I just got back last week from a powerful experience. I attended a 5-day / 6-night retreat learning traditional old-time West Virginia clawhammer banjo at Dwight Diller's place on Brown's Creek in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. I’ve been thinking about the experience and what I would say to someone who might be considering going to one of Dwight’s retreats. For me, this was an amazing and wonderful experience. I’ve played Scruggs-style bluegrass banjo for several decades, and always wanted to learn clawhammer but never got serious about it until this year. A friend told me that Dwight was the man, so I found his website and ordered his DVDs. The more I got into the DVDs and reading his website, I realized I wanted to go to one of his retreats. It exceeded my expectations. Dwight is a deep river and an intense individual. He is deeply rooted in his West Virginia mountain culture and heritage, and a highly intelligent, insightful, educated and articulate man. He’s also a man of paradoxes. He takes his music very seriously, yet he’ll tell you “it ain’t nothin’.” He repeatedly impressed me as a kind of Zen teacher, a Mennonite shaman of the clawhammer banjo and old-time fiddle. This may sound dramatic or exaggerated, until you spend some quality time with Dwight. I wouldn’t suggest Dwight’s retreats for a simple carefree vacation in the mountains with a little banjo thrown in, to casually learn some clawhammer or a few tunes. Studying with Dwight was a quasi-monastic endeavor and not for the thin-skinned or faint of heart. Not to suggest that he’s mean, or anything remotely close to that (in fact he’s the exact opposite), but he is direct and often downright blunt. He has little tolerance for ego or arrogance and doesn’t suffer fools. On the other hand, he is deeply respectful (if you are) and strictly prohibits and avoids any disparaging criticism of one’s sincere effort to make honest authentic music from the heart. At Brown’s Creek I had to re-examine what I really came there for. To learn some cool new techniques and tunes? To have my ego stroked? To immerse myself in a landscape, a culture, a history, an attitude towards the world and life and death, and try to begin to learn about a tradition of music that can’t be disentangled from its context? Dwight won’t tell you how great you’re doing. But what he does is far more effective, if you’ve truly come to learn this particular music and to progress. He points out what you need to work on to get better, and tries his very best to show you how to do it. Then, when you’ve figured something out and proudly show him how good you are, he points out the next thing you need to work on. My ego wanted to hear how great I was doing, but that wasn’t what Dwight was about. What Dwight did, with the help of his talented, patient and gentle son Caleb Diller and tireless, enthusiastic co-instructor “Baldy Bob” Sattler, was relentlessly push, encourage, nudge and tease me and the other students to the next level, and then the next level beyond that. We ate, drank, breathed and dreamed West Virginia clawhammer banjo for five days and six nights. One should also be very clear that Dwight doesn’t teach generic clawhammer (he don’t play none of that ‘Round Peak-y’ stuff…). He is attempting to transmit “cultural messages” as manifested in a very particular brand of traditional playing, passed down to him from his musical elders (most notably the Hammons family) in and around Pocahontas County, West Virginia. It’s a serious business to him, and demands an attitude of humble respect from the student. As Dwight told me, “your ‘system’ (not you, but your ‘system’) is arrogant, and that’s what’s stoppin’ you from gettin’ this rhythm.” At first I didn’t want to hear it, but after much reflection I realized he was dead on. Honestly, deep down I thought that, hey, I’m a pretty damn solid bluegrass banjo picker, and not too shabby on the guitar either, so how hard can it be to master this simple playing style?” Dwight helped me begin to understand the true depth of this music, and consequently the superficiality, arrogance and disrespect of my attitude coming in. I think it’s safe to say that all the students at the retreat basically spent the entire time trying to find and internalize the ‘right’ rhythm. Any tunes learned were incidental and trivial by comparison. In the end I think I made substantial progress in relaxing my entire body, not using my muscles, keeping my thumb in position, letting my fingers "dance on the strings", playing with “snap” and the right amount of syncopation and “controlled violent aggression.” More importantly, I found an attitude of respect and humility and an appreciation for the complexity and depth of this deceptively ‘simple’ music. It’s serious, and “it ain’t nothin’.” Thanks to Dwight, Caleb, and Baldy Bob for sharing something rare and very special. I can’t wait to go back.