Re: From Blues to Irish

["Stephen Shaw" <moorcot@xxxxxxx>]

Winslow's advice is all very sound.  But in all humility I would refer you 
to my website which deals with much of this stuff (sometimes in a potted way 
admittedly!), and I try to point you in the right direction with regard to 
harps, tunings, good stuff to listen to, good sources of tunes, useful links 
and more.  Any further advice is always welcome and I'm forever updating the 
site in the light of what I find out.  Go on, have a look - there's no money 
in it for me!

All the best

Steve Shaw.


Want more than the blues?  Try Irish!
http://mysite.freeserve.com/trad_irish_harmonica





>From: "Winslow Yerxa" <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>
>Reply-To: "Winslow Yerxa" <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>
>To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: From Blues to Irish
>Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 17:45:43 -0000
>
>
>--- In harp-l-archives@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "ChipComcast" <jandkday@xxxx>
>wrote:
>
>   I would like to put it back on the Irish stylist.
>
>   What can I do beyound the blues and try some Irish music?  I know
>about
>Jimmy Conway & Brenndan Power.  I know they try to imiatate a fiddle
>and
>songs are mostly in D and in 2 parts.
>
>  But what else???
>
>==================
>
>It's not just fiddle. Accordion is also a great source for harmonica
>players. Diatonic accordions, widely used in Ireland, Quebec,
>Louisiana, etc. have a tuning very similar to diatonic harmonica
>Richter tuning and a push/pull system that coresponds to blow/draw,
>so much of what they do fits well on harmonica.
>
>Reels, etc - let's just call it "trad" for simplicity - require a
>somwhat different skill set to what is required for blues. There's a
>lot more steady streaming of fast notes, there is more arpeggio
>playing and skipping around and of course ornaments of various kinds.
>
>I'd suggest getting a metronome and use it to get up to speed on
>things like getting up and down the scale from Holes 4 through 10.
>Trad tunes often move at 120-140 beats/minute, with the melody having
>up to 4 notes per beat - a stiff clip if you're not used to it. Start
>by playing the scale going up and then back down, starting on each
>note in the range of Holes 4-10. Start at whatever speed you can
>comfortably and reliably manage, then work your speed and assurance
>up in little nudges. Along with straight scales, work on nighboring-
>hole arpeggios, things like:
>
>(holes numbers, same breath) 4-5-6-5, 4-5-6-5, 5-6-7-6, 5-6-7-6, etc.
>
>5-4-5-6, 5-4-5-6, etc.
>
>6-5-4-5, 6-5-4-5, etc.
>
>Once you have a good command of those, try some of the skipping
>arpeggios:
>
>6-4-5-4, 6-4-5-4, etc.
>
>4-6-5-6, 4-6-5-6, etc.
>
>These may benefit from double embouchure - cultivating the ability to
>switch between a right and left tongue block.
>
>A huge amount of what you want to play will work most easily in first
>position. Some of it will require third, amybe fourth, and certainly
>some second as well, depending on the mode of the tune.
>
>One piece of good news - if you have a good command of octaves,
>tongue-slaps and other such chordal tngue-blocking techniques, these
>can be adapted nicely to trad tunes if used with taste and discretion.
>
>Once you have some of the techniques under your belt- or while you're
>acquiring them - find some books of Irish or Scots traditional tunes
>and learn some of them. If you don't read well, you can also check
>out the huge amount of ABC tunes online. ABC is a way of writing down
>tunes using only letters and punctuation. There are thousands of trad
>tunes in ABC format online and you can download them as MIDI files
>that you can play along with. You can also get software that will
>play back ABC tunes at any tempo and even in different keys. That way
>you can learn the tunes by ear. For more on this, visit the ABC home
>page:
>
>http://www.gre.ac.uk/~c.walshaw/abc/
>
>
>Find out where there are slow sessions in your area. A slow sessions
>is where trad musicians get to gether to play through tunes slowly so
>as to get a sure footing before trying to play them up to speed. You
>can learn a lot at slow sessions in addition to just tunes - it's a
>hangout for trad musicians. You might want to go just to observe at
>first. That way you can find out what tunes are local favorites, and
>concentrate on learning some of them so that you have something in
>common with other local players.
>
>There may also be local Irish or Scottish music societies. Even if
>it's something like a fiddle club, they may be open to non-fiddlers.
>You may have to negotiate your way past some anti-harmonica
>prejudice, but what else is new, eh? You may actually find that
>people are curious and open about the harmonica.
>
>A few other trad harmonica musicians in addition to Brendan Power and
>James Conway:
>
>The Murphy family - an Irish family of harmonica players who made a
>record on Claddagh that is something of a classic.
>
>James Thurgood - a Canadian harmonica player on this list who plays
>Scots-Canadian tunes from his native Cape Breton. He recently
>recorded a fine CD which he announced on this list.
>
>Donald Black - an excellent Scottish player with a couple of very
>fine CDs out.
>
>Mark Graham - an old-timey player from Seattle who has recorded trad
>with Irish fiddler Kevin Burke and with Open House, along with his
>own American old-timey records.
>
>The French-Canadian connection - French Canadian trad is based on
>Scots and Irish but with its own wild twists, and some excellent
>harmonica players (and accordionists and fiddlers). I'd recommend
>visiting the Virtual Gramophone at the National Library of Canada,
>which has a couple of thousand old 78rpm records online in mp3
>format. Look for players like Louis Blanchette, Henri Lacroix,
>Adelard Saint-Louis, and Mary Bolduc for harmonica players - and
>that's just scratching the surface of the music.
>
>http://www2.nlc-bnc.ca/gramophone/src/home.htm
>
>I can't empahsize enought that listening to just harmonica players is
>too limiting. Listen to whatever music is available in the tradition
>regardless of instrument. Let it seep in, then find ways to let it
>come out through your insturment. Sometime the right instrument will
>be a standard diatonic. Sometimes it'll be a Hohner tremolo or maybe
>an Asian tremolo (different tuning), or even a chromatic or a country
>tuning.
>
>Winslow
>

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