Join us for a guitar workshop with GuitarFest 2024 performing artist Boubacar Diabate. His teaching style follows the traditional Griot methods that he was taught in Mali, and this means rote instruction via example and emulation/following. According to Bouba these methods work best with students that are more advanced, so if you consider yourself a beginner or an early intermediate player this class may be a lot to handle. I will be taking the class as well, and will be there to help students along if need be. 

Griots are privileged mediators in Mandenka society, masters of musical crafts, and masters of the vital but potentially dangerous force contained in speech, considered as a living matter. Moreover, in an environment of oral culture where an individual's identity is linked to that of his ancestors, the Griot must be able to trace the genealogy of each family back to their mythical ancestor. A Griot's competence is therefore as much a matter of memory as of mastery of music and speech. (from Musée d'ethnographie, Genève)

This is guitar playing in the service of community, history, and self, and workshop participants are sure to come away with new approaches to groove, improvisation, and perhaps guitar playing itself.