Re: [Harp-L] Pattern players

[icemanle@xxxxxxx]

You may be limiting yourself and your creativity if you approach music and improv with the "pattern player" mentality.
 
Patterns may be a good tool to help gain understanding into the language of music, as scales do. Memorized patterns practiced and played over and over can allow you to PLAY REALLY FAST STUFF - ooh, impressive. (I can bench lift 400 lb. Wanna feel my biceps?).
 
Some of the weirdest sounding patterns can be heard when harmonica players solo over "Stormy Monday" changes without the knowledge that the language of music over certain key centers tends to shift during the song.
 
Miles Davis was a supreme "pattern buster" in his personal and leadership approach to his music. If you were a member of his band (from his 2nd Great Quintet onwards) and he heard you playing licks/patterns on the bandstand (memorized and repeated), you were fired. He was into creativity in the moment, not something that actually anyone could do if given enough practice time - Miles wanted a deeper commitment to the Muse of inspiration and creativity, not the Charles Atlas pump you up with reps approach.
 
This is not to say that those pattern dudes don't have a listening and appreciative audience (beer drinking bikers - just kidding). It just means that there is something beyond pattern that is well worth seeking out.
 
As a teacher, I have the luxury of test driving a lot of different approaches and philosophies on my guinea pi....oops, I mean students. In developing a unique and faster approach at conveying musical concepts, I am able to dispense with "transcribing and memorizing solo after solo after solo" or "learn this pattern and repeat it over and over and over and over until it is very fast" in order to entice a connection with the music in students. The results are very positive, with more beginners able to feel confident in their ability to make good musical choices on their own with confidence within the first 6 months. They become the artist rather than memorizing what another artist did in order to mimic talent. Very satisfying for both student and teacher. Many is the time that a beginner student will play something that I wouldn't have thought of in a particular situation, eliciting excitement from me as a listener "Yeah, man, that's the stuff".
 
ah well, to each his own. I prefer the Miles Davis stuff myself.
 
The Iceman
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: gonz1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tue, 6 Feb 2007 9:29 AM
Subject: [Harp-L] Pattern players


Is there such a thing as an original pattern player?  I don't think so.  I know 
of none since we 
ALL have 
influences that come from others we listen to. Jason, Howard, et al.  Even 
Mozart learned 
from Haydn.  
Regardless of the instrument we listen to, there are patterns we all adapt as 
our own  They 
don't have to be 
harmonica patterns.  Actually, it is probably better that you find patterns that 
are not 
normally found on a 
harmonica, from other instruments and other genres,  Doing this will offer more 
"originalty" 
to your patterns 
and playing.  The key is to emulate moreso than duplicate.  There are far too 
many players 
that duplicate much 
more than they ever emulate.  What was it that Paul delay said?  Something to 
the effect; The 
world needs 
another Litttle Walter sound alike like we need another Elvis impersonator.  
That pretty much 
sums it up.  Thank 
you, thank you very much. 

One of the keys to changing that is to apply what you have learned and are 
learning to 
genres that you don't 
expect to hear the harmonica.  I liked that non-harmonica songs thread.  That is 
exactly the 
idea.  Regardless 
of idiom, playing familiar patterns then takes on a different and a much more 
original sound.  
That is what 
many players ...like Popper...have done.  Like it or not he is doing alot of 
stuff in the Rock 
genre that alot of 
Rock harmonica players have never done.  This is probably why the "slam Popper 
thread" has 
again raised its 
ugly head.

Roger Gonzales
Fresno, CA.





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