RE: The day I stopped worrying...

[Jack Ely <SYS_ELY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

    Joe Terrasi writes...
    
    >...so much about my equipment:
    
    <....> working a small club in Chicago.  I was playing harp and singing.  
    >I remember that at the time I was feeling dissatisfied with the sound I 
    >was getting from my equipment.  Of course I was certain that there was NO 
    >WAY the problem could've been with my playing or technique....
    <....> asked Billy Branch if he wanted to do a couple tunes.  He said sure 
    >and came up to play. <....> 
    >Using MY equipment - you know, the stuff I was unhappy with - Billy 
    >played a couple of tunes. The walls shook. The sky split open with sound.  
    >He tore the ROOF off.  The setup that sounded thin and wimpy moments 
    >before now sounded like the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
    
    <....> To make a long story short, that night I decided to take 
    >responsibility for my sound no matter WHAT I'm playing through.  Don't 
    >get me wrong, I like good equipment as much as the next guy.  I just 
    >realized that the sound was >coming FROM me and just going THROUGH the 
    >equipment.
    
    >Play on, you guys.
    
    I agree with Eric Winsberg - Great story Joe! and well told.
    
    Now I have to add a couple, not as good but just more examples that a 
    carpenter should not blame his tools for poor results.
    
    SPAH - Columbus, 1978 Harry Bee, whom I had never heard before (but had 
    heard a lot about) was selecting a mic for his evening performance. We had 
    8 or 9 lined up on stage for the afternoon open playing. I was afraid we 
    wouldn't have anything good enough for him, even though our selection 
    included a Shure SM57, SM58, a 315 and 330 plus some others not so 
    popular. (Not that he was uppity or anything - I just wasn't used to being 
    around real pros - he was in fact very warm and friendly). Harry tried 
    them all and said I like this one - tapping on a Radio Shack Hi-ball which 
    sold for less than $15 then. That evening he blew me away, playing with 
    tone and emotion like I'd never heard before. He made me cry with his 
    rendition of "The Theme From Exodus" - hell, he cried too.
    
    Another story is one of sheer breath control and/lung power. I was sitting 
    beside Jerry Murad in the hospitality room at a RCHC harmonica festival in 
    Akron. This was only two or three years ago. He saw my open harp case 
    loaded with a half dozen Hering and Hohner chromatics. He pulled a 
    standard looking chromatic out of his case (undoubtedly one he had 
    reworked) and said here, try this one. I blew a few notes and it was 
    responsive, etc. and I said it was nice. He says NO, BLOW the thing! Put 
    something into it. So I did and I got a nice loud response, and I said 
    yeh, I really like it. He took it back and said NO, I mean really BLOW the 
    damn thing. And at that he played a note that sounded like a Mack truck 
    was coming through - ten times louder than what I got out of it.
    
    Yep folks, good electronics and a well set up harmonica is nice, but you 
    got to know some tricks and techniques to make the good sound even better. 
    
    -jack-