by Deanna Roos
photos by Scott Roos
On August 12th -16th, 2024 myself along with another writer for NSMZ Scott Roos and our teenage son were able to attend the Northern Lights Bluegrass Camp. This five day event precedes the festival and is held on the Ness Creek Festival grounds near Big River, SK. Scott and I are both accomplished musicians who have formal education in music through lessons and university in classical and jazz. We also play in various bands and musical groups and love live music! However, the Northern Lights Bluegrass and Old Tyme Camp helps scratch an itch that isn't otherwise scratched through our other musical endeavours. The Following is my experience of it, but also what I witnessed from other campers of all ages and skill levels.
The interesting thing about Scott and I's bluegrass journey is we attended classes for instruments that are relatively new to us - so not the instruments we have done hours of practice and training on. This was a humbling and often frustrating journey, but at the same time it's exciting to learn new things and step into a totally different world of music. I signed up for one of the intermediate fiddle class offerings which focused on old-time style taught by Golden Shoals fiddler and lead singer Amy Alvey. She is a Berklee School of Music graduate in violin who found a love for old-time music.
What I loved about this class (and the fiddle class I took last year), is that the instructors really dug into how to dress up a skeleton of a song with stylistically appropriate ornaments, chords, slides, etc. I love this because it opens up a whole world of creativity that we can take and use on other fiddle tunes. So it's not just about learning how to play an instrument, or learning a couple songs, but more about how to kick a fiddle tune up a notch. Alvey was able to break it down so that we could start slow and get increasingly complicated in techniques which ensured all the students' needs were met. A fringe benefit is that because you spend three days of classes in the same group, you also get the chance to socialize and get to know your classmates, some of which you see yearly at the camp.
Scott and our son signed up for the beginner-intermediate class together.
Instructor, Dan Klingsberg, the bassist of Golden Shoals who is also skilled at playing the guitar, in addition to leading group sessions, dedicated some time to providing brief individual lessons on one of the days. This allowed him to assist students with specific technique-related issues such as pick grip and strumming patterns. His students learned common bass runs and stretched their comfort with picking out tunes. The instructors from Golden Shoals all combined their classes for the student concert and we all got to jam a couple tunes that the four classes worked on during the week.
I did want to highlight how Northern Lights has gone above and beyond to make the camp a family friendly event. One notable change in this year's camp is the addition of more children's classes including the Wild Sky Adventure Learning class starting as young as three years old. This is a great option for young families as it gives the opportunity for the parents to take classes while their children also get a great experience without being dumped off at the grandparents house. It's always fun to watch the Ness Creek children run around the playground and enjoy music and the outdoors. My teenage son started in beginner guitar at the camp two years ago and has been steadily increasing his skill and knowledge. He really enjoys the week of classes, late-night jams, buffet food (available for purchase), and the evening concerts. He is already talking about next year and which class to take!
Beyond the instructional classes, there is much to enjoy during the camp including jams, dances, concerts, and a song-writing competition. Following, is a few of the more notable events for myself this year:
There is a slo-pitch jam each day for those just starting on their instruments. Michael Taylor has led it the last few years and he is fun and very encouraging to the players. It's amazing to watch the growth in the attendees comfort and skill on their instrument between the very first jam and the last one. Another notable change this year was there was an increase in facilitated late-night jam opportunities including old-time fiddle focused jams, a singing jam, intermediate jams led by Golden Shoals and Seth Mulder and Midnight Run, and an intermediate-advanced jam. This provided opportunities to camp goers who maybe didn't know people to jam with or don't feel comfortable leading a song.
One of my favorite evening events is the instructor band scramble. We get to hear all the instructors play a song in their regular band configuration then they pull names from a hat and form new bands and are given 10-15 minutes to come up with a song to perform. It's a ton of fun to see what the new bands come up with, and you get to listen to a concert full of great music.
The other highlight each year is the songwriting competition. Contestants are provided with three mandatory words and one bonus word on Wednesday that they need to use in the lyrics to an original song. They perform the song on Friday afternoon to a room full of campers and a panel of judges. It's a wonderfully supportive environment and for the last two years, I've thoroughly enjoyed hearing the variety of songs that have been created. It's amazing how the same words could be used in such different contexts and styles. This year I challenged myself to take part in the contest, and I'm so glad I did. It was tricky to fit in the time to write and practice the song enough to pull off live within 2 days but I'm so proud of everyone who had the guts to try. Our words this year were "shivering", "pitch", "inspection" and bonus word "country-side". I used pitch to mean the pitch of a note, while someone else used it in a song about their brother playing baseball which is just one example of how different the outcomes can be from the same root words. A recording of mine can be heard on the Deanna Roos Music Facebook page which I post on approximately two times a year.
Although my family has definitely learned and progressed on their chosen instruments, I almost feel like the true value of the camp is in the community that you get to be immersed in with the opportunities to jam, laugh, dance, dine, and hang out with year after year. These relationships that you build throughout camp can extend into jams and events offered by Northern Lights throughout the year and maybe even into new Facebook friends.
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