Monterrey Bay.
And here's what it looked like inside my classroom.
That's Mike Kemnitzer showing how he sets a neck. As you can see the students were bored out of there minds.
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