I've never tackled more than twelve people in a class, and during the workshop at the 1964 Berkeley Folk Festival, when Bess Lomax Hawes mentioned that she was currently teaching classes of sixty people at a shot, I sort of sat there with my jaw slack.

That two-hour workshop was most educational. I stuck pretty much to the lesson plans that Barry Olivier had given me, which is not really different from what Bess Hawes talked about, but I sure gained a lot of insights and information from that workshop.

For myself, I tend to stick to pretty simple accompaniments. I've had several years of classic guitar lessons and when I have a good tail-wind, I can play some pretty hefty classic pieces, full-blown concert stuff. But—for song accompaniment, too much razzle-dazzle can distract and detract from the main point, which is the song. I find that good ol' "Burl Ives basic," or something like what Pete Seeger called "the lullabye lick" in his "Folksingers' Guitar Guide," maybe with a bass-run or two, is just about right. One can get some nice sounds merely by being judicious about which bass notes you play rather than just alternating randomly.

I once worked out a very flashy classic guitar accompaniment for "The Wraggle-Taggle Gypsies" that I quickly discovered was too dang complicated to play at the same time I was trying to sing the song! So I backed off to something a lot simpler.

Anybody see B. B. King on PBS's "Soundstage" a few nights ago? He had a couple of guests with him, one of whom was a guitarist who could play about thirty notes per nanosecond! Most impressive! King didn't play anywhere near as fast and flashy as this fellow did (you felt that he could if he wanted to), but every note that King played was important. And just the right note at that point. An object lesson there.

Don Firth