[Harp-L] How I Learned to Play

[<alliance@xxxxxxxxx>]

Great thread . . . here's my story . . . 

 

My dad had harmonicas around the house growing up . . . he played a little
first position stuff, I remember him playing Red River Valley, and a little
guitar; he had a really good voice and would always sing Frank Sinatra stuff
at parties etc . . . I blew through some of the harps then, but never
learned.

When I was in college in Buffalo NY, I went to a jam (actually, with the
guys that became Spirogyra) and was real impressed when a friend got up and
could play along on harmonica.  I tried to learn, but it didn't stick
though.

It did stick about two years later (1974).  I was living in Key West, with
this lady whose son had harmonicas from the long-gone Dad.  One night, after
some kind of heartbreak with the lady, I grabbed one of the harps and sat
out on the front porch under one of those tropical full moon nights that
look like all the lights got left turned on.  I swear, I put that harmonica
to my mouth and somehow just played the lick:  2d, 3d, 4b, 4d . . . which
was a cross-harp lick . . . and that was pretty much that . . . I played
that thing all night, and didn't stop playing it . . . 

Unlike most guys, I didn't have any exposure to blues or country, as I was
living on an island without even listening to the radio much.  But we played
music all the time, mostly drums etc . . . and I just blew the hell out of
that harmonica, without thinking about a key etc . . . I quickly figured out
how to play the 'high notes' (past hole 6), and within about 6 months I was
jamming at 'Sunset' on Mallory Square and sitting in at the clubs during the
last set.

I eventually went to Miami (Coconut Grove) for a year, and found out that I
had a 'unique' sound, and all kinds of people wanted to have me play with
them.  For example, there was a jazz jam at Peacock Park every Sunday and
this bass player who later toured for years with Betty Carter, made sure I
got up.   I have no idea what I played, or how I played, but it was probably
pretty fast, lot's of notes, in cross-harp, and I played all ten holes . . .
Mostly, there was funk and reggae going on (mid-70's), and I figured out how
to play minor tunes in 4th position.  I played 4th position long before I
played third position.  I learned 1st position high-note stuff from hearing
Stevie Wonder's Boogie On Reggae Woman.

Once I left the Keys and started getting exposed to other harmonica music, I
was attracted mostly to guys that played melodically; Stevie Wonder was
always #1, Lee Oscar, and I really liked PT Gazell . . . The problem was, I
couldn't play the stuff Stevie was playing, so I started learning flute,
sax, and chromatic . . . which of course made me learn some music . . . My
big breakthrough musically was playing alto sax . . . It's tuned in Eb, so
playing with funk bands, I was always having to playing in F# and C# and I
eventually realized that the 'key' thing didn't matter; that it was all do,
re, mi . . . 

I got the Glover book at some point which connected a few dots, but got much
more out of Richard Hunter's Jazz Harp (still have it) . . . Bottom-line,
unlike today's supportive world, none of the guys that could play would
share any of their 'secrets', and you had to figure stuff out on your own .
. .

Along the way I met guys like Chris Turner (got picked up hitchhiking by his
mandolin player Ted, who introduced me), Carter Minor, (a great player here
in NC), and Frank Huang, who was a very good player in his own right, who
made me a chromatic like Stevie, along with some prototype brass diatonics;
but there was no 'Harmonica Community' to plug into and share ideas . . . 

By 1990, I was writing a lot of songs, recording them in a bunch of
different keys and positions, switching diatonic along with chromatic,
flute, and sax, and heard the first Flecktones cd . . . within about 15
seconds I realized that the harp player had figured out how to play diatonic
like a sax; which is what I really wanted to do . . . I corralled him at a
Flecktones gig in Baltimore, and spent an hour talking.  When I was about to
leave he told, "Hey, you're really pretty good, you should come to this
class that I teach in West VA . . . "  The next spring, 1991, I walked into
a Howard Levy class that had Carlos del Junco, Iceman, Rosco, Sandy Weltman,
Pete Hastings, Tim Quinn, Dr. Bahnson, as well as the guy that first taught
Iceman overblows in Detroit (what's his name Larry?).  By the mid-90's,
people were meeting at Buckeye, as well as the harp gatherings at Augusta
and the one's I did in Chapel Hill and Minneapolis with Chris Michalek . . .


Lastly, I want to mention that Joe Filisko has been an enormous influence on
myself and a whole generation of players by his passion for classic blues
technique and pre-war harmonica music; as well as his great harmonicas . . .
The past few years, oddly enough, I've really been working on developing
tongue-blocking and blues technique that works with other stuff I do;
entirely the result of Filisko's influence and passion . . . 

Paul Messinger/Chapel Hill NC