Welcome to Introduction to Bluegrass Singing! This year, the Augusta Heritage Center is offering two levels of bluegrass vocals, showing a commitment to the importance of vocals in bluegrass music unlike any other workshop anywhere. In the words of Bill Monroe, “Yo-de-lay-e-a, Yo-de-la-e-o, Yo-de-la-heeee!” Get ready to sing!

            All you need for this class is your voice and a willingness to share and blend your voice with others. We’ll be practicing bluegrass lead singing by learning some solid standard repertoire that helps to illustrate the particular features of bluegrass vocal styles.  We’ll explore tone production, intonation, range development, phrasing and timing, and many other aspects of good musicianship that are at the heart of good singing. We’ll learn how to take care of our voices with warm ups and some fun technical exercises.  We’ll explore the mysteries and rewards of singing bluegrass duos and trios, practice finding parts by ear, and discuss some of the finer points of harmony blend and phrasing. We’ll also listen to recordings of the best bluegrass singers to contemplate the qualities that make them enduringly great.

            If you’re confused about whether you should go into the beginner class or the more advanced class, please get in touch with us and we can talk about it. A general rule of thumb is that we’ll be gearing the beginner’s class for people who have little or no experience singing, or for those who have sung on stage but feel like they want a refresher course, or for those who would like to take a new knowledge of bluegrass singing back to their bands and show others how it’s done.  If you have no or very little experience singing bluegrass-style harmony, or need help and practice finding parts, this is the class for you.

            We’re excited about teaching this first year of beginner’s level of bluegrass singing because we believe that with a little bit of coaching, anyone can experience the joy and lonesomeness of bluegrass vocals. We’re going to have a ton of fun!