Re: [Harp-L] Are there pro harp players who do not know theory?



Mike,
I think I may have gotten an eyebrow-raise from you at that Austin coffee shop when I mentioned that I do not think in terms of scales, ever, when I'm playing.


But one of the bases of my music is your list of stuff to know, below, and of course it is tremendously useful, probably unomittable if one wants to play music your colleagues might throw at you, and is undoubtedly unomittable if you want to compose music.

Once I have analysed and absorbed a piece of music I rarely think of any of the elements on your list while playing it. As you know, this kind of thing happens naturally.

I recall that when I was a newbie and didn't understand the concept of improvisation, I believed you had to have all this stuff running in your head constantly, and you had to think 32 bars ahead - I thought I was a fraud for not experiencing playing this way.

The stuff I do actually think about when I'm working is whatever theoretical ideas I'm developing for my own uses. For instance, I have developed an approach to soloing that allows me to tell myself, and the audience, a 'story' that we can all follow, hopefully. A theory, I guess, in the sense of music theory (as opposed to a 'conjecture'). Since I'm improvising the story as I go along, my theory gives me interesting places to jump to - and surprise myself with - places I might not go without thinking about it, just a little.

Possibly the main reason I think about it while playing, when perhaps I should just be soloing and that's that, is that I'm constantly discovering new stuff that goes into my theory of musical storytelling, but only if I keep a bit of thinking going in the middle of it all. I'm often pleased when I hear recordings of solos I did sans any thinking, but I have found that keeping conscious of something, whether one's own personal ideas or scales and chords or whatever, helps you keep growing and changing. -K

Major scale
Blues Scale
Minor
flat 3rds
the circle of fifths
1st, 2nd and third positions
the 12 bar blues progression
I, IV , V chords
half steps and whole steps




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