2018 Midwest Banjo Camp in Olivet, Michigan

From Elderly Instruments in Lansing, I made my way to Olivet College, in Olivet, Michigan for the 2018 Midwest Banjo Camp.

I didn't get any pictures of classes; I was kept busy with ploinking along and trying to keep up with my classmates. The whole camp was a lot of fun. There are classes in every variant of banjo, as well as guitar, mandolin, fiddle, and bass. I'm already thinking if I go next year, I will take the guitar track. Or mandolin.

If you click on the link above to the Camp's site, you'll see me in the class picture. I'm the guy with the banjo!

Olivet College is a tiny private university. About 1,045 students. The campus is not much more than a few blocks. It's really nice and it's the perfect place for intensive music study.

This is the Michigan Historic marker noting the college and its beginnings in 1844.

This is the College Square, very peaceful. A lot of players landed on the benches here to jam or practice.

At the Main Street end of the Square is this sculpture. Pretty symbolic - a sprouting acorn.

At the other end of the Square is the Mott Academic center. This is where our classes were held. Folks also jammed on the front landing here. When I first got there to sign in, there were already a small group of players jamming. Very cool.

I sat in on a lot of jams in addition to going to classes and seminars. Made quite a few new friends, and heard some incredible music.

The camp staff also participated in two fantastic concerts, which were worth the price of admission alone.

You may think that all of the music was either old-time or bluegrass, and there certainly was a lot of both. But there was also swing, pop, and even a touch of classical. One of my classmates is a professional player, and one day he was warming up (!) on tenor banjo with the first of the Bach cello suites!

At one of the concerts, a banjo and bass duo played Charlie Parker's "Scrapple from the Apple." Right, bebop on the banjo. Astounding.

My dorm room was in Shipherd Hall, adjacent to Mott.

In the distance you can see a UFO...or is it?

Dorm rooms are spartan but serviceable. It is a college, after all.

Of course my banjo got its own bed.

Behind the dorm is the City of Olivet Department of Public Works. Small town America, oh yes.

Ok, so it's not a UFO. It's the Olivet water tower thingy.

Behind it is another building belonging to Public Works.

I'm not sure why, but one side has "Olivet" in red and the other side has it in green.

At the time, this seemed like an interesting thing to take a picture of. Now I'm not so sure.

There are a handful of fraternities at Olivet. This is the Aldelphic Alpha Pi house. Interesting building.

Black squirrels are everywhere. In fact, I didn't see any brown squirrels at all. Maybe this is a midwest thing?

Some of the squirrels have blond streaks on their tails.

Now this looks like a classic college building. It's the Margaret Upton Conservatory of Music.

The Camp had reserved a number of practice rooms in the building. Now, I have just started playing piano after a decades-long hiatus. When I signed up for camp, I knew my piano practicing would be on hold for a few days.

Then when I heard we had practice rooms in the Conservatory, I said to myself, "Self...I bet they have pianos!"

Sure enough, they did!

There were eight practice rooms with pianos. Unfortunately, I left my piano music at home, but I was able to at least run through some of the Hanon studies I've been learning as a warm up. So all was not lost.

And I was able to work on some new banjo ideas too.

This was a nice room with the window, but this particular piano was a bit out of tune in the bass register. The other ones I played were fine. They were all good Yamaha pianos, with tags noting their last tuning - most all in the fall of 2017.  Not sure why this one sounded bad, but there you have it.

Speaking of my trusty Weymann, here it is lounging at one of the benches on the Campus Square.

Now off to practice what I learned!