weekday warrior

[James Hanson <HANSONJA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

And I thought some people liked having the list to themselves all
weekend...  (joke alert)

but there were some interesting weekend posts...

briefly on the reading music thread...
When I played in orchestras, reading music was VERY necessary. 
Certain kinds of ensemble playing can only be done well using a score.  It
is my belief, however, that for the "looser" types of music (such as rock
and blues) a musician is well-served by learning how to read music
AFTER he has mastered the instrument to a certain degree - it is easier to
graft reading music onto mastery than to unlearn only playing written
notes and learn how to "feel" the instrument.  For harmonica, reading
music is probably more useful for chromatic players than the typical
diatonic player who is always switching harp keys and then needs to do
a variety of transposing in his head....  (Since I can read music, I have
often found it useful for turning difficult to figure out by ear vocal
melodies or guitar solos into harp solos, but have found it difficult to
"sight read" a melody line on the harp.  I prefer playing "by ear" - if yer
earz are good, they're always attached....)


I do, however, bow in wonder and astonishment to Doug Tate.  I may
have to go out and rent Freebie and the Bean II....  The first one was a
classic....

For that Yellow Pine Harmonica Contest - is that anywhere near the
town of Harpster, Idaho (I kid you not - it exists)?

A very very brief point on the vibrato-tremolo-warble bit:
String players (see - I used to do it so I know) DO vary the pitch on both
sides of "center" - both up and down.  And if you've ever seen a violin
section in full swing you'll know that they do it constantly.  A trade secret
is that part of the appeal of PITCH vibrato for string players is that it lets
you "miss" a note and still sound fine - if your vibrato is wide enough and
you don't miss by too much you'll hit it somewhere in there!

A similar cool effect is to bend a chord like the 3-4 draw chord where
the two notes will bend differently so that as you bend them the chord
changes.  I could probably be committed for abusing that one.

and finally...

I went through a lot of email messages after coming back from the
weekend... most very interesting, I'm not complaining.  But I do want to
put a note of appreciation in for Chris Pierce and the work he does to
keep the list going!  500 messages a day - mostly "bounce backs" that
need to be dealt with....  and he doesn't get paid for doing this!  Muchas
gracias,  Senor Pierce.

J. Hanson
 (head)Shake +  (brain)Rattle = (Rock) and  Roll