For the last I don’t know how many years, I’ve gone to music camp in New Hampshire in late August. The camp is Summer Acoustic Music Week, run by radio station WUMB. And it’s been amazing. Transformative. Inspirational. Fun. You spend a whole week doing nothing but music. The camp got me back into performing, back into songwriting, launched me into playing mandolin and made me huge numbers of friends and situated me in a great Boston-area music scene. And for the first time, I’m considering not going this year. Each year in January the instructors for the summer are announced. And while there is always some change each year, there is a lot of consistency too, and that’s great – there’s a real community, not only among the campers but with the instructors as well; I can’t imagine SAMW without John Kirk, for instance, mandolin/fiddle player extraordinaire, and all-around funny guy. (And every summer I’ve been there he’s been in my band for the student concert.) But this year both the consistency and the change bring issues. Pete and Maura Kennedy are back (and my getting to know them through SAMW is what ultimately really launched my music career so their presence there is huge), teaching exactly the courses they taught last year. I took one of them then – Performance – and it was great, but I can’t imagine there’s much I’m going to learn taking it again the next year. (And the other class they teach is geared entirely towards putting on a show for the student concert; that’s fun, but it’s not really my interest for how to spend my limited music time.) John is back, but he’s teaching beginning fiddle and beginning mandolin, both of which I’ve taken and neither of which I need. Kate Campbell is back teaching songwriting; she’s an amazing songwriter, but I basically got from her teaching what I was going to last year. And then there’s the change. The person teaching voice this time is someone whose style doesn’t work for me. There are a few other new folks, teaching things I’m not especially interested in doing. And then there’s the most important change: Bob Franke won’t be there. I haven’t done Bob’s songwriting class every year I’ve been at SAMW, but every time I have I’ve come out of it with a great song. And that’s enough to make SAMW worthwhile for me. I don’t know what to do. There’s literally only one class on the list that I can see getting much out of (and there are three different class sessions, so that’s a small part of the week). I know there are folks who go to SAMW and don’t even take classes, preferring instead to hang out and jam. And certainly I have a lot of friends there, and I love the community. That place has been so important to me; I can’t imagine not going. But I’m ambitious, and overcommitted, and if I have only one week to spend working on seriously improving my music skills, I want to spend that week really learning. I find nothing more inspiring, and fun, than working really hard at learning new things. That’s what I want to be doing at music camp, and the August SAMW week doesn’t look like it will do that for me. One alternative would be the other SAMW week, which happens in July, at the same place, with different instructors, and some of the same campers (some folks go to both weeks, some change weeks depending on the year, etc.; so I’d definitely know a bunch of the folks there). And Week I is indeed inspiring this year: there are several instructors I’d love to study with, and a number of classes I’d be excited about taking and know I would learn a lot from. And in another year that would work. But there is one other folk music trip I do every summer, and that’s the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival which, this year, conflicts with SAMW Week 1. And I can’t imagine missing Falcon Ridge, especially since it’s a tradition I share with my spouse (which music camp isn’t). Maybe I’ll end up at SAMW and finally get a chance to go swimming in the lake or wandering in the woods, or get a full night’s sleep. But I’m considering looking for a different music camp that would inspire me the way SAMW has in the past. If you have any to recommend, please pass on the word.