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SCVFA Beginners' CircleJust starting out, or haven't played traditional music in a while? The Beginners' Circle is for you! This is a slow-jam group held at most of our regular first-Sunday jams at Hoover School. All instruments are welcome, so bring your fiddle, mandolin, guitar, dulcimer, bass, whistle or whatever, and give it a try. Besides offering a place to play a little more slowly, we hope to help players get more comfortable playing by ear, learn to coordinate with others in an informal group, and build confidence and repertoire. Depending on interest we can also discuss ways to learn tunes, jam-group dynamics and etiquette, differences among styles, and more. One of our experienced members will generally lead the tunes, answer questions and offer various kinds of help. The leader will normally be on hand for an hour or so, but we love it when the participants continue to play together on their own. When and Where? The slow jam is normally held from about 2 to 3 pm not far from the main entrance. But the schedule may vary due to other activities at the jam, so check the Events Page for updates — or at the jam, ask at the admission desk or look for a “Beginners’ Circle” sign nearby. We like to have a variety of leaders, to provide exposure to different tunes and playing techniques. If you're an experienced player and would like to help, let us know! Thanks! to those who have volunteered in the past, including Jean Avram, Paul and Laura Barnett, Dave Barton, Gary Breitbard, Tom Clausen, John Heron, Norio Kawato, Sarah Kirton, Mark Llewellyn, Pete Showman, Ann Whitesell and John Williamson.While this isn't intended to be class or workshop, some leaders may choose to teach a tune or two as a way of focusing the group — and may even provide written-out music for the tunes. Below on this page are a few tunes that have been taught during previous Beginners’ Circles.
If you'd like to participate and have other favorite tunes you'd
like to work on, let us know. You can call Pete Showman at (408) 255-0297,
or email us at slowjam TunesYou can get the sheet music in one PDF file (~1.2 MB), or get the pages individually below. Many of the tunes have MIDI and MP3 audio files (see note below), usually at a slow speed such as 60 bpm (beats per minute) as well as at a typical playing speed such as 90 or 100 bpm. Individual Tunes, Listed Alphabetically
*OT=old-time, BG=bluegrass, Ir=Irish Note: MIDI files are small (about 4-16 kB), as they only contain instructions to the sound card on your computer, which makes the actual sound. The quality varies considerably depending on your computer. MP3 files are audio files that should sound the same on most systems — but they're much larger (about 300kB to 1MB). And almost all of these MP3s are made from the MIDIs (sorry!), so try the MIDIs first. Mail links on this page are not clickable to avoid attracting spam. Sorry for the inconvenience. Updated by PS 8/22/11. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
scvfa.org.