Steve Kaufman's Acoustic Kamp

[BigSkyTaylorPlayer]

I just returned from 2 weeks at this camp and what a blast it is, Week 1 is Old Time and Week 2 is Bluegrass.  It brings together over 600 people for 2 weeks in June each year, each Kamper is assigned to a class, based on their level and experience - my flatpick guitar class had 6 people in it during week 1 and my mandolin class had about 15 for week 2.  There were 6-8 instructors for each instrument, and every class rotated through the instructors, spending two hours with each one for a total of 16 hours of instruction each week, all from former National Champions on their instrument.  Steve Kaufman is a 3 time (consectutive over 15 years - the winner is banned from competition for 5 years) National Flatpick Champion.

Week one guitar instructors were - Marcy Marxer, Robin Bullock, Andy Hatfield, Robert Shafer, Tyler Grant, and Steve Kaufman.  Week two mandolin instructors were - Alan Bibey, Andrew Collins, Matt Flinner, Emory Lester, John Reischman, Annie Savage, and Don Stiernberg.

In addition to the classes there are all kinds of organized jams and master classes.  The jams include all instruments and ranged from beginning to advanced as well as a tune of the day class.  The instructors would often join the jams and you could take a break with one of them playing along with you.  Every night there were Kamper open mics followed by staff concerts.  The Kamp is held on the campus of Maryville College near Knoxville, TN and the dorms were quite nice.  They have jamming dorms and quiet dorms, and the dining facility was....well....cafeteria food but no one was complaining.

All in all I got over 32 hours of instruction from top notch guitar and mandolin champions and got to jam with fellow Kampers and the instructors.  The environment is very supportive, no one is going to criticize if you crash - everyone just laughs and moves on.  One instructor even had you make a sound if you made a mistake....well, you can imagine that the sounds drowned out the music but it was all in fun and meant to lighten things up.

There is even a Kamp doctor to fix any issues that arise short of a neck reset during the event and he could even do that in a pinch

And, I saw lots of Taylors.  One of the guitar instructors was Robin Bullock and he had a very nice Taylor guitar.

[tedtan]

Cool, sounds like a fun trip. I've thought about going myself but I haven't been able to work it out scheduling-wise yet.

[BigSkyTaylorPlayer]

Hi Tedtan, I would rearrange my schedule for this camp if at all possible.  It is a top level experience from beginning to end, they have been doing it for 18 years now and are constantly tweaking things based on attendee feedback.

I'll tell 'ya, the nightly concerts were worth every bit - each night the instructors played 3-4 songs and backed each other up.  The last night David Bromberg showed up and he and Steve Kaufman did Mr. Bojangles which inspired me to come home and learn his version and solo.

The 1st week (Old-Time/Traditional) had about 150 people and the 2nd week (Bluegrass) had about 500.  I can't really say which week I enjoyed more - I had an equally good time at both and am planning on 2014 already.