French Creek Music Retreat

September 14-16, 2018

Philadelphia Area Traditional Music and Dance (PATMAD) is sponsoring an annual acoustic folk music weekend at French Creek state park near Elverson, PA. The park is about an hour from Philly. French Creek Music Retreat is a resurrection of a family folk music festival of old.

We meet in Group Camp 1 (GPS coordinates: 40.204856, -75.796087 – On the map it says “French Creek Bible Conference), which has a large lodge and cabins available that sleep 2 or 4. The camp is reserved for the weekend of Sept. 14-16, 2018 for this event that focuses on acoustic instrumentalists and singers. We can have some great jams with workshops throughout the day and a dance in the evening! The registration fee includes a bed in a 2 or 4 person rustic cabin with old metal bed frames (See photos at bottom of page). An air mattress or foam pad, good flashlight, and bug spray are recommended.

This event begins at 5:00 Friday evening, and we need to be cleaned up and out of the lodge by noon on Sunday. There will be a pot luck dinner on Saturday night and continental breakfasts on Sat. and Sun. mornings (bring your own dishes & utensils). Please enough food for yourself (and family) and extra to share. Please bring your own folding chairs for outdoor jams and workshops.

There will be a pick up band for the dance, jam sessions, and workshops (see schedule below). You can go hiking, boating, playing frisbee golf, badminton, enjoy campfire circles, etc.  You can become friends on facebook to see photos of the camp at https://www.facebook.com/groups/158619740929577/.

For the kids, there will be face painting and their own rhythm band.

Registration

The cost is only $25 per person for this all-volunteer weekend, Saturday only is $15, and Friday only is $5.00 (children 17 and under are free). Everyone will be assigned a small job to help run the camp smoothly.

On Friday night there will be a $5 spaghetti dinner. Please indicate your interest on the registration form (see link below).

Click HERE to register!

Schedule 2018

Friday Evening: Festivities begin with a spaghetti dinner around 5:00 with an evening open jam session following. See details for the dinner on the registration form.

Times

Lodge

Staff Cabin,
kitchen or picnic tables

Porch/fire
circle/kitchen (picnic tables?)

Grassy hill above lodge, staff cabin near entrance

Times

SATURDAY

10:00

 Clogging workshop ~ Renee & Clare (or Harp workshop)   Mountain Dulcimer workshop, Bonnie Leigh  

9:30

11:00

 (Clogging if no one shows up at 10)  Hammered dulcimer workshop – Cliff Cole Mountain Dulcimer from scratch “Little Tunes” Don Pedi, Playing in a jam, Playing for a dance Norm Williams  

11:00

12:00

LUNCH

12:00

12:45
2:00

Dance music workshop, primarily be aimed at dulcimer players (MD and HD) but all instruments are welcome. ~ Norman & Cliff Cole

Tentative: Autoharp workshop – Walter Bader

Original tunes/songs jam or special genre jam

12:45 2:00

2:00

Other jams/workshops

Other jams/workshops

2:00

3:30

Shape note song work-shop ~ Ted Stokes & Clare Maher (can be continued outside) .

Drum circle/rhythm band or other jams

 Other jams

3:30

4:45

 Open jam or hammered dulcimer
workshop, Cliff Cole

Instrumental workshop – harp, autoharp or other.

How to put tune medleys together and band leading skills for dances. Adlai Waksman & Clare Maher

Other jams

4:45

EVENING PROGRAM

5:45

DINNER PREP, set tables

 

 

 

5:45

6:30

DINNER

6:30

7:30

CLEANUP, wash
dishes, move tables, set up band

 

 

 

7:30

~7:45

Open Stage and Jam

Sing/jam

Campfire:
Sing/Jam, drum circle/rhythm band

 

~7:45

 

SUNDAY

9:00

CLEAN UP
CAMP!

EVERYONE!

 

MUST BE
OUT BY NOON!

9:00

10:00

Round
robin and/or hymn sing,

 

drum
circle

 

10:00

Music:

Download a couple PDF files of some of the weekend’s dance tunes HERE! and HERE! (SPUDS tunes).

A download of SPUDS tune sets is HERE, and also shown below.

AND click HERE to download additional tunes with notes, chords, and mountain dulcimer TAB.

SPUDS tune sets:

  1. Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine (D)/ Down the Brae (Am)/ Bill Sullivan’s (A)
  2. Go and ‘List for a Sailor (Em)/Shoes and Stockings (G)/ Dinah (A)
  3. Pays de Haut (D)/ Reel de Pere Leon (G) / Alfred Montmarquette’s (Em)
  4. Stone’s Rag II (C)/ Red Apple Rag (G)
  5. Hunting the Buffalo(G)/Cold Frosty Morning (Am/A)/ Puncheon Floor (D/G)
  6. Benton’s Dream (A)/ Return to Milltown (Dm/D)/ Eddie’s Reel (G)
  7. Ballydesmond Polka #2 (Am)/ Denis Murphy’s Polka (D)/ On the Danforth (A)
  8. Shove that Pig’s Foot (G)/ Grasshopper Sittin’ on a Sweet Potato Vine (D)/ Squirrel Hunter (Em)
  9. Eli Greene’s Cakewalk (Em)/Dubuque (D)/ Booth Shot Lincoln (A)
  10. Tam Lin (Dm)/ Dick Gossip’s (D)/ The Reconciliation (A)
  11. Far from Home (G)/ Evit Gabriel (Em)/ Evil Diane (A)
  12. Dominion Reel (C)/ Rickett’s Hornpipe (D)/ Quindaro Hornpipe (G)
  13. Road to Lisdoonvarna (Em)/ Scolley’s (Em)/ Dinky’s (A)
  14. Boys of Antrim (D)/ Mug of Brown Ale (Am)/ Stool of Repentance (A)
  15. Idlewild Jig (D)/ White Petticoat (Em)/ Stan Chapman’s (A)
  16. Blackthorn Stick (G)/ Behind the Bush in the Garden (Am)/ Connaughtman’s Rambles (D)
  17. Joe Bouchard’s Jig (D)/ Bert Ferguson’s (A)/ Sean Ryan’s (Am)
  18. Leaving Lismore (D)
  19. Tombigbee (G)
  20. Aker Erland’s Schottis (Gm)