RE: [Harp-L] personal epiphany - was re: Sounds like Harmonica

["Bradford Trainham" <bradford.trainham@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The parallel between conversation style and treatment of one's instrument is
intriguing to me.  I find long-winded conversationalists seem to fall into
two types.
One has a difficult time getting to the proper word or phrase that best
expresses what he/she wants to say.
The other has a hard time honoring the personal aural space of the other
hapless participant in the conversation. 
To try to draw the parallel, for the first type, imagine me in a lesson with
Michael Rubin wherein he has me attempting to improvise a solo in say fifth
position Dorian on a C harp on top of a Band-In-A-Box progression.
I'm on a safe note...  The proverbial clock is ticking.. But there's a
lag/disconnect between my musical intuition's sending the right signal to
the part of the brain capable of propelling me to the next note and the part
of the brain that attempts to police my conduct from within the particular
constraints of the scale. 
For the second type of conversationalist's parallel in the harp world,
consider any "Gus"... Or any harp player at a jam who can't stop to
accommodate a singer or other instrumentalist.
I guess what we might get from this artificial comparison is that while we
tend to think of solos as our moments to shine as individuals, we're still,
in the best cases parts of musical conversations and we'd do well to
properly consider the musicians we're temporarily asking to assume a
background role while we "make our point"...
Brad (What did you say?  I wasn't listening!!) Trainham
 

-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Tim Moyer
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 9:14 AM
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] personal epiphany - was re: Sounds like Harmonica

Iceman wrote:
> The  problem was in her delivery - she is a high energy person and 
> once she started  talking, it was a non-stop stream of words, almost 
> like she could circular  breathe while talking. There were no spaces 
> or pauses between her ideas. It just  kept coming relentlessly. I 
> found that my brain turned off after about 15 minutes.

I got a piece of advice about parenting that applies here, and also to
music: the more you say, the less they hear.  This was intended to advise a
parent to keep their speeches to their children consise and to the point,
but the same principle can be applied to music.  You might think that by
playing more you're saying more, but the truth is that your audience is
probably hearing less.  

Guilty as charged...

-tim



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