[Harp-L] re: Improv in Blues (Michael Fugazzi)

["Michael Davis" <contraman@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I know this freaked some people out, as they were talking about the 
importance of studying the masters, etc.  I think the thing to focus on here 
is that it sounds like Mike has done a certain amount of this, in that he's 
already up there improvising, playing licks, and he's trying to figure out 
how to go "to the next level" and continue finding his voice.

I think Chris's advice is spot-on.  The liner notes to one of my Little 
Walter CD's mentions the influence of the "big band riffs" and "phrasing" of 
sax players Earl Bostic and Louis Jordan on Walter.

Other instrumentalists, vocalists, and other forms of music are a fantastic 
way to open your mind to fresh ideas and sounds.  Sax players, just as an 
example, are dealing with a completely different setup and set of problems, 
which results in ideas harmonica players might not have imagined, and vice 
versa.

In classical music we're often taught to look to vocalists for phrasing 
ideas, and frequently asked to play a certain phrase "like a cello" or 
articulate a passage "like a flutist would."  The imagery is almost always 
some other instrument or a vocalist.

So I would say it's fantastic to study the masters, so long as, in the long 
run, you don't confine yourself only to the harmonica masters and to the 
blues.  There's a lot of music out there, and only one lifetime in which to 
absorb it.

Just my two cents.

------------------
Michael Davis
Kansas City, MO
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Chris' advice to Mike Fugazzi:
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Stop listening to other harmonica players.
Stop listening to Blues

Start listening to vocalists ie Kurt Elling, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
and Ella Fitzgerald

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