Gordon Bok Workshops

Gordon offers two different workshops. Generally class sizes range from ten to twenty students and the class runs for about two hours, with a small break somewhere in the middle.

                 Playing the 12-String Guitar:
Gordon will offer students tips and teach techniques on how they can best use their 12-string guitars to help the song tell its story. The 12-string can be an instrument of great tonal variety and versatility. This is not a class about learning to play the 12-string guitar; students should come to class with their own guitars and should already be comfortable playing them.

                 Moving Poetry Toward Music:
        Gordon says "A poem on the page can be a lovely thing; a poem in the mind can be a wise and lifelong friend. But when you rattle a poem around in your body (either speaking or singing) in all those images and vibrations you have a nourishment better then food. One of my favorite musical adventures is trying to lift a poem from the page into singing, so I can have it in my body when I need it."

In this workshop students listen to examples of poems that folks have successfully set to music, and look for some principles therein, then take some poems and look for ways to sing them. Students should come to class with a poem or short, personal story they've written. Often Gordon will choose one of them for the entire class to work on. The end result isn't a polished product, but the understanding of how to approach a poem and learn some tools to get them singing.

photo by Bill Gamble, all rights reserved