14th Annual MonManCamp

14th Annual Monroe Mandolin Camp

FIND YOUR LONESOME

When Voices Find Their Harmony

August 18–22, 2027 | Abingdon, Virginia
Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center

Mandolin • Fiddle • Banjo • Guitar • Upright Bass • Voice

Traditional Bluegrass.  Rooted in Monroe. Made to Be Played.

Monroe Mandolin Camp was founded to fill a void: a place where musicians could study the traditional musical language created by Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys in depth—not simply learn a collection of tunes and licks. More than eighty years after Monroe began forging this music, that purpose remains at the heart of MMC.

At Monroe Mandolin Camp, bluegrass is treated as a living musical language. 

What Makes Bluegrass Sound Like Bluegrass?

You know it when you hear it.

That lift. That drive. The tension in a harmony. A tenor above the lead. A fiddle answering a voice. Mandolin pushing against the beat. Banjo rolling through the spaces. Guitar holding the rhythm together. Bass underneath it all, grounding the pulse and harmony.

Together, those elements create the unmistakable sound associated with Bill Monroe and traditional bluegrass: The High Lonesome Sound.

Great bluegrass is not a group of musicians simply playing their individual parts at the same time. It is a conversation.

Melody and rhythm. Voices and instruments. Solos and backup. Drive and space. Tension and release. One musician stepping forward while another knows when to support, answer, or get out of the way.

This year, we will explore the High Lonesome Sound in its fullest sense—not simply as a vocal sound or harmony style, but as the result of all these musical elements working together.

The human voice is one part of that sound. Mandolin, fiddle, banjo, guitar, and bass each bring voices of their own.

What gives bluegrass its power—and what creates that High Lonesome Sound—is not any one element by itself.  It is how they all work together.

Hear the Whole Sound.

At the center of this year’s exploration is one deceptively simple question: What makes all of these individual musical voices sound like bluegrass together?

For every musician, that means listening beyond your own part. It means understanding not only what you are playing or singing, but what is happening around you. Where is the pulse? Where is the tension? Who has the melody? What is supporting it? What is answering it? Where does the drive come from? Where does the music need space? When should you lead? When should you support?And when should you simply listen?

The High Lonesome Sound is not created by one voice, one instrument, one lick, or one harmony. It emerges from the relationships between them.

That is the conversation we will explore throughout the week.

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More Than a Music Camp

Monroe Mandolin Camp is built around serious study, but the learning does not stop when class ends.

It continues in the hallways, over meals, in late-night jams, in the stories passed from one musician to another, and in those moments when something suddenly clicks because of what someone else played, sang, heard, or shared. That is how traditional music has always been passed on.

Person to person.           Player to player.             Voice to voice.

At MMC, the history, the stories, the musical language, and the people who carried it forward are all part of the learning.  We are here not simply to preserve Monroe’s music, but to understand it deeply enough to keep it alive—played, sung, shared, and passed on.

Finding Your Lonesome. Come to spend a week with people who want to know not only what makes bluegrass work—but why it sounds the way it does.

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We’re excited to return to the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center for another week of music, learning, laughter, late-night jams, and the kind of community that keeps people coming back year after year.  At MMC, we don’t just learn the music—we dig into where it came from, how it was passed down, and why it still matters. The history matters. The stories matter. The people who carried this music forward matter. We treat bluegrass as a living musical language—something to be learned deeply, played often, shared freely, and passed on.

Days are filled with focused classes, questions, breakthroughs, and plenty of musical rabbit holes. Nights turn into jams, laughter, shared meals, and those spontaneous moments where somebody plays or sings something and suddenly everyone hears the music a little differently.

And that may be one of the best parts of camp.

MMC is serious about the music, but it is also about finding your people—musicians who are curious, generous, encouraging, and happy to keep learning no matter how long they’ve been playing.

Our students leave with more than new material to work on. They leave with a deeper connection to the music, new musical relationships, and a stronger sense of where they fit inside the tradition.

At the heart of Monroe Mandolin Camp is a simple belief:

To build the future of bluegrass, we have to know its roots.

Learn the language.
Understand the lineage.
Then play it forward.

When you sign-up, you get full access to the following…

  • World Class Instructors who understand the music, culture, folkloric stories, and the traditions that make up original, traditional Bluegrass music.
  • 100-Plus Classes for Mandolin, Fiddle, Banjo, Harmony Singing, Guitar, Upright Bass. You may take classes on any and all instruments—you are not tied down to just one track. If your car is big enough, bring them all! (Fiddle and Banjo classes are structured for the intermediate player level and above.)
  • Special Guests, Presentations, and Activities:
  • Electives: String Changing 101, Student Showcase
  • Daily Instructor-Led Jams: Jams are organized into all levels, including novice/beginner, slow, intermediate, fast, and old-time.
  • 2026 MonManCamp Manual Support materials/handouts for every class are bound and pre-printed into a custom bespoke camp manual book. This resource book contains all music tablature, notation, links to instructor tutorial videos, and additional resource materials presented during camp, and includes class schedules, class descriptions, venue maps, etc. (available for purchase)
  • A Night of Monroe’s Bluegrass Classics Instructor Concert
  • Hot catered meals and onsite lodging.  Your the two biggest decisions are which classes to choose, and how much sleep you need!
  • Scholarship money available
  • Member’s Only Group: Once registered you’ll be invited to join a group for members only. It offers additional community support, and learning opportunities, including monthly zoom gatherings,  and special events with guest artists, discussing various music-related topics.
  • A community of like-minded musicians who are supportive, encouraging, and have a great time together!