This will be a fun and very useful workshop for singers and players of any instrument, especially if you play with other people. There will be class participation, and a number of songs will be learned/played. Don’t let some of terms scare you off- this will be painless, and you don’t have to read music. We will concentrate on using your ears.
Topics covered:
The Nashville Number system – how to chart a song for any key with numbers
Typical intros and how to convey them (“give me a 5511”)
What is a turn around?
The magic of 3625 (aka circle of fifths made simple)
Walking bass or 2 beat bass?
How do key changes (modulations) work?
Songs that are in 2 keys (not modulation)
Songs in minor keys vs songs that use the 6 minor a lot
How to count off a song
Stagecraft and tips for running a band
Hearing chord changes
Instructor Bio
Lynn “Leon” Kasdorf lives, eats, and breathes country music. Good country music. The old kind of country music. Through years of attentive listening to the Eddie Stubbs radio show, Lynn knows just about every honky-tonk song there is, and if there’s a pedal steel part, he’s learned it. Lynn is committed to recreating the perfection that is old country music, be it crooked, quirky, or timeless. His mission is to help others appreciate the elements that make early country music so great, and to perform this music with soul and conviction on any instrument.
Lynn is one of the busiest pedal steel players in the Washington DC/Baltimore region. He started off in high school fingerpicking guitar and banjo, and he got his first pedal steel in 1974 after falling in love with the sound. He currently plays with Arty Hill, Human Country Jukebox, Willie Barry, the Hula Monsters, the Oklahoma Twisters, Karen Collins’ bands Backroads Band and Squeeze Bayou, and several others.