The schedule for HGG 23
HGG 23 Schedule
(Subject to revision – and awaiting answers on a couple of things still)
Thursday, Nov. 6 – at Renown Music
7:00 PM – Pre-Gathering get-together – includes dinner
Friday, Nov. 7 – at Renown Music
10:00 AM – Registration check-in
12:00 Lunch break
1:00 – Matt Thomas: Pickups & Harp Guitars
An in-depth discussion of the various options out there. Renown Music (this is the music store where our host Travis Bowman teaches) is offering a discount (as yet undetermined) on a pickup purchase and installation.
2:00 – The first Harp Guitar Championship
Contests are held for every other instrument, it’s about time for our instrument!
6:00 Dinner at Renown Music
7:30 -10:00 Open Mic
Saturday, Nov. 8 – at the hotel
9:00 – Introducing Don Bartlett
Travis requested that we consider featuring a couple of players at HGG 23, Don was one of them. I had to agree that it was a good idea.
10:00 – Antoine Dufour
Antoine was another of Travis’ requests. As I toured with Antoine as part of Andy McKee’s Guitar Masters tour a dozen years ago, this was an easy choice. Antoine writes some really cool and innovative music and it’s past time we had him at the HGG!
11:00 – Travis Bowman: Ear Training Techniques for harp guitar
12:30 – Lunch break — a food truck with Mexican food will be nearby
2:00-3:30 Luthier’s Forum – once again hosted by Mike Doolin
4:00-5:30 Harp Guitar Ensemble – led by Martin Pleass
The inimitable Mr. Pleass is at work preparing a piece for us to play together. More about that coming soon-ish.
5:45 – Dinner
8:00 Concert
Sunday, Nov. 9 – at the hotel
Room 1:
9:30-10:45 – Open Mic
10:45-12:00 – Workshop with Martin Pleass (beginners to intermediate)
Moving the Sub bass from beat 1 (and why this is a Beautiful Dream)
Room 2:
9:00-10:20 AM – Workshop with Don Bartlett
When I asked Don if he had specific ideas for a workshop he responded in this way: “I’ve been thinking about nutritious harp guitar concepts lately, and one that I think would be accessible as well as beneficial, is…” (he continued on at length and I put the rest of it* at the end here), my immediate thought was that this guy is likely a good teacher.
10:30-11:50 – Workshop with Antoine Dufour
Waiting on a description of Antoine’s workshop
12:00 – Harp Guitar Year in Review with Sir Gregory
Once again, Sir Gregory (Gregg Miner )gives us the roundup of the year’s harp guitar news. As always, it’s certain to be fascinating!
1:15 – Lunch Break
3:00 – Concert
6:00 – Dinner
7:00 – Open Mic
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* Don Bartlett continued: “…is the idea of “Rhythm Harp Guitar” or accompaniment style harp guitar. It seems to me that most every harp guitarist I see is also embedded in the fingerstyle playing tradition in some way, using the instrument to play melody at the same time as the sub bass accompaniment. I think having a heightened focus on juggling a melody can be a big distraction to a lot of players. I think tunnel visioning on the chord melody project can skip over some necessary fundamentals, specifically in low end vocabulary. I think it could be useful for harp guitarists to think in an accompanying style, so that the sub basses in combination with the guitar neck could be explored more freely. It could be a good creative exercise to ask “how might you play these chord differently if someone else is playing the melody?” I think us harp guitar players can learn a lot from the vocabulary of harp, and piano players, specifically in the left hand. A concept in my workshop would be to give players some resources to play harp guitar in a style that could accompany another player that would be the “melody thinker”.
See what I mean?