Re: [Harp-L] Re: The Groove?

[The Iceman <icemanle@xxxxxxx>]

Always interested to hear different opinions.


I've had success teaching the groove to students, so it can be done.


Seems to me the arguments below are similar to those that claim "you can't learn perfect pitch. you have to be born with it".


However, the David L. Burghe courses have shown otherwise.


Don't like absolute statements that take away a viable possibility from interested students, so disagree with the comments below.



-----Original Message-----
From: chicago bluesman <chicagobluesman@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: harp-l <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sun, Sep 8, 2013 4:05 pm
Subject: RE: [Harp-L] Re: The Groove?


Good thoughts, Jon.  When I read the original posting my thoughts, too, were 
that the way to address the issues raised is to listen, play and feel rather 
than overthink it.  To me, it's irreducible--you can't reverse engineer it, 
won't be successful by breaking it down into its component parts, you can't hope 
to function like a food scientist where you isolate the chemical basis for grape 
flavoring and then recreate it.  Nope.  But, still, I'm sympathetic to the 
question.

The process of acquiring comfort with the instrument and becoming fluent in a 
style of music--blues in all its forms, country, bluegrass, jazz, Irish fiddle 
tunes--is much like learning a language.  First come the basic skills in 
producing the requisite noises--the phonemes.  On the harp, this would be 
comparable to learning to produce single notes cleanly, with strong and stable 
tone.   Then you learn grammar, structure, phrasing--like basic words and 
phrases.  Eventually you acquire the skill to say what you want to say 
but...then the hard part starts: you need to have something interesting to speak 
about.  That really is the hardest part.  Finding your own ideas.

My advice: listen and be moved by other players.  Like speech, it starts with 
emulation.  Sample all of the great players that are constantly referenced here.  
Listen to live players.  Play along with a few--just a few--fav recordings in a 
call-and-response fashion.  Push yourself to learn a few key riffs or melodies 
verbatim--like Big Walter's solo on Walking By Myself or Juke in its entirety or 
Cotton's standard solo on Blow Wind or Big Walter's Trouble In Mind or the 
classic Sonny Boy riff that usually opens Nine Below Zero or...whatever.  But 
don't think that copying these tunes/riffs will be the key.  Be patient.  Always 
be working on something.  Experiment with the subtleties such as your attack, 
differences in embouchure (I shift between pucker & u-block constantly, with 
occasional tongue block octave chords), volume, hand effects, vibrato, breathing 
and control of your air column.  You may find a way to get optimal tone if 
you're relaxed and find an embouchure and playing stance that seems to let the 
instrument resonate and sing most freely.  It should be mostly fun and relaxed 
but you really have to be patient with the process.  

My two cents.

John