[Harp-L] A great celtic harp-player

["Steve Shaw" <moorcot@xxxxxxx>]

This may be of only marginal interest to a lot of Harp-l folks, but a great 
harp-player is a great harp-player and it's only right that the word should 
be spread.  The guy in question is Jean Sabot who lives in France (Brittany 
to be precise, an area with its own traditional "celtic" music tradition).  
He visited the UK last week and I was lucky enough not only to meet him and 
hear him play but also to join him in a traditional pub session in St Ives 
in Cornwall "for a few tunes" (as the Irish are apt to say). He plays 
diatonic and chromatic harps that he retunes fearlessly to make them more 
sensible for the music he plays (e.g. eliminating missing notes, enabling 
fast runs of notes, facilitating appropriate ornamentation).  He plays 
beautifully with strong projection and lovely full tone.  He has a wide 
repertoire that includes not only his own native Breton tunes but also 
Irish, Scottish, Northumbrian and French-Canadian.  We have a handful of 
great players of this kind of music but Jean is right up there with the very 
best of 'em.

He explains some of his tunings on his site   
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jsabot/accueilan.htm  I'm pretty conservative about 
trying out different tunings, but I'm beginning to change my tune (oops...) 
after trying out his "major tuning - Ionian mode" which gives a 10-hole harp 
a range of two and a half octaves with no missing notes.  Same blow-draw 
pattern as the standard harp too.  Genius!

I have one of his CDs, "Harmoníca, víolon," and it's a gem.

Steve



http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/trad_irish_harmonica
HEAR my CD clips: http://www.gjk2.com/steveshaw/cd.htm
READ review of my CD: http://www.irishmusicreview.com/sshaw.htm