Voice | Val Mindel and Emily Miller | All Levels | Period 2 | Week 4 (July 27-31, 2026)
We will expand your dueting skills while we learn several lesser-known and more complex songs. We’ll work on devices such as crossing harmonies, adding dissonances, switching leads, singing outside of the chord, and through-arranging. We’ll also focus on the harder-to-define aspects of duet singing that makes it so special. Students will have the opportunity to work on honing duets in one-on-one settings as well as learning with the group. We’ll be jumping right in, so experience with the basics of country harmony is important.
About the Instructor
Val Mindel is a longtime musician, teacher and workshop leader, known for helping singers achieve the sound they want and have fun doing it. She teaches a wide range of harmony styles from the buzzy sound of American old-time and early country harmony to the weaving harmonies of songs from across the ocean. In the process, she addresses such indefinables as tone, ornamentation, and lead singing. In addition to being a regular on staff at the Augusta Heritage Center, she has taught at numerous music camps elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad, including SongRoots, Targhee Music Camp, Ashokan Music and Dance Camps, Centrum’s Voice Works, Pinewoods, and Sore Fingers. She is a founding member of the California-based Any Old Time string band (check out the band’s compilation album I Bid You Goodnight on Smithsonian Folkways), and has two CDs with her daughter and old-time country musician Emily Miller (In the Valley and Close to Home). Val is also the author of So You Want to Sing Folk Music, part of the “So You Want to Sing” series for Rowman & Littlefield and the National Association of Teachers of Singing.