[Harp-L] Playing Rhythm, Chords, Vamps, Whatever and NOT Solos

["Nate in the Blues Room" <thebluesroom@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Tim & Harp-L members,
I've been meaning to ask here for the longest time about playing
back-up, rhythm, fillers ... call them what you like, they just aren't
solos.

At a jam night I'd have more opportunity to play rhythm fillers than
solos and have realised that I'm fast running out of ideas by the time
the fourth song comes and I'm playing the same fillers - this could be
like playing the same solo for every other song, it soon sounds all
the same. Any suggestions?

Are there any resources (yes, apart from practicing) that might help
educate, inspire and provide me with how to keep my rhythm/fillers up
to par? Are there any particular songs that can be examples of someone
playing good rhythm/filler harp? Or a particular player?

As a side:
There seems to be different kinds of back-up harp playing. Sonny Terry
would play continuously some times while Brownie played and sung.
Walter Horton would too but with the whole band playing also. Little
Walter had some mean as rhythm/fillers, some of the best IMO, while
with Muddy. I've heard some brilliant playing by Harmonica Hinds with
John Stedman on the song 'Every Night', its more like hes playing the
melody.

Some back-up harp can sound too intrusive yet on the other hand some
continuous harp playing, the likes of Walter Horton behind Johnny
Shines, can sound excellent.

Also, as a harp player myself I tend to buy CDs of harp players that
are band leaders, most of them sing and solo alot too - in other words
the CD is about them as harp players. But are there any
recommendations of CDs/bands/harp players that are solely in a rhythm
role, that solo now and again, who are backing up the lead singer /
guitarist etc. Jerry Portnoy comes to mind. He plays perfectly on Eric
Clapton's album 'From the Cradle'

Any thoughts?

Nate


> -- "Tim Moyer" <wmharps@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> M. N. wrote:
> > 99.999% of the time, I wish I'd played FEWER notes.
>
> I think one syndrome a lot of harp players suffer from is feeling
> like they're only going to get 20 or 30 seconds to impress everyone,
> and trying to cram as much into that time as possible.
>
> Joe Filisko once told me that harmonica players tend to spend all
> their time practicing their solos and improv skills, when that ends
> up being about 10% of what they do in a gig.  The 90% of their time
> that they play rhythm, chords, fills, vamps, whatever, they are
> unprepared for.
>
> -tim
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