[Harp-L] Re: Phrasing and Spacing

"G. E. Popenoe" <gpopenoe@xxxxxxxxx> · Tue, 22 Jan 2008 07:10:05 -0800

Along those lines is to learn to play the instrument as much as an  
accompanist as a soloist.
I garner the most compliments when I'm inserting color notes and  
textures here and there . Then if I get a solo I try to give it a  
beginning a middle and an end. I try to be mindful to keep the hot  
fast licks to a judicious minimum and pull as much juice out of the  
longer notes as possible. Shape and detail everything with dynamics.  
If your with good musicians, they will follow you which feels so cool.
Some one correct me if I'm wrong but the story goes something like  
this . Someone asked Louis Armstrong about about how he played jazz or  
how to play jazz or something along those lines . He responded and I  
paraphrase, "Man, if you gotta ask you'll never know ."
From Gary Popenoe
On Jan 22, 2008, at 5:49 AM, IcemanLE@xxxxxxx wrote:
Now your talking. This is where creativity lives - phrasing and the  
silence between the notes.
Harmonica is the only instrument that you can play on the inhale, so  
it is truly one into which you breathe life.
As to spaces - learn to "Play" the silence as if it were a note  
rather than a time that you kill until you get to start playing again.
Study phrasing - it's easy to figure out the notes played - it's how  
you play those notes that matters and it is more than "pressing the  
right button at the right time over and over again".
For instance - I began playing keys and harmonica with a local  
smooth jazz r/b band about 5 years ago - the only white guy. Many  
accents and phrases happen or begin on the last sixteenth note of a  
bar, anticipating the downbeat of the next measure. In order for me  
to "find" the timing/phrasing, I started counting beats in my head  
and trying to land my fingers on the piano at that last sixteenth  
note. Everyone else in the band rolled their eyes and told me I just  
had to "feel it" rather than "count it". It took a while before I  
crossed over to trusting the feeling instead of counting the time.  
When I "got it", it liberated a large part of my creativity, as I  
didn't have to spend all that  energy counting. I could spend all my  
time listening and feeling.
The Iceman
In a message dated 1/22/2008 2:25:50 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, gpopenoe@xxxxxxxxx 
 writes:

Let's talk phrasing and how to listen and about the spaces in between

the notes. What kind of place does my head have to be in to play those

three notes as well as Big Walter did?

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