Re: [Harp-L] Re: (Harp-L) Hello and introduction

[rdg <rdg@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Just an additional comment:

When I first started playing, I tried to copy specifically Paul Jones
of Manfred Mann (them's my roots...), and I happened to have a C harp
when most of the harp stuff on the album was in G. Those were lucky
coincidences...since the first thing I tried to play was the classic
Hootchie Cootchie Man riff, I wasn't looking for notes that "weren't
there". I was trying to copy sounds.

Within a couple of weeks, another local harp player ("Colonel" John
Fuhrman - certainly top of the heap in my area when I was learning)
filled me in on bending and such and I was well on my way.

The diatonic always, consequently, "made sense" to me - it was a short
while later that I started to approach melody more and began learning
about the inherent limitations of the instrument (and every instument
has its limirtions) and how to overcome them, through bends, harps of
different scales and so on.

It wasn't until_much_ later that my learning process stopped being
purely auditory, trying to make the sounds I heard on record, in my
head or while jamming with other players.

Theory pretty much didn't enter it to it beyond key finding and basic
chord changes for quite a while. Still, although I can "read" now, I
read for voice, and copy _that_ (does that make sense) when I play
harp. Reading for harp is stil not a direct process.

Ron

PS: (By the way, John is still active and a great player in the Vancouver
area)

R

Wednesday, April 13, 2005, 1:51:47 PM, you wrote:

r> Hello Vern,

r> Wednesday, April 13, 2005, 3:46:34 PM, Vern wrote:

VS>> I wonder how many beginners are "turned off" by these difficulties and just 
VS>> give up in disgust never to return.

VS>> I think that expert diatonic players who have learned to bend and otherwise 
VS>> deal with these irregularities tend to underestimate the difficulties that 
VS>> they present to a beginner.

r> I think it's probable that _lots_ of people have been frustrated by
r> the diatonic, espcially if they don't start off thinking "blues" and
r> especially if they are trying to approach the harmonica in a sort of
r> visual sense, or at least relating to a straightforward scale logic.

r> I mean, part of it is the logic, and part of it might be connected to
r> the thing that makes some people predominantly ear players and others
r> predominantly "from the chart" -- and I am purposely leaving out a
r> number of lucky people in the middle ground who can read or "just flow"
r> as they see fit (and I'm, unfortunately, not one of those...).

r> I have known very many excellent musicians on other
r> instruments--especially those with a solid visual component like piano
r> or guitar for example, who have given up in disgult, totally confused
r> by the fact that they _know_ they are good musicians (and they're
r> correct) but they just "can't _get_ it" with the harp...like an
r> earlier poster wrote: too many "hidden" addresses.

r> Mind you: I have to admit to getting some sort of aberrant
r> satisfaction from the time a very good guitar player with a major act
r> put down harp as too easy, too simple to take seriously. I told him
r> "OK--if it's that easy, here's a harp and I'll see ya in a couple of
r> weeks" (we were pretty close friends). Two weeks later he throws the
r> thing at me in disgust, saying "I tried to work really hard and I just
r> can't make any sense of that &%#$@ thing" - and he apologized, saying
r> he thought it was incredible a person could make _any_ reasonable music
r> on it :-)

r> Ron

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Ron                          mailto:rdg@xxxxxxxxxxx