Sunday, July 3, 2022

 CMSA is coming up! Kalamazoo, Sept. 21-25.

Most of the music is already available thanks to Lon who is key to all of that.

I do think attending workshops and conventions, particularly those that are classical in orientation (but none-the-less play a wide variety of music), are wonderful development opportunities. Several days to JUST play the instrument, attend workshops about the instrument, and perform together!

If you're intimidated by the notion...don't be. You ARE good enough no matter your skills. You will have concentrated time, be around knowledgable people and will improve. And there's no shame in playing air mandolin at times!

Go, if you can spare the time and afford it.

This year, if you register now, you'll already have access to your parts, so you can begin looking at them, maybe some performances exist on Youtube and you can listen (I haven't looked, usually at least one is there).

In August, I propose to host small mandolin family instrument group practice sessions Saturday mornings 10 AM at my home in Excelsior. By small, I mean no more than 5 people. (Guitars, I can't hope to help you, you may want to do your own thing). Though I play mandocello, I've played mandolin and octave in the orchestra.

We'll focus on the tricky bits...seeing if we can't identify optimal left hand fingerings for stratospheric sections and work on rhythms to the extent we can. That prep will make your experience at CMSA even more enjoyable.

Look me up in the roster on mnmando.org and shoot me an email if you're interested in doing this.

And I encourage others to do the same outreach/small group thing. In fact, I think the MMO will get better if various folks go "hmm, this is challenging...maybe an off-site sectional will help!"

Dotty

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