RE: [Harp-L] Blazing fast Country chops

["Ed Jones" <ENJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.charliemccoy.com/recordings.html Bottom of Page...
Keying for all his songs... MS Word or MAC files...

-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of dfwhoot
Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2004 1:37 PM
To: Edward J Vedock; harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [Harp-L] Blazing fast Country chops


Ed,
 Many years ago, I wrote Charlie and asked him how I could improve my
speed and he told me to get fiddle hoe-down tunes and copy what they are
doing. Charlie plays single notes and songs like OBS, Fireball Mail
etc.where he is jumping all over the harp,he is not moving the harp much
at all but uses a jaw switch, and opens up the side of his mouth to get
the interval jumps.I used a Marantz unit to play back those lighting
speed runs at half speed to understand what he was doing. After you
figure out what he is actually doing then that's half the battle. The
other half is just working it out. It will come in time. Of course he
uses all the harp but a lot of the action comes in the 2nd and 3rd
octave and works his way down to the first octave. As to the country
tuned harp, Charlie said that he uses the C/T 95% of the time now. You
can write to Charlie and request a key sheet for all the songs he has
recorded. It will tell you what key the song is in and what harmonica he
is using.This takes a lot of the guessing out. If I'm doing a country
gig ,I'll use C/T 90% of the time also, not only in 2nd position but a
lot in 5th position. The term Country tuned , or Jazz tuned, should be
called major 7th tuning becaues of all the different styles of music you
can use it with. Mickey Raphael, Willie Nelson's harp player uses C/T
very little but has to have it on certain songs. Terry McMillian , I
don't know but I think it's all on a standard diatonic.

Jerl Welch

-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Edward J Vedock
Sent: Friday, November 26, 2004 4:16 PM
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Harp-L] Blazing fast Country chops


What I'm trying to learn is how Charlie McCoy and Terry McMillan and
various county harp session players play those lightening fast notes.
 --I don't mean the usual county licks--    I mean that blazing fast
stuff
 that is used on the up tempo songs. Those Nashville players are so good
at that.

What are the "notes (holes) and breathing patterns" in those torrid
chops? They seem to be in the mid section a 10 hole harp most of the
time...? I have tried off and on for years and years to figure that out
with no avail. It  would be soooo gratifying to be able to do that.

 Should the harp be country tuned? Is that a given on country songs?
("not" a Lee Oscar country tuned MM). But the usual 10 hole Hohner
harps.
            Ed
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