[Harp-L] Butter on Your Own Sound

["Bill Hines" <billhines4@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I forget whether the conversation was here or harptalk, but recently there
was a thread about how you shouldn't try to sound like any particular
player, but develop your own sound. It was mentioned how many great players
of today started out by learning LW's, SB2's, etc riffs/songs note for note
and then branched off to find their own sound. On Paul Butterfield's Blues
Harmonica Master Class cd (track 26) he gives a nice narrative:

"I knew a lot of players who would learn a lot of the old blues harmonica
players riffs note-for-note and it just wouldn't make sense coming out of
their instrument. That's what I like about the harmonica, it's a personal
thing, you can take some of these things, riffs/lines you learned playing,
and approach playing by getting experience with other people getting some
musical interplay, but it's really a personal thing. The best thing you can
do is go for the way you want to say it, because there are no rules. Once
you decide to learn the instrument you find it's one of the hardest
instruments to learn, but you speak through it."

Bill Hines