RE: Practice

["Spencer B. Gay M.D." <sbg2d@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I was sitting in a guitar class with Jerry Ricks once and he put some
perspective on this one. He said that you guys are trying to play
Mississippi John Hurt just like him and then Lightnin' Hopkins perfect
and all and that is not productive thinking. It took those blues greats
years of being them to play like them. On the other hand, you can work
off their stuff to find your own voice. Little Walter apparently
listened to and practiced Sonny Boy Williamson stuff when he was coming
up. 

- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Roy G
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 5:09 PM
To: sean stephens
Cc: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: R.e practise


Hey Sean,

I can really relate.  When I started learning, I wanted to play Juke.  I

worked it for a while, and then started taking lessons weekly.  At my 
lessons, we continued to work on it for several months, and we got to 
the point where I could play a version of it.  I wasn't playing tongue 
slaps (only blocking for octaves), and I was glossing over a couple of 
spots, and guessing at a couple of other spots, so it wasn't at all like

LW in the details.  Not to mention that my tone and timing were vastly 
and noticeably inferior.  At this point, we did a wider study of LW 
material.  The same sort of deal...playing  WITH "Off the Wall", rather 
than getting it right to the last note.

The end result of all this was I could jam with my LW cds, and keep up 
with the tempo, and at least be in the right neghborhood with the 
melody.  I also found that I now had a bag of riffs I could pull out in 
improvising, although I lacked (and still do) much imagination and skill

in putting them together.

What next?  If your goal is to play Rollercoaster note for note the way 
Little Walter did, it may be the only thing you ever work on.  You 
probably need to work on some other things as well.  I still go back to 
Juke with Glenn Weiser's transcription in hand, and try to improve my 
playing of it from time to time, but in the meantime, I'm trying to 
become more fluent with TB techniques, I'm trying to learn 3rd position,

trying to learn how to jam without falling back to the same riff all the

time.  I've also figured out solos and riffs from dozens of songs that I

thought were pretty cool.  Maybe the thing to do is to figure out what's

holding you up the most from playing Rollercoaster the way you want to, 
and work on that skill through other means.  Those sharp short trills on

Rollercoaster sound pretty crappy comming out of my harp.  Still haven't

nailed them.

rg



sean stephens wrote:

> I appreciate that the harp is, at once ,one of the easiest instruments

> to play and one of the most difficult to play WELL.. That, to improve 
> on it demands keen ears and attention whilst listening to greats 
> coupled with time spent practising and developing ones own chops.My 
> problem is and has been ,since I became hooked on Blues harp, 
> concentrating probably too much on the former ,that is , obsessing 
> about trying to play a tune rote .eg Rollercoaster by L.W(who else 
> ?) stands for me amongst the myriad of sublime harmonica performances,

> as the hottest harp instrumental, period.So I figure, if I can get a 
> handle on it I could probably deal with anything . Three years down 
> the line I still cannot play RC fluently.Yes , I can pick out riffs 
> and jump in but invariably I'll stumble and fall right back out again.
> Can any of you guys out there give me a little advice/empathy on how 
> long to go after a tune or when to let it go and realise your limits.
> I am aware that there isn't much virtue in simply copying classics in 
> this manner in a performing context but you do need a template to 
> build upon.Any thoughts on this ,greatly appreciated.
> obsessively. 
>
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