[Harp-L] What is a scale??..damn kid, what the heck's a position??

["samblancato" <samblancato@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Folks, 

 

This is the "thread starter" here.  I just wanted to thank everybody for
their comments on this subject, Michael Rubin's and Crazy Bob's in
particular.  When I think about what this issue represents to me I'm put in
mind of the old saying 'when the student is ready the teacher will appear'.
I think I'm at the point where I'm going to dig into a more theory based
perspective.  I think this is why I broached the subject.  And maybe having
spent some time teaching others has pushed me in that direction as well.
Because I am such a right brained guy I've resisted a lot of the first steps
one takes as a harmonica player into the world of music theory and musical
literacy.  I am so much the play-by-ear kind of guy that it takes me a
couple of minutes just to think of the blow draw sequence  for a song like
Juke, which I've been playing for years and years.  I starting to see the
value, though, in the theory but I'm struggling to see how to proceed.  I'll
touch on just one issue here.  When learning the scales, Should I work them
out on a staff using the notes on a C harp as a reference and just infer
what I learn to the other keys or should I really learn every note lay-out
for every harp I use?  David Barrett's instructional material shows the
musical notation for everything as if it's all on a C harp.  So that's just
one issue for me.  

 

Now I have a couple of remarks to make about the comments I got on this
subject.  

 

First of all, I don't think I'm doing my harmonica student a disservice by
teaching him some 1st and 3rd position solos off records so that he can get
a feel for how they are played.  This is a twelve lesson class and I wanted
to get the guy playing.  I also don't have endless hours to spend preparing
all the theory and background information on everything we do in the class.
(And, duh, I don't really know it now do I?)  I have a business and it keeps
me pretty busy.  But this student's question about scales made me start to
think about how ultimately this stuff should be understood.  Of course,
copying solos off of records is not an end point for understanding- that's a
given.  That's why I posted the issue in the first place.   

 

So anyway, Jason R, Writes:



"I'm writing this, not in response to just him but as an
addition/reinforcement to what Michael Rubin already stated perfectly. I may
sound a bit passionate here perhaps confrontational but I don't mean it that
way it's just riff/lick/position type thinking can really short change an
artist I should know because my own limitations chiefly reside here and my
greatest contributions to my own playing came from surpassing the few I have
in addition to totally rocking out! It's good to see so much music talk here
thanks for bringing it up Samblancato!"

 

Your welcome, Jason, but I have to add here that I'm not a 'damn kid'.  I'm
older than you actually. I don't agree with you that the riff/lick/position
thing always short changes the artist.  In fact, I'm pretty sure you're
wrong about that entirely.  Learning riffs, solos, and playing in what we
call positions is part of everybody's learning process.  I think every blues
player out there has spent loads of time listening and playing and listening
and playing and I'm never going to apologize on this list or anywhere else
for learning tons of stuff off records or for learning to play in
'positions'.  Maybe there's a point where you have to move beyond the idea
of positions and see that harps as a group of scales laid out in bunch of
blow/draw configurations and then try to make your 'ear' fall into step with
the right technique for what ever scale you use.  That takes hundreds of
hours of study- at least.  And for guys that spend a couple hundred nights a
year in front of a live audience with a harmonica stuck in their mouth I'm
sure the learning curve is real steep but for most of us for whom this is an
avocation the process is a little slower.  But I'm gonna do it damn it.     

"The first and last time I asked Michael Peloquin what position he was
playing in, he said: "Standing Up"."

 

See, that would just piss me off and make me think the guy was being stuck
up and/or trying to get rid of me and my questions.  If somebody asks me a
question that tells me their frame of reference is different or less
advanced I go out of my way to avoid glib responses like that one.  I don't
know anything about the setting or context of your question but the answer
seems pretty dismissive to me. 

"Harmonica Positions are like picking up differently tuned guitars to play
in whatever key...as Michael Rubin pointed out very eloquently any scale or
riff can be played on any harmonica in any position the only variables lie
in what octave, how does the scale sound: where are the sweet spots, nice
bends, challenges etc..) I think of picking up a different harp to play the
same scale in 3rd/2nd/4th/whatever position when the band starts a new
song/changes key is the same as placing a capo on a guitars fret board. By
capoing you don't have to change your finger patterns to reproduce the same
licks/scales/chords only the pitch and the action changes...I do it all the
time cause I like the way certain positions are laid out and how they sound
etc...I couldn't play every song in a night on one harp and make it sound
good the way Michalek or Howard can...but I can rock hard in a handful of
positions...However learning more about how to play anything on any harp
scales/riffs patterns/turn arounds etc. totally opens up the harmonica and
the harmony and ideas for days in any position I would dare say much much
more than learning a riff in that position does."

 

I agree with all of this but chromaticism on a short harp is just a huge
thing to learn technique-wise.  Hence the whole position thing again.  One
thing I've learned from teaching this harmonica class is that what feels
really familiar to you is very likely going to be very difficult for those
less advanced than you.   

 

As far as the unnamed harmonica teacher goes, he must have been really mixed
up because everybody knows that Little Walter's "One of These Mornings" uses
the 3 draw in 3rd position on an A harp.  And hell, now that I've just
stopped and played some 3rd position stuff I can think of all kinds of stuff
that uses 3 draw.  

 

One last thing:  I hope you all don't think that just because I'm heavily
right-brained and learn everything by ear that my playing is just a
regurgitation of Kim Wilson/Little Walter/Piazza/et all stuff.  Some of us
people who learn things by ear have really, really good ears and can get
very creative and do some very original playing.  But the right-brained
thing does indeed make it especially hard to bring the Left side into
things.  Honestly, my first, knee-jerk, gut reaction to the idea of
practicing a bunch of scales is that of being trapped and not being able to
open up and move and /rock out' as you say.  I want to go there but I dread
it at the same time. 

 

Sam Blancato, Pittsburgh