Lead Sheet Bootcamp
An IMPROV INTENSIVE with Deborah Henson-Conant
Now take the full retreat at your own pace including Basic Training, Bootcamp Sessions and Repertoire Jams.
PLUS RESOURCES like “Chord Symbol Anatomy,” “Left Hand Patterns” and “Chord Spelling“
“Lead Sheets” are the roadmaps of musical improvisation. Once you know the “DHC Lead Sheet Formula” you can turn any simple lead sheet into a spontaneous 5-part arrangement – including improv sections to expand your creative expression.
Lead Sheet Boot Camp Experiences and Resources include:
- Basic Training (at your own pace)
- LIVE-PLAY Boot Camp Sessions
- Repertoire Jams
- Chord Symbol Anatomy
- Left-Hand Patterns
- Chord Spelling and more…
It’s not just a workshop it’s a creative support system and a series of play-dates so you can put it all in action.
- Basic Training is available 24/7 – as soon as you join, so you can get the fundamentals at your own pace before the program even begins!
- The LIVE workshop includes training, drills, repertoire jams – and Q&A’s – so you can ask for help.
- All sessions get recorded so you never have to miss anything. With replays available 24/7
- Build your personal learning library with the DOWNLOADABLE AUDIO & PDF files you get to keep forever.
- Dozens of lead sheets to start your own improv play-book with – including favorite Folk, Classical, Celtic, Latin & Holiday melodies – and you’ll be ready to play live for parties, friends, bedside – or just for yourself.
- Use my special “Left-Hand Patterns” playsheet to build your left hand dexterity little by little – as you play
- Relax! You have 6 Months Access to all replays so you review and play along to your heart’s content – and you never have to play alone. But once you learn the DHC method, you won’t need to review – you’ll be too busy playing!
Imagine …
What if you were liberated from the notes on the page, free to interpret this music any way you wanted: as a meditation, as a joyful upbeat romp, as a musical game to play with friends – even non-musical friends, as a fun encore, as a sing-along with children (or grownups!)
Watch me explain what it means to play from the Lead Sheet and my Boot Camp formula and process:
I love how step-by-step you teach this. I’ve always been very intimidated and overwhelmed with the very idea of lead sheets, but you build from the ground up and make it doable. I also love the 5-Part Arrangement plan and am having a blast messing around with it! Thank you!
This was brilliant, thank you!
So useful to have the repetition – really getting it into my head.
Just love the simplicity and musicality of this approach.
And it’s so useful to revisit the videos. Thank you!
Loved playing freely and not worrying about the notes!
What if you could …
What if you could instantly expand your repertoire with new tunes in styles from Celtic to Classical to Blues? What if you could add improv to the tunes you already play?
How can some people just sit down and create an entire piece of music from no more than a single-line melody and a few chords?
Do they have some magic ability you don’t … or is it something you could learn? To just sit down and PLAY the tunes you love – not painstakingly ‘work on a new piece’ but just sit down and play it.
“Lead Sheets” are the Roadmaps that musicians use to improvise – and they’re easy to read if you know how. Hundreds of harp players learned the foundations of playing from a lead sheet in just 5 days during my recent “5-Day Harp IMPROV Challenge.”
YOU can learn it, too – and then take that basic skill and use it to create an endless stream of repertoire – from Celtic to Classical to Blues – creating YOUR OWN liberating, FUN, creative improvisations.
Trying to perfect every single note is what keeps us from playing with fluency. Getting over the hump to play FLUENTLY can be a challenge! That’s why we do it TOGETHER. Yes, even in the self-paced replay version, you play ALONG, you learn while doing it – and you keep going. That’s what gives you FREEDOM.
Invest in your Creative Freedom
Your Investment: $497 $397 (20% OFF)
Includes 6-Months Access to all trainings and replays –
PLUS Basic Training, Downloadable PDFs & Audio files, Bootcamp Replay Library & all Resources
(credit card or PayPal)
PLUS these great bonuses
So you can Triple your play-along experience
BONUS #1: 2020 Lead Sheet Bootcamp REPLAY LIBRARY
BONUS #2: 2020 HOLIDAY Lead Sheet Bootcamp REPLAY LIBRARY
BONUS #3: 2021 HOLIDAY Lead Sheet Bootcamp REPLAY LIBRARY
For Academy Members & those joining the Academy
NOTE: All students currently in Hip Harp Academy at the FULL Level – are ALREADY REGISTERED for Leadsheet Bootcamp (so if you’re already a FULL-Level member of the Academy, don’t sign up again!).
If you’re not in the Academy and you want to make sure to get absolutely everything, including a full year of classes at Hip Harp Academy check out Hip Harp Academy Yearlong Membership Here or just register here. Hip Harp Academy Full Yearlong Membership includes “Lead Sheet Bootcamp Retreat ” PLUS over a dozen other classes, including Hip Harp Toolkit / Arrange Yourself, Vamps & Loops, Jazz for Harps, Harp Jam, New Blues Beyond the Page, The Nightingale Beyond the Page, Strings of Passion, Baroque Flamenco Beyond the Page PLUS new classes we’re adding regularly. If you have questions about how the Academy works, just email using my Ask a Question Form.
When I thought about what would MOST empower harpists, it’s the ability to read from lead sheets, enriching the melodies with accompaniment and then expanding them into multi-part arrangements.
Why Musicians Love Lead Sheets
Imagine sitting at your harp, joyously playing song after song, never turning a page – because each one-page song-sketch is a blueprint that YOU are bringing to life improvising with a simple creative formula you can use over and over – yet the music always sounds fresh.
That’s what it’s like to improvise from a Lead Sheet. You can learn HOW to do it in an afternoon — like learning to ride a bike – BUT to go on adventures you need a chance to practice it over and over LIVE with a coach who shows you how to keep going without falling off.
That’s what you get in Lead Sheet Bootcamp.
Why do we call it a Boot camp?
The beauty of a bootcamp is that you don’t have to ‘figure it out’. It’s all laid out for you and you just have to show up and play. And play. And play. And play.
And you don’t have to do it alone. I’m there leading you, so you keep going. You truly ‘get it’ because instead of trying to ‘understand it’ with you intellect – you let go and PLAY, starting with the fundamentals and then expanding only to your comfort level.
Here’s the truth: Most harpists get caught up in perfectionism, listening for every mistake and then stopping to ‘fix mistakes’ – but that’s exactly the wrong thing to do if you want to learn fluency and musicality.
Lead Sheet Bootcamp helps you keep going, to free yourself and learn just how simple it can be to expand your repertoire and your creativity with Lead Sheets.
Finding your freedom is about connection
… not perfection.
Your Creative Coach on this Adventure
I’m Deborah Henson-Conant, and I’ve been composing, arranging and creating shows since I was a kid. I now play shows with symphonies and on solo stages with the electric harp that was created for me by CAMAC Harps, the “DHC Light”.
When I was 11, my mom gave me a 10-minute lesson on how to play lead sheets on piano – the way jazz players do – but in my little-kid way. It was the fastest way for me to learn to be able to just sit down and play the music I loved: musicals, jazz and 1940’s and 1950’s movie music.
She taught me the basics … because that’s all she knew. But she started me on a life’s adventure with the musical short-hand that is what Lead Sheets are all about.
And guess what? I use a many of the same skills and principles to play the music I record and perform today to perform concerts, one-woman shows, concertos with orchestra – and everything in between. These skills even helped me to get a Grammy-Nomination and first prize in the International Songwriting Competition (ISC). They helped me make a living when I started playing the harp in my 20’s. They helped me when I started a band in my 30’s, when I started composing for and playing as an orchestra soloist in my 40’s and 50’s.
I’m living the life I dreamed of as a kid: the life of a composer and a performer. What I didn’t imagine, was that I’d also have the incredible opportunity to create my own Academy to share all these skills with thousands of passionate, committed musicians around the world. That’s what I get to do in classes like “Lead Sheet Bootcamp Retreat.” I hope we’ll be doing it together.
As Featured In:
–Laurie Esch Taylor
If you’re not in the Academy and you want to make sure to get absolutely everything, including a full year of classes at Hip Harp Academy check out Hip Harp Academy Yearlong Membership Here or just register here. Hip Harp Academy Full Yearlong Membership includes “Blues Harp-Style” PLUS over a dozen other classes, including Hip Harp Toolkit / Arrange Yourself, Summer Harp Jam, Strings of Passion, Baroque Flamenco Beyond the Page PLUS any bonuses offered for single classes like this one. If you have questions about how it works, just email using my Ask a Question Form.
–BLYTHE TAIT (Australia)
