ROBINWOOD MUSIC RETREATS
Robinwood Guitar Retreat
May 29-31, 2020
Shepherd’s Spring Retreat Center
Sharpsburg, Maryland
Robinwood Mandolin Retreat
October 2-5, 2020
Shepherd’s Spring Retreat Center
Sharpsburg, Maryland
By popular request, Indie Award-winning multi-instrumentalist Robin Bullock now presents both guitar and mandolin retreats! Robinwood Guitar Retreat in May and Robinwood Mandolin Retreat in October are full weekends of hands-on workshops, personal instruction, performance opportunities, jamming, and full immersion into the world of possibilities that guitar and mandolin (and other mandolin-family instruments) offer us. An ideal experience for intermediate and advanced guitarists and mandolinists, as well as for singers who play. Come broaden your horizons, develop your skills, expand your understanding of music and your instrument, and have big fun with kindred spirits in an inspiring and relaxing wooded setting in the hills of western Maryland.
Robin Bullock has been hailed as “one of the best folk instrumentalists in the business” by Sing Out! Magazine, a “Celtic guitar god” by the Baltimore City Paper, and one of the 100 Greatest Acoustic Guitarists by DigitalDreamDoor.com. His many honors include Editor’s Pick and Player’s Choice Awards from Acoustic Guitar Magazine, the Association for Independent Music’s prestigious INDIE Award (with the world-music trio Helicon), multiple Washington Area Music Association WAMMIE Awards, a Governor’s Award from the Maryland State Arts Council and a bronze medal at the National Mandolin Championship in Winfield, Kansas. An experienced and articulate instructor, he has served on the faculties of Steve Kaufman’s Acoustic Kamps in Tennessee, Common Ground On The Hill in Maryland, the March Mandolin Festival in New Hampshire and the Swannanoa Gathering in North Carolina (where he was honored in 2016 with a Master Music Maker Award for lifetime achievement in musicianship and teaching), taught privately at House of Musical Traditions in Washington DC, and led countless festival workshops from California to Pennsylvania and from Ontario to Georgia. Robin has fifteen solo and collaborative CDs to his credit and maintains a busy international touring schedule, performing solo, in Celtic duos with guitarist Steve Baughman and four-time National Scottish Harp Champion Sue Richards, and as sideman with Grammy Award-winning folk icon Tom Paxton, including four of Tom’s “Together at Last” tours with fellow Grammy winner Janis Ian.
Shepherd’s Spring Retreat Center in Sharpsburg, Maryland, provides the perfect, tranquil setting for Robinwood Guitar Retreat. Located just 1.5 hours west of Washington, DC, Shepherd’s Spring has been welcoming guests since 1990 with comfortable, well-maintained facilities in a beautiful natural setting, nestled on 220 acres of rolling, wooded land along the Potomac River and C&O Canal. Operated by a dedicated staff and a team of volunteers, Shepherd’s Spring is designed to be a “Source of Renewal – A Place to Grow!”
For more on the venue, visit www.shepherdsspring.org
Topics to be explored will undoubtedly include, but by no means need to be limited to:
- Left-hand technique – how to make it easier on yourself and be able to do more
- Pick technique – grip, fluidity of motion, getting better results with less effort
- (Guitar) Fingerstyle right-hand technique and developing an independent thumb
- (Mandolin) Different styles of mandolin music – bluegrass, Celtic, old-time, folk, classical – comparing and contrasting, with examples of each
- Developing your ear and overcoming dependence on tablature
- Arranging songs for guitar or mandolin – developing musically interesting and satisfying interpretations
- Altered tunings
- Music theory – how it works, how to use it, and why it doesn’t have to be scary
- Song accompaniment, if we have singers!
- Performance tips
Bring songs and tunes you want to work on! If they’re stumping you, let’s have a closer look at them!
Price includes comfy lodging (no dorms or cabins!) and three delicious meals a day (most dietary restrictions can easily be accommodated) in a beautifully relaxed, drug- and alcohol-free, wooded setting – check the outside world at the door and come play guitar with us!
All-inclusive retreat cost (all workshops and events, lodging for three nights and all meals): $750
Rooms are double occupancy; single occupancy rooms are available at an additional cost.
Retreat schedule (subject to slight tweaking – we like to be flexible):
Friday
Afternoon, until 6:00 p.m.: Arrival and check-in
6:00 p.m.: Dinner
7:00 p.m.: Brief orientation and introductions, followed by an opening concert set by Robin, followed (most likely) by jamming and sharing songs for the rest of the evening
Saturday
8:00 a.m.: Breakfast
9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.: Group session #1 with breaks as needed
12:00 – 1:30 p.m.: Lunch and free time
1:30- 4:00 p.m.: Group session #2 with breaks as needed
4:00 – 6:00 p.m.: Free time – explore Shepherd’s Spring’s trails, play a few tunes on the porch, enjoy the beautiful relaxing setting!
6:00: Dinner
7:30 p.m.: Open Mic/Coffeehouse/Student Showcase – perform for us (only if you want to)! Feel free to team up with other participants or enlist Robin.
Sunday
8:00 a.m.: Breakfast
9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.: Group session #1 with breaks as needed
12:00 – 1:30 p.m.: Lunch and free time
1:30 – 4:00 p.m.: Group session #2 with breaks as needed
4:00 – 6:00 p.m.: Free time – explore Shepherd’s Spring’s trails, play a few tunes on the porch, enjoy the beautiful relaxing setting!
6:00 p.m.: Dinner
7:00 p.m. (or whenever we feel like starting): Informal jamming/song swap
Monday
8:00 a.m.: Breakfast
Departure – till next time!
Registration:
All-inclusive retreat cost (all workshops and events, lodging for three nights and all meals): $750
Rooms are double occupancy; single occupancy rooms are available at an additional cost
A nonrefundable deposit of $100 is required to reserve a spot.
Balance is due by May 17th.
A welcome packet will be sent upon registration with info regarding transportation options and other details.
Payment may be made by check, Paypal or credit card:
Mail a check to:
Robin Bullock
PO Box 1298
Black Mountain NC 28711
To pay by credit card, call Karen Kaye at 301-641-1837 with complete card number, expiration date, security code/CVV and billing zip code
To send money via Paypal, log in to your PayPal account, click Send Money at the top of the page, and fill out the form to send money to a friend: robinbullock@yahoo.com. There is NO fee for this method if you sign up for PayPal – which is also free. Your PayPal account deducts funds directly from your checking account.
For further info, give us a shout:
Karen Kaye 301-641-1837
robin@robinbullock.com
FAQs
Click on a question below to view the answer.
I have never been to a music camp before. What can I expect will go on during the classes?
The group sessions are the centerpiece of the weekend, but there’s also plenty of free time built into the schedule, for whatever you want to use it for: hanging out and relaxing, practicing on your own, getting together with me for individual attention if you like, jamming with your fellow campers or whatever. And fun musical stuff every evening.
We do four two-and-half-hour group sessions over the weekend, two each day (with breaks as needed!), plenty of time for going deep as a group into all the topics we want to explore: improving technique, getting better tone, developing one’s ear and musical instincts, creating interesting arrangements, and whatever else we choose to tackle. I come in with material prepared based on my past experience leading group workshops, but I’m also ready and willing to go off in other directions depending on what folks want and need.
(And just to be clear: we’re using the word “camp” here, but Robinwood is actually a comfy retreat in a comfy retreat center, with nice hotel-style private rooms in the same building as the group sessions and the dining hall, and the food’s excellent – no roughing it here!)
I think I may have picked up some bad habits in my playing through the years which might be keeping me at a plateau. Will you be commenting on the students’ playing habits and how to improve and get beyond bad habits?
Absolutely! So much of what we do playing any instrument is physical, and it’s so easy to fall into awkward or counterproductive physical habits without knowing it. I’ll be sharing a lot of insights I’ve gained over the years watching and learning from many of my own musical heroes and studying (and hopefully improving) my own habits. Not to blow my own horn, but I find I can almost always make a significant difference in a student’s ease of playing, just from watching and coaching a little, and increasing their own awareness.
I have been playing on and off for many years but only in standard tuning. Will I be totally lost once we get into a new tuning, and if so, how do you help a newbie to new tunings feel comfortable?
For me, the point of altered tunings is not to make things harder, but to make things easier. To be honest, much of the music I use altered tunings for is fairly simple harmonically and conceptually, folk tunes and such (and in that simplicity, of course, lies great power), and the tuning does a lot of the work for us, making the guitar sound bigger and fuller with a minimum of left-hand work. So usually, with a few real simple open chord shapes we’re off and running. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised how easy it is to get amazing sounds you’ve never heard from your instrument before.
I have always loved your playing and want to sound more like you. Will you be showing us your secrets during the workshop?Toggle Title
I’ll be happy to show you anything you’d like to know about how I sound the way I sound – I don’t believe in keeping any secrets or holding anything back – but what interests me more than showing you how to sound like me, is showing you how to find your own sound, your own musical voice. If you can use what I learned along my own journey as examples and jumping-off points, that’s great and you’re welcome to it all, but ultimately it’s about finding who you are musically. To me that’s the goal of a teacher/student relationship.
Toggle Title I am not a big group person and kind of shy. Would it be OK if I do not socialize with others all that much? Or the opposite: will this be an opportunity to socialize and get to know other musicians and make new friendships?
You’re completely welcome to do as little or as much socializing as you like. Everybody last year was wonderfully friendly and welcoming and it was a big warm fuzzy good-vibe-fest all weekend, with lots of new friendships being made, and I imagine it’ll keep being like that. If you need alone time, though, that’s perfectly fine, and there are miles of hiking trails through the woods as well as plenty of quiet corners throughout Shepherd’s Spring Retreat Center to chill in whenever you need it.
Comments from 2018 Robinwooders:
“My sincere thanks for an incredible time of rest, relaxation, and learning this past weekend. Every facet was so well planned out and executed, and I couldn’t have asked for a better group of folks to share the experience with. Perfect in every respect!”
“Great location, great experience, great food & accommodations — I am looking forward to 2019 already!”
“Hanging out with all you fingerstyle folks and the various tunings was both interesting and challenging, asking the old noodle to think in a new direction is always fun. The place was brilliant and the music fun and engaging.”
