[Harp-L] Re: Harp Switches



I play with a four piece: guitar, bass, drums, and me. Our drummer and guitarist also sing, and we do a few pieces with vocals (NOT Girl from Ipanema). I play the head on a few of the tunes: Bye Bye Blackbird, Misty, Stolen Moments, When I Fall in Love. Many of the songs our guitarist covers the head: Shadow of Your Smile, Fly Me To the Moon, Autumn Leaves. On a few we share the head: Sunny, Chitlins Con Carne, Moonglow, You Talk that Talk.

We generally play restaurants and private events like wedding receptions, parties, company events, etc. There's a more complete (but not up-to-date) song list at our website: http://www.itpband.com/ No sample audio yet.

-tim

At 06:37 PM 9/26/2006, Rick Dempster wrote:
Tim;
       When you play tunes like 'Girl form ipanema', 'In a Sentimental
Mood' and 'Watch What Happens',
what setting are you playing them in? In other words, what is the
lineup of the combo?
RD

>>> "Tim Moyer" <wmharps@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 26/09/2006 23:32:11 >>>
Dave Murray wrote:
> I've never seen the Famous Norton Buffalo four harp switch thing,
> I'd like to.

I remember seeing Norton with Bonnie Raitt on the Midnight Special
back in the 70s doing this song.  It's funny, he talked about this
at SPAH in Dallas in 2003.  He related the story as having harps
stuck all over the place, in his shirt pocket, under his arm, and at
one point dropping one of them.  I don't remember all that, but I do
remember it looking a little like a circus clown act at the time.

Norton related that later he had learned to stack the four harps,
and that's how he does it now.

I don't claim to be a proficient harp-switcher, but I do play two
harps on a few things.  Our band does "Girl from Ipanema" (does it
make your teeth hurt?), and it has a couple of interesting
modulations in the bridge.  At first I used three harps to do it,
one for the verses, and two for the bridge, but then I figured out
how to cover the bridge modulations with one harp, with just a
passing overblow and a passing bent note.  Now I play the song with
two harps, and F and an F# (Paddy Richter).  "In A Sentimental Mood"
lays out well on two harps, and I use an F# (C#) Melody Maker and a
D (A) Melody Maker.  I also use two harps to cover the Michel
Legrand bossa tune, "Watch What Happens".

On songs where you're improvising over changes that require harp
switches, the challenge is always to find a place where you can
switch smoothly and continue the musical stream of consciousness.

-tim







_______________________________________________
Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx
http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l






This archive was generated by a fusion of Pipermail 0.09 (Mailman edition) and MHonArc 2.6.8.