I adore facilitating workshops for folk and rock musicians at all levels, ages 9-adult.  Scroll down for sample workshop titles and descriptions.

If you're interested in bringing me to your camp, festival, after-school program, or private workshop series, shoot me an email to talk about the possibilities. I look forward to hearing from you!

Sample workshop descriptions

Here are a smattering of workshops I've taught in the past, at venues including California Coast Music Camp, Puget Sound Guitar Workshop, Ted Brown Tacoma's Live It Out Loud program, Northwest Women's Music Celebration, the Washington Old-Time Fiddler's Association Workshop, Whatcom Folk School, and the Bellingham Folk Festival:

Classes for all instruments:

Musical Anatomy (aka Chords & Other Moving Parts) - You can wrap your head around what makes a Db7b5 chord, or what to play in the key of G#m, even if you've heard it all before and it hasn't stuck. (All levels, all instruments)

Music Improv Baby Steps - It's okay if you're scared! I want to help you get out of your head so you can be creative on the fly. We'll do some gentle, silly, fun exercises together to help you find the right mindset. Bring your instrument--or just your voice is okay too. (All levels, all instruments.)

Melodic Backup - How can we as instrumentalists support a singer with melodic fragments, without overpowering the vocals? We'll talk strategies for coming up with effective fills, as well as what to do to avoid "backseat driving" and distracting from the vocal core of the song. (Open to all melody instruments, all levels.)

Go Ahead and Take a Solo! - Do you usually stick to tunes you know note-for-note, and panic if someone asks you to play a solo on a song you don't know? Let's work on that! Topics (depending on who shows up) include not psyching yourself out, hearing a melody and playing it back, working out how to improvise in a particular key, etc. (All levels and instruments)

Band Lab - Come play with new people and sharpen your collaboration and arranging skills. Open to all instrumentalists and vocalists, regardless of experience level or genre. Also, a safe space for advanced players to work on a secondary or brand-new instrument—why not?

Reading Sheet Music (Or Reading It Better) - This class will either focus on the basics, or on building sightreading skills, depending on who shows up. There is some room for overlap if both kinds of players are there. (All levels and instruments)

21st Century Acoustic Repertoire - Let's sing some relatively new songs that deserve to be classics. We'll mostly pull songs from the indie folk/pop/rock world, at a variety of levels of obscurity. (All levels, all instruments)

Classes for fiddlers:

Fiddle Bow Wrangling - Let's level up your tone! We'll do some exercises, and learn a few slow pretty tunes with space to practice your new and improved technique. (For intermediate players. Beginning fiddlers who are advanced players on another stringed instrument are welcome.)

Chords for Fiddlers - Learn a pattern-based way of thinking about chords on the fiddle, which may be new for you if you’ve previously only played tunes. This will help you quickly find those double stops (in every key!), to accompany other musicians and jazz up your solos. (For lower intermediate through advanced players.)

Fiddle Lab: Backing Up Other Musicians - Fiddle can be a rhythm instrument too! Learn cool chops and grooves, as well as how to figure out which chords to play (and how). We'll also work on creating end-of-line fills to support a vocalist. You'll never have to play the melody again unless you want to. (For lower intermediate through advanced players.)

Fiddle Lab: Harmony - Come play twin fiddle tunes from a variety of traditions (including, but not limited to: Western swing, old time and bluegrass). We'll also discuss how to work with others in an ensemble, as well as how to write your own harmony parts. (For lower-intermediate to advanced players.)

Fiddle Lab: Playing in Weird Keys - Let's get you over your fear of flats and sharps, for good. A world of tunes--and singers to play with--will open up to you! (For intermediate players.)

Guitar classes

Guitar Backup for Old-Time Fiddle - It's different than rock guitar! Learn to provide a driving, genre-appropriate rhythm accompaniment for old-time fiddle tunes such as reels, waltzes and rags. Bring an acoustic guitar and be comfortable switching between basic chords, such as D, A, C and G.

Pilfering from Pianists - So many great songwriters write for piano, and adapting their songs to guitar can be a trick. Let's work through the process together so we can accompany ourselves singing songs by artists like Randy Newman, Tori Amos and Tom Lehrer. (All levels--we'll learn to work out arrangements appropriate to a variety of skill levels.)