[Harp-L] re: why do you want to play blues (very long)

[Buddha <groovygypsy@xxxxxxxxx>]

I started playing the harmonica seriously when I was 17 so as of this
moment, it's been about 20 years.  Even though I say I've been playing
for 20 years it's actually been much longer than that.  It seems
playing harmonica is some kind of life path for me. There are stories
about me being 2 yrs old and finding the babysitter's harmonica or my
grandfather's harmonica and refusing to give it back. I can still
remember my dad saying when I turn 5 years old I could have my own
harmonica. According to my folks, I've been playing all my life.

I remember being 14 or 15 and having an incredible passion for the
harmonica to the point where I collected anything that had to do with
a harmonica. I recall at time at the mall where I was at the mall and
ask the record store guy for harmonica music. He pointed me to the
blues section where I came across that Big Walter Horton w/carey Bell
album. I was not an immediate fan of the blues. And like Jazz, I hated
blues the first time I heard it. I couldn't stand the Big Walter LP I
had and put it away for several years.

When I was 17 and playing HS football, the moment I got serious was
when another player had two harmonicas. They were a G and a C harp. I
don't remember where I learned to bend notes but at that time, I could
just do it. He was playing something and I was just using my ears to
match his sounds. That's when he said you're playing the blues. I told
him I didn't know what blues was and he said something like, "you're
bending notes and that means you're playing the blues"  Later that
night he gave me his copy of John Gindick's book. I knew I had a blues
album so with the book in hand I went home to play blues. I still
hated it but I learned most of the stuff off that record that I could
with just a C harp.  "Christine" is one song I still remember.

Soon after, my father noticed that I was playing harmonica nearly
everyday and one day after work he brought home 14 of Charlie McCoy's
records. Now that was music I liked much better, there was melody I
could follow and understand.  Within about four months, I had learned
damn near everything Charlie was playing note for note. That's when my
dad brought home the record that changed me - Beans Taste Fine by
Minneapolis Native Papa John Kolstad featuring Wild Man Mike Turk. It
was countryish, jazzy and bluesy all at the same time. It was on that
album, I learned OBs. This record was recorded in 1967 so that's
pre-howard levy! Mike played OBs on a couple of tunes, I knew about
country tuned harmonicas and started tuning up some of my harps to get
the notes Mike Turk was getting BUT even though I could play the same
note, my ear told me it wasn't the same sound. I struggled trying to
figure this out for awhile and even took a couple of lessons from
Clint Hoover who didn't know what Turk was doing either. On the way
home from one of those lessons, I had a Key of B harmonica where the
six hole blow was stuck, I kept blowing on it and then thought if I
tried to bend the note maybe that would unstuck the reed. BAM!!! an OB
popped out and I had a Eureka moment...THAT WAS THE SOUND!

 It was about that time, I started going to the Twin City Harmonica
Club. There I met Don Allen. I was already pretty good on the
harmonica and knew how to play all of McCoy's stuff but since learning
Mike Turk's music, I no longer had that pure country sound.  Don Allen
pegged me as a blues player. I told him I don't play blues and he said
"You should" That was also the day he told me about Howard Levy.
"There is this guy in chicago who can play anything and he sounds like
a Violin player. He using a technique called Overblowing"  I asked for
an explanation on OBs to which I replied, " I CAN DO THAT!"  That
night when I went home I had a copy of Harmonica Jazz. I Hated it. I
hated Howard's sound because it was "real" jazz that I couldn't
understand much less play.

So, because I couldn't play jazz, I started playing blues again. I
discovered that blues wasn't so bad but what really tuned me off was
Blues harmonica players so I stopped playing blues again. Now it's
1991 and during a trip to a music store, I see an ad from a band
searching for a harmonica player. I auditioned and got the part. This
was blues that I could stand... Albert Collins, Albert King, BB King
etc... stuff with no harmonica and some of it was funky!  This was
when I was introduced to Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. One of the
guys in the band has a friend who made Bela's purple banjo - he was a
Minnesota guy and he came out to see us on several occasions. He gave
me a tape of the Flecktones because he thought I sounded like Howard
Levy. I told him I hated Howard Levy but after listening to it, I
discovered that I like him A LOT. So I learned to play everything on
that album.

Back to playing blues, in this band the guitarist always told me I
sounded to white and I needed to play with more feeling so he gave me
lessons on playing with feeling and then THAT'S WHEN I STARTED TO
ENJOY BLUES MUSIC.  I still never liked blues but at least I could
enjoy playing it because it was a place where I could inject my
emotions into my playing something that felt out of place when I would
go to the country or bluegrass jams.

Currently, I just play music and I don't care what style it is. I feel
like music is just the cosmic vibrations of the universe and I have
the ability to hear it. It's fun for me in that it's almost on a
psychic level that I know what to play and this is where my original
voice comes in. I know the harp and all of it's sounds so well that I
am able to play music as I interpret it from the universe and then I
can color it with my emotions.

One of my personal highlight at SPAH 08 was playing Cara Cooke's
original music which isn't exactly country or bluegrass but something
from the farthest reaches of space but filtered through the depth of
her personal pain and emotion. When I played with her, I could feel
what she was emoting which to me wasn't always happy, so always worked
to bring light to the sounds of her chords. I loved playing with her
for awhile we had a real connection on a level that most never
experience. I often feel the same way when I play with Jimi Lee.

I posed this question because to me, blues and harmonica are nearly
synonymous. The truth is, while I don't really like ANY KIND of music
other than what comes to me, I realized that I have a profound
connection to ALL KINDS of music. I'm going to let the Buddha thing
out of the box for a moment, I find myself questioning many harp
players in their choice of music because of the music and emotion I
feel and hear surrounding them. There are some genuine blues
musicians, that I saw at SPAH but by in large I was over encumbered
with the feeling that most players we just playing licks rather than
music. I felt like most where locked away in the blues based or cross
harp box because that's all they knew.

During my sessions at the Teach In I focused on playing music that was
away from blues and second position and it was there that I saw many
light bulbs go off. The crossharp box had been unlocked and people
were more free to play other things. Free to play from the heart while
interpreting the sounds from the cosmos.

To me, playing blues and/or playing in 2nd postion locks a person into
routine patterns and licks. It also stops most people from listening
to what's real. I recall a moment during one of my sessions at Rockin
in the Rockies with XXXX.  XXXX is a fabulous harmonica player with
very advanced skills. But when I removed him from Blues and second
position he simply couldn't play anything resembling music. Even when
he played in cross harp but in a non-blues context he could play
anything resembling music. I'm not talking about a tough tune with
changes, I'm talking about playing over a single chord. So was this
person a musician during that moment? In my book, no.  Would I even
call him a harmonica player during that moment? Ummm....no.  But put
him in his element and he's badass! So he gets the label, BLUES
HARMONICA PLAYER and BLUES MUSICIAN and there nothing wrong with that
unless you're looking for more than blues.

I hope all of you are doing and playing what you want to play. If you
suspect you are not then jump away from blues and 2nd position and see
what happens. I would love to see Christelle jump away from cross
harp. She maybe able to play blues but I have a feeling her deep
rooted tastes are elsewhere. She plays very beautiful and very
non-traditional stuff that to me could be greatly improved by playing
in other positions.  She definitely has the ability and the ear to do
it. I love what she does and I find her to be a rare gem in the crazy
world of "What key harp you got?"