How I spend My Summer Vacation

Posted by: Steven Stone at 1:01 pm, July 19th, 2009

 How I spend My Summer Vacation

 
Some people go on cruises, some putter around the house, but my “official” summer vacation starts this afternoon when I register for the RockyGrass Academy.
 
This will be my eighth year of attending this four-day intensive workshop held in Lyons on the grounds of the RockyGrass Bluegrass Festival. I’m in the advanced mandolin class. This year I’ll be schooled by John Moore (Chris Thile’s first teacher), Andy Leftwich (Ricky Skaggs’ Kentucky Thunder mando and fiddle player), and Matt Flinner (Who plays in a trio with the mercurial David Grier). I’ve studied with John Moore and Matt Flinner before. John is an especially hard taskmaster – my first private lesson with him eight years ago lasted fifteen seconds – I played for five seconds when he said, “Stop! You’re not counting and your up-downs are wrong. Unitl you fix that, there’s no point in going on…”
 
I’ve spent a lot of time on these two issues during the intervening years, so that when I did a workshop with him last year he told me, “You’ve been working…” which from him is high praise.
 
So, if all of the SPAM on AVGuide.com doesn’t get deleted right away and I don’t answer my emails, you’ll know why – I’m on vacation workin’ on my pickin’.