Re: Mastery(longish-but worth it)

[Joel Fritz <jfritz666@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Peloquin wrote:
> 
> SOMEONE POSTED THIS:
> 
>> There are NO missing notes on
>> the diatonic (even basic Richter) there are
>> just people who don't know where to find them.
> 
> Well put-This be my mantra.
> 
> Robb Bingham replied:
> 
>> the shortharp has a lot of
>> counter-intutitve things going on.
> 
> Very true and agreed
> 
>> This is something
>> that a harplayer has to deal with- unlike any other
>> instrument: the facts that the 3 octaves on the harp
>> are all different, and that the way you produce those
>> notes changes on the third octave so that every thing
>> you ~drew~ on the first two octaves, you now blow, and
>> every thing you blew, you now draw.
> 
> This is a bit misleading. Blow and draw do not change but the 
> relationship between them does.
> i.e. bottom 2/3 of the short harp has blow to draw notes in the same 
> hole increasing in pitch
> top 1/3 of the short harp has draw to blow notes in the same hole 
> increasing in pitch
> 
>> Combined with the fact that all three octaves are laid out differently,
>> and that notes are missing from the diatonic scale in
>> the 1st and 3rd octaves, it makes for a relatively
>> complicated approach to the instrument.
> 
> 
> As complicated as you would like to make it.
> I see the note layout as a picture in scale tones relative to position 
> I'm playing in. I see the different registers(slightly more and/or les 
> than an octave) in realation to the entire instrument, rather than "oh 
> no, now it's different!" I see scales & patterns as "visual & pitch 
> oriented shapes."
> a descending (pentatonic) run:
> 9b, 8b, 8d, 7d, 6d, 6b
> in my mind is the exact same shape as the same run an octave down:
> 6b, 5b, 4d, 3d, 3d'', 2d(3b)
> there are minor adjustments that I do and understand intuitively now 
> that I have played for a few months. the mental picture/shape is still 
> the same. They cross pollinate to saxophone for me also.
> 
> Anyone that would like to explore these concepts should hit me up at 
> SPAH. I will be part of Dr. Filisko's Teach Ins. ( A Blow-Out and a 
> Teach-In in the same week!?)
> 
>> Or, of course, you can have a totally ~Eff  IT~
>> approach and refuse to approach the instrument in this
>> way at all.
> 
> This is such a popular method for the modern harmonicyst.
> 
> Thanks for y'alls time,
> Michael Peloquin
> http://www.globerecords.com/cgi-bin/db/search.cgi?specific=itemno&phrase=GLO-025 
> 
> 

I think this is fascinating.  I'm a totally non visual thinker. I'm the 
one who finds charts, graphs, and visual aids to be obfuscation.  It's a 
way of thinking that's completely alien to me.



I don't know how I know where the notes are.  I learned to play a few 
things and then I learned a few more.  For me it's a combination of 
sound and muscle memory.  I think of the same series of intervals in 
different octaves as the same thing, but I haven't any idea how I get 
there or what I'm doing to produce each note.

Doesn't mean I'm anywhere as good a player as I'd like to be and 
probably not nearly as good as I could be. It's not somethin I take 
pride in, it's just the way I learned to pley.  I know I haven't gotten 
to the stage that Bunk Johnson described when he claimed to have taught 
Louis Armstrong to play. Johnson said "He could play anything he could 
whistle."


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