Making Song School New Again for Returning Students

Let me say that I love SS and all the courses that are offered. I've done a number of them multiple times. Some get me exited to revisit every year and some just aren't for me.

I found something interesting last year. I was tending to attend classes less and quietly write down by the St. Vraine more. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but as I attend my 7th SS I was wondering if there were some ideas on taking a fresh look at SS for returning students. What have other long-timers done to get the most out of the week?

Here are a few ideas:

- Ask to be an assistant in a course that you've taken a number of times
- Make it a mission to play with 10 new people you've never played with before
- Find someone's song that you enjoy and learn to cover it before you leave
- Take a new song idea and find a guitar style or groove from someone and see if you can come up with something new
- Camp away from your normal friends and find a bunch of new ones (you'll still see plenty of your favorite folks, but waking up to new people will drive new relationships)
- Find a place that you've never hung around and try to write a song there. New surroundings can drive new ideas

These are just somethings that hit me. What else could be done?

-Rob