My Evolution and Jam Camp plus advice request at the end

[dr.alters-wizardsway@xxxxxxx (Dennis B. Alters MD)]

Hi,

This is a long letter that is not written in a catchy style. I discuss how my exposure to the Gindick Jam integrated with my playing goals in the hopes that others can relate to one players educational needs and see the relevance of participating in this type of experience. I also am requesting advice on how to implement my new goals.

It is too early to practice without disturbing the family and I am really full of enthusiasm to practice so I thought the next best would be to try and conceptualize how the Gindick Jam Camp experience influenced me. By now you have all read Eric, John, Larry and James? very insightful accounts. It was a real pleasure meeting all of you. Let it be said early on before I get into the more technical stuff that the atmosphere, support and camaraderie is excellent for nurturing growth at all levels. I am not representing this as a contrast or alternative to the fine instruction at the Harmonica Masterclass. I attended that two or three years ago in Hawaii and had major breakthroughs in understanding the mystery of basic technique that led me on a long journey to advance from a novice player with poor tone. Both experiences are great. In my case more is better and that includes the private lessons from Dan Byrnes and Rod Piazza that I take plus all the help that I get from my pal!
s like Alan Adamson, Troy Sandow who are more advanced and so very willing to share. I am so very grateful to all the great musicians on Harp L for their very sound advice and wisdom. So I hope this email is taken in that spirit that I am trying to give something back.

I came to the Jam Camp with a lot of questions and left with a lot of answers. I am currently in the long process of integrating and becoming familiar with that knowledge in a careful and patient practice. Any advice on organizing this task is greatly appreciated since I am sure that someone of more skill and experience has crossed this path and may have some ideas on a more efficient approach. So here is my tale.

Twenty years ago or more I picked up Klutz presses Harmonica for the Musically Hopeless. Written cleverly with a cassette by a 60?s sounding warm voiced instructor Jon Gindick. Jon became my commuting pal. We spent hours together. I recall the joys of my first bend. That same joy continues with each new accomplishment and my invisible harping? buddy Jon was encouraging me along. Nothing much happened after that. Occasionally, I would pick up the harp practice the basic riffs and take it with me on trips to goof around on. Then about 7 years ago I heard Rod Piazza live and this little campfire toy was a honking? ax. A full on horn section and woodwinds that wailed, rocked, boogied and swung.

 Upon reaching Jam Camp I finally got to meet Jon who is a brilliant, modest and personable teacher. He emits this warmth and energy and I was back in my groove with my commuter buddy. Actually Jon is truly at home with the groove and the rhythm. He has an eclectic style that is quite passionate. Jon gave me some tips on tone improvement during the pre-jam phone consultation. I practiced these for about 2 weeks. I already had a fairly good tone by most accounts. At first Jon?s recommendations threw me off since I was incorporating something new. In some places it just didn?t fit since I like jump and boogie blues and swing. I am not always looking for a heavy tone that comes from the back of the throat or deeper let?s say way deeper. There are times where I am looking for that slippery light clarinet on the 1-6 holes. There are other times when I want the trombones, sax and trumpet tones and want a lot of depth. Much to my amazement last week I started to draw out a new tone!
 from deep in my gut at least at the esophageal-gastric juncture level or right below the rib cage. It had such depth and added a tone on the 5-6 shake and bent shake as well as the 6 bent and unbent that my wife turned around while driving and commented. All I did was take Jon?s suggestion of articulation and vibrato and go deeper. We had discussed these issues in class. Although I wasn?t consciously focusing on it, things clicked. I think that is what is important and why exposure to ideas plus practice leads to eventual integration. I am going to double check my discovery with my tone teacher Dan Byrnes this weekend. He is a real tone maven and I like second opinions since I dislike unlearning a bad engrained habit. That takes double the work. 

Also I am noticing that I am composing more fluid licks. I credit Rod Piazza for teaching me that awareness but also the exposure of sitting in the Jam Camp circle and trading 4?s, 2?s and 1?s at jam camp has unconscious derivatives where you pick up style by osmosis. Wish I could would have taped that session.  I would have also encouraged Dennis Gruenling and Alan Holmes to be even more aggressive and help us copy their licks. I will explain more about that idea later.

Most of my burning questions for the Jam Camp were theory related and wanting to get more technique about positions and high end bends, tongue block bending and a little about overblows and chromatic playing. ALL OF THIS WAS ADDRESSED TO MY SATISFACTION.

Last January some of you might recall my enthusiastic email about Tim Gonzalez. G. was kind enough to email me a well thought out course on music theory to help me understand what Tim was doing. Bless you G. from the bottom of my heart. In the first few paragraphs G. outlined the chromatic scale degrees. He followed this with a pithy discussion with references of chord construction and a thoughtful breakdown of the12 bar blues progression. G. then enlightened me to a trick of analyzing a chord sequence and determining which inside notes could be used outside to overlap and play into the next chord change. I scanned this material and went back to the first issue of scale degrees. I realized that G. had imparted a great deal of knowledge to me and I started to give myself assignments to master different aspects. The first hurdle was to convert the diatonic harmonica from a system of individual harps to a system of integrated scaled degrees that would be uniform. I really wante!
d to change my thinking and know when I was hitting a certain note, interval etc. On the plane ride to the NJ Jam Camp I experienced a ?Eureka I found it!? I started to find a scale degree system for first position. The next evening in a private session with Dennis Gruenling I was delighted that Dennis had worked this out for three positions and outlined the chromatic pattern. I spoke with him two days ago for a clarification. This really set me up to finally absorb the wonderful material on theory that G. had sent me. So one of my assignments is to get very intuitive and know the scale degrees of what I am playing in a rock solid manner in three positions plus the chromatic in third and using the button. This seems like it will be a fairly long process.

The other interesting point on what G. had sent me on the overlap of notes in a chord changes integrates with Alan Holmes theory information on chord inversions. This will be another major goal for me.

Lastly my earlier idea or wish that Alan and Dennis would have had us copy their licks more precisely stems form the following notion. Rod had been teaching me a Jr. Wells turnaround. As I became familiar with it, I altered my rhythm and syncopation. Out popped Paul Desmond from Brubeck. I was amazed. I developed a humble respect for all licks and riffs. Realizing that mastery of even something simple can result in multiple phrasing opportunities. It is one thing to be able to play some notes. There is a world of difference when someone makes those same notes soar because of their rhythm, syncopation and overall attack. Getting into their style or groove is essential. Now that I can speak clearly on the harmonica, I want my phrases to really say something. Alan and Dennis have that talent as of course Larry and James. Curtis Salgado sat me down 2 years ago and replicated how I sounded compared to his sound. That 90 minutes turned into a 6 month practice that really moved me !
along.

So in conclusion, I am very grateful for the experience. I know Jon is disappointed that I left the jam early. I meant no disrespect to my fellow classmates. In my family musical theater is close to a religion like harmonica and I was so close to NYC I couldn?t help myself. I squeezed in two musicals Sunday afternoon and evening.

Also if anyone has some ideas about a method of approaching the goals that I am organizing for myself please contact me. To repeat:
1)	Continue working on tone, articulation, vibrato and determining the right depth and quality of tone

2)	Learn the scale degrees of what I am playing in three positions plus the chromatic in third and using the button.

3)	 I will also be thinking about 1st position chromatic and determining what my goals will be for that instrument. One issue is getting a hold of more chromatics than my 12 hole C to determine the advantages of playing multiple chromatics vs. learning to play in all keys on one. I think the tone and attack is the key. Advice welcomed.

4)	Map out the notes to determine which same notes can be played inside and outside the chord on the changes

5)	Chord inversions

6)	Developing the phrasing and attack.

7)	I am holding off on overblows and will put some time into the finesse feel for the blow bends and tongue block bends. Those last two become more important as I alter the position and have to dig notes out really accurately to transpose a lick.

Hope this letter is a help to someone out there and encourages people to avail themselves of the wonderful learning opportunities that exist. I will be returning to Jam Camp, Masteclass and private lessons for more instruction in the future. It is all good.

Dennis

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Dennis "Doc" Alters

Harp and Vocals
The Alternators
www.thealternatorsband.com