Re: [Harp-L] Learn 6 positions first year




Should a diatonic (Richter) student be introduced to 6 positions during the first year?

I think this is a terrible idea. I have heard too many people who know lots of positions, who invent all kinds of interesting tunings, who have a broad knowlege of gear - who can't play a lick of real music. Many can't put three clean notes together in a phrase.


My own advice to new players: if you're playing diatonic harp because you like blues, rock and roll, country, folk music - learn second position really well, play for hours every day, break through to the upper holes of the harp, improve your single notes until people tell you how pure your sound is, learn how to play with guitarists, string bands, blues bands.

When you have a command of second position and a sense of what making real music is about, THEN you'll have a basis to learn how to make music in the other positions.

The other positions become magic portals into completely other harps and sounds when you're already playing strong, beautiful riffs and melodies in second position. Frankly, they are new languages. Learn your native language well first, so that you can actually utter intelligible sentences and ideas, and only then learn the other languages.

Ken




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