Jeni & Billy’s Miniresidency

Workshops for your Venue & Campus Cosponsership

Your Choice of One Workshop is Included in the Fee

The list below also provides Festivals with Workshop suggestions.

DUO:

Writing and Performing The Contemporary Appalachian Ballad

(we created this workshop for John Elder's course on Ballads for the Bread Loaf School of English at UNC-Asheville).

His review of the experience is this: "Jeni and Billy's visit to my graduate class on ballads, followed by their wonderful concert later that evening, was a highlight of the summer. Their combination of enormous musical talent with an obvious delight in literary discussion makes them especially effective within such an educational setting. "

Since the early days of British, Scottish, & Irish settlement in the Appalachians, the inherited Ballad singing tradition provided space, particularly for women, to sing about a range of topics which might not otherwise have been aired, especially in polite conversation. These subjects could include disasters, murder, disappearances, love lost and found, and other news of the day. Mainly these ballads would have been performed unaccompanied, but sometimes with a single drone instrument, the fiddle, or rhythm instrument, the banjo. Drawing on these examples from the past as well as pulling inspiration from film, poetry, and the news, Jeni & Billy have created many new ballads on the edge of the tradition. In this workshop they will share their approach to writing and performing original and traditional Appalachian Ballads. In a longer residency, participants will be encouraged to draw on what they have learned in the workshop to write and/or present their own ballads for discussion.

Music of the Coalfields ( Presented at the Southeast Folk Alliance.)

John L. Lewis, labor organizer and former President of the United Mine Workers of America, called the mines “a blood and bones machine that grinds up the miner for the American dream.” In this workshop Jeni & Billy will explore the music that captures this hard work of the miner and that describes life in the coalfields. Mining accidents, layoffs, unionism, feuds, faith, privation, protest, black lung, migration, mechanization, and drug addiction provide the themes of songs of coal.

As we move into the 21st Century questions about mountain top removal, conflicts between strip miners and underground miners, and the viability of coal as a source of our nation’s energy are taking the fore in our thinking and music making about coal. Through their own songs about the Southwest Virginia coal mining community of Jewell Ridge, Jeni & Billy illustrate the various song forms and sounds that music of coal can take. They also talk about the work of the great coalfield songwriters and artists including Hazel Dickens, Jean Ritchie, Nimrod Workman, Phyllis Bones and Kathy Matte among others. They will bring Barbara Kopple’s Oscar-winning documentary “Harlan County USA” into the discussion and provide a guide to various coal song recordings as well as web sites and print resources on coalfield music.

Duet Harmony Singing in Traditional, Country and Folk Music Styles

Did you ever wonder how the Carter Family, the Louvin Brothers or Conway & Loretta got that special sound that makes the hair stand up on your head? How do they make those tragic stories like "Wreck on the Highway" feel so sad and lonesome? Well, a big part of that is Harmony! Jeni & Billy are fast becoming known for their rich harmonies – harmonies learned by listening to those great old records, by following their instincts and by giving attention to the fundamentals. Jeni & Billy will illustrate the fundamentals of roots harmony singing – type of harmony, chord/harmony relationship, ornamentation and phrasing – through recorded examples and live performance. This course can be limited to a lecture style presentation or, where more time is available, can include class participation such as singing harmony as a group and in duos, and creating harmony lines to melody lines.

Song Arranging for the Stage & the Studio

Did you ever hear a song where everything just seemed to fit -- it didn’t feel too long or too short, there were nice instrumental breaks that gave you time to reflect between the singing, the music welled up or came down at moments that felt right with what was being sung? If so, then you’ve probably heard a great arrangement! Arranging a song thoughtfully can often give it that “something extra” and make a good song a great one. Through recorded examples and live performance Jeni & Billy will show how form, tempo, rhythm, dynamics, mood, and voice & instrument placement all come into play when arranging a song. This workshop can be done in a lecture style or, with more time, this can be a hands-on workshop where Jeni & Billy will listen to participants’ songs and make suggestions about arranging for performance and/or the studio.

What’s in a Name? A Melody

Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned songwriter looking for a fresh way to find a new melody, this workshop will help you write a melody using a name and a few music fundamentals. Billy created this workshop while working with residents of the Baltimore City Detention Center and discovered that it empowered people of all skill levels. This workshop can be completed in as little as three hours or over the course of several days.

Jeni: Writing & Performing Poetry

Pulitzer Prize winning Northern Irish poet, Paul Muldoon, likes to say that “everyone has at least one great poem in them.” As a student of Muldoon, Jeni learned how form and structuring a poem line by line can be a path into finding that “great poem.” Starting with one line and moving through two, three, four, and five line stanzas (couplets, villanelles, pantoums, and sestinas, for instance) participants will learn to recognize the beauty in form and how gathering words into “the net” of structure can be freeing. Jeni will also touch on how she and Billy present poetry as part of their concerts. This course is best over a period of days, but can be adapted to a shorter session.

Billy: Fingerstyle Guitar or Fingerstyle Guitar for Song Accompaniment

Billy can teach basic to advanced fingerstyle guitar techniques as well as accompaniment for song. Techniques would include thumb and first finger, thumb and two finger, pick and two finger, alternating base note, and standard and open tunings. An understanding of tablature and/or standard notation is helpful, though not necessary. Billy can also teach fingerstyle accompaniment for song/vocal music particularly in the folk, country, and Appalachian ballad styles.

Designed & Managed by Peter Chan