Re: Re: [Harp-L] Barrett Soloing Workshop, Harp Learning

["Jonathan Metts" <jonathan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Your advice is okay for a few people, but not just anyone can figure out the harp by sheer luck and practice.  Should those people be doomed to fail?  No, and that's why there are books, teachers, and listservs for people who want to learn more about how to play harmonica...which I think would be just about everyone on this list, except, apparently, you.

Sure, if you're a natural talent and have no job, family, or other commitments, you can go into the woodshed and emerge a few years later as an accomplished harp player.  Maybe.  But your dismissal of techniques like overbending is simply inapplicable to anyone who wants to create something different from what the blues players of fifty years ago were playing.

Jonathan Metts

>------------------------------
>
>Message: 9
>Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 21:16:32 +0100
>From: "akc" <meadow.sweet@xxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Barrett Soloing Workshop, Harp Learning
>	Materials (long)
>To: <billhines4@xxxxxxxxxxx>, <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
>Message-ID: <027f01c5c9e9$af3890d0$b5d26b51@YOURDF06B83472>
>Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252";
>	reply-type=original
>
>Sorry Bill, but I found this post a little sad... that you''ve learned all 
>that from a book but still feel unable to jam.
>
>Any other aspiring players out there? OK... this is all you need to do. 
>Ignore Bill... then..
>
>Firstly, the diatonic harp is dead easy. Only ten holes and you only need 
>half of em, 6 at the most. No manual dexterity is required... you don't have 
>to do one thing with one hand and something different with the other unless 
>you want to smoke a cigarette while playing.
>
>Step one.... just practice finding out where the notes are... kind of like 5 
>the finger piano exercise... keep doing them till you can fairly easily know 
>which hole sounds like what.
>
>Step 2. Before you're note perfect, get yourself a few harp CDs... three is 
>enough, more is better... a Little Walter and a couple of compilations. Go 
>through them working out what key the songs are in, then go through them a 
>few times more trying to copy what the soloists are doing (Just do your best 
>at this.. you won't be as good as them, so don't worry about it).
>
>Step 3. Keep playing them.. do your own fills and solos if you like, as you 
>get better. Play over the singer... keep going till you feel happy that 
>you're keeping up.
>
>Step 4. Go to a jam... don't worry what they think of you. They'll be 
>knocked out, especially if you do a few wah wah wahs... they'll think it's 
>the real thing cause they don't know any better.
>
>While you're doing this... get yourself a cheap mike and amp so's you can 
>hear yourself properly at home.
>
>Finally.... forget about overblows, Dorian and Phygian modes, third 
>position, the 'right' amp etc.
>The technique will come to you as you make yourself express what you want to 
>express.
>
>Remember... you know all the notes Sonny Boy ever knew.. think he read a 
>book?
>
>Happy harping, A.