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Art Space Workshop / Artist Collaborations

Saturday, February 2, 2008 - Hosted by Cindy Larson of The Pucks

10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
“WILLIAM BLAKE, THE MAN AND HIS SONGS”

Kevin Hutchings makes his home near Prince George in the central interior of British Columbia, not far from the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains. A musician, literature prof, and award-winning author, Kevin brings his musical and literary interests together for the first time in a new CD entitled Songs of William Blake. The CD features musical performances of fourteen poems by Blake, whose visionary poetry and art have inspired such modern-day icons as Alan Ginsberg, Jim Morrison, Patti Smith, Van Morrison, and Johnny Depp.

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite."
— William Blake.

11:30 AM – 12:30 PM
“CELTIC SLAM”

With out of townies, Spirit of the West and PG'ers Out of Alba. Bring your instrument for a Mega Fun Jam!

1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
"THIEVES OF DADGAD"

With Cara Luft - Bring your guitar or just your ears.

DADGAD, or D modal tuning gets its name from the tuning of the guitar strings. Instead of the standard EADGBE tuning (low to high strings), the guitar is tuned to D-A-D-G-A-D. This is done by tuning the first and sixth strings down a whole tone from E to D, and tuning the second string down a whole tone from B to A.

DADGAD was popularised by British folk guitarist Davey Graham. Graham employed the tuning to great effect in his treatments of celtic music, but also the folk music of India and Morocco. The first guitarists in Irish traditional music to use the tuning were Mícheál Ó Domhnaill and Dáithí Sproule; today it is a very common tuning in the genre. Other proponents of the tuning include Stan Rogers, Jimmy Page, Pierre Bensusan, Eric Roche, Laurence Juber, Tony McManus, Bert Jansch, Richard Thompson, Dick Gaughan, Soig Siberil, Gilles Le Bigot and Paul McSherry. The suitability of DADGAD to Celtic music stems from the fact that it facilitates the use of a number of moveable chords which retain open strings. These act as a drone on either the bass or treble strings, approximating the voicings used in traditional Scottish and Irish pipe music. DADGAD tuning was also used by Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and The Yardbirds in the late '60s and '70s with one minor adjustment: He detuned the entire guitar by one-half a step, so it was really Db-Ab-Db-Gb-Ab-Db (where the 'b' denotes a flattened note). While with The Yardbirds, Jimmy Page composed White Summer. On Led Zeppelin's eponymous first album, Led Zeppelin, he used this guitar tuning to perform "Black Mountain Side", a piece which was strongly influenced by Bert Jansch's earlier arrangement of a traditional Irish song called "Blackwater Side" (though Jansch actually used a simpler 'drop D' tuning). Page later revisited the DADGAD tuning for the song "Kashmir", which appeared on the band's sixth album Physical Graffiti.

2:15 PM - 3:15 PM
"SO YOU WANT TO MAKE A CAREER IN MUSIC"

Bring your questions and comments to a mixed panel of established and up and coming musicians who will relate their own experiences.

Panel: Dan Mangan, Melissa McClelland, Hugh McMillan and others TBA.

3:45 PM - 4:45 PM
"WESTERN CANADIAN FESTIVALS, ORIGINS, HISTORY, MYTHS AND MORE"

Michael MacDonald is a doctoral student in Ethnomusicology under the joint supervision of Dr. Regula Qureshi and Dr. Federico Spinetti.

His areas of research include folk festivals, aboriginal musics, music ontologies, and the relationship between social movements and musical expression. His doctoral dissertation will examine the reterritorialization of folk music within a complex of national consciousness in Canada.

His MA at Carleton University explored the impact socialism, communism, and the New Left has had on folk festival construction in Canada. Before continuing his education Michael worked as a pianist, bassist, producer, and choir director in Central and Eastern Canada and toured widely in Canada and the US.