RE: [Harp-L] Blazing fast Country chops



Ed,
 Many years ago, I wrote Charlie and asked him how I could improve my speed
and he told me to get fiddle hoe-down tunes and copy what they are doing.
Charlie plays single notes and songs like OBS, Fireball Mail etc.where he is
jumping all over the harp,he is not moving the harp much at all but uses a
jaw switch, and opens up the side of his mouth to get the interval jumps.I
used a Marantz unit to play back those lighting speed runs at half speed to
understand what he was doing. After you figure out what he is actually doing
then that's half the battle. The other half is just working it out. It will
come in time. Of course he uses all the harp but a lot of the action comes
in the 2nd and 3rd octave and works his way down to the first octave.
As to the country tuned harp, Charlie said that he uses the C/T 95% of the
time now. You can write to Charlie and request a key sheet for all the songs
he has recorded. It will tell you what key the song is in and what harmonica
he is using.This takes a lot of the guessing out. If I'm doing a country gig
,I'll use C/T 90% of the time also, not only in 2nd position but a lot in
5th position.
The term Country tuned , or Jazz tuned, should be called major 7th tuning
becaues of all the different styles of music you can use it with.
Mickey Raphael, Willie Nelson's harp player uses C/T very little but has to
have it on certain songs.
Terry McMillian , I don't know but I think it's all on a standard diatonic.

Jerl Welch

-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Edward J Vedock
Sent: Friday, November 26, 2004 4:16 PM
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Harp-L] Blazing fast Country chops


What I'm trying to learn is how Charlie McCoy and Terry McMillan and
 various county harp session players play those lightening fast notes.
 --I don't mean the usual county licks--    I mean that blazing fast stuff
 that is used on the up tempo songs. Those Nashville players are so good at
that.

What are the "notes (holes) and breathing patterns" in those torrid
 chops? They seem to be in the mid section a 10 hole harp most of the
time...?
I have tried off and on for years and years to figure that out with no
avail. It
 would be soooo gratifying to be able to do that.

 Should the harp be country tuned? Is that a given on country songs?
("not" a Lee Oscar country tuned MM). But the usual 10 hole Hohner harps.
            Ed
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