Re: [Harp-L] Visualizing the Harp Layout

["Bob Laughlin" <rlaughlin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

jazmaan said:

> What do you all "see" in your minds when you're playing?  Do you visualize
the harp layout pretty
> much the way it actually looks?  Do you see a piano keyboard?
>

I dunno. I see trees of green........ red roses too
I see em bloom..... for me and for you
And I think to myself.... what a wonderful world.

Hehe,,

Actually, in my mind's eye, I see the holes of the harp in relation one to
another, not standing alone, but in relation to which hole I'll be moving to
next, according to the notes going on in my head. Sometimes I see them in
patterns or blocks, according to the riffs in my mental tool-bag. I'm
probably what some would pejoratively call a "pattern player". Those
patterns are the tools I'll use to do the job in a particular setting, or
for a particular song. I like to add new patterns, licks, as time goes on,
and as I listen to others playing.

Since I also play guitar, you may hear some of my favorite guitar licks at
times coming through the harp. In some ways, I like to get away from that,
however, as the harp has its own strengths, I feel, and doesn't need to
borrow heavily from other instruments, unless played strictly melodically. I
like to play each instrument, whether cello, guitar, or harp, according to
it's own best characteristics, though at times the three get overlapped in
my playing. I'm not trying to make my harp sound like a sax, for instance. I
think it sounds great as a harp. I may listen to other instruments, and be
affected by them in my playing, but I'm not consciously trying to make a
harmonica sound like another instrument. If I wanted a harp to sound like a
sax, I'd break down and get a sax. They have way more notes. They're just
not as inexpensive, nor do they fit in your shirt pocket. I like the way you
can blow people away with a harp solo on the spur of the moment. I do it at
work all the time. It puts smiles on faces. The ones it doesn't work for
didn't have smiles installed to begin with.

But as to what I see when I'm playing,,I see colors, spirals, and maybe I
smell the taste of rocky-road ice cream as I'm hearing the notes,,

Oh wait,,no,,that was the sixties,,

Bob