RE: [Harp-L] Making connections

["Eric Neumann" <eneumann@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mark,
 
I've been in that slump lots and lots of times in my 350 years of playing harp.. heh... hyperbole is cool...
 
Anyway, what I do now when I get tired of listening to myself resolve on the 6 blow...(for instance) during my free jams - is get out those 3x5 cards with the blues scale written on them - shuffle them up - deal and start to disect the choices to suit my ear, and mood. You can come back the next day and try and remember the licks you liked best - then as if by magic the slump seems to go away.
 
Note: each note in a giving position's blues scale is written - one note per card. Then dealt out in a random sequence.
 
Blues scale = blue note choices. 
 
The riffing does not have to be always in one position - you can transcribe a few sets to cover 1st, 2nd and 3rd positions for example.
 
Iceman, if he weren't in the middle of a torrent might offer some advice - since I am sharing the essence of his idea that he passed to me, and others during the Skokie jam camp. Remember? =)

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Mark Wilson 
	Sent: Sun 9/5/2004 12:10 AM 
	To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx 
	Cc: 
	Subject: [Harp-L] Making connections
	
	

	I've had a few experiences where I've looked at and adopted something fairly
	basic and simple, that has completely revolutionized my harmonica playing.
	I guess you'd call those experiences quantum leaps.  This seems really basic
	now, but it took me more than 6 months to figure out that playing the root
	notes that fit with the I V  IV chords sounds really good, all the time,
	even if you can't do much of anything else. Of course, I'd come across this
	info numerous times early on,  but for some reason it took 6 months for it
	to stick.  Another biggie was the play softly with resonance, achieve big
	tone, don't blow too hard, feel the music in your head thing that took me
	almost 3 years to get, (even though I'd heard it a million times).  It's a
	miracle, but now I can make a Special 20 last for more than 6 months.  In
	the past I'd blow one out in a weekend.
	
	 Here's what's getting me now.  I spent about an hour recording myself
	tonight playing 3rd position over a major I IV V.  With annoying regularity,
	I went up the the 8 draw on the one chord and worked myself down to the 1
	draw. When I went back and listened the recordings, I thought to myself,  if
	I've played that lick once, I've played it five hundred and eighty seven
	billion, gazillion times!  OUCH!
	
	
	This is my biggest problem right now.  If you can't tell already, I'm in
	major slump mode, and have been there for almost 2 months.  I'm looking for
	something to snap me out of it.
	
	Any suggestions?
	
	Thanks
	Mark
	
	
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