Re: [Harp-L] Beginner player here!

[David Payne <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

  I assume, since your e-mail addy is "angry Koopa" you are a fan of the Mario Bros. That's all my kids talk about. 
  Your post takes me back. I walked around school with a harp all the time, too. I used to play on the bus sometimes, I played on the church bus all the time. There was an old couple, in their 90s, who rode the church bus, they always wanted to hear "I'll Fly Away" and "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." 
  Never read the Popper bio. 
  You asked it you should: 
"continue learning old-school licks, listening to Sonny Terry and Junior
Wells obsessively; should I take it to heart to master overblows and
precision bending so I may make use of the few battered Special 20's I have
left; or is there something else I should do?"
   
  From what I hear on the video, you've obviously studied the harmonica very intensely. I think it's probably time to back off learning licks and start creating your own voice. When you listen to these guys, just listen to what they are saying through the harmonica. One thing I've noticed with my students is a tendency to copy the greats and search for absolutes. But what learning the harmonica should be about is finding your own voice and developing that. We don't need another Sonny Terry, for instance, because we were already blessed with one. What we need to is for you to be yourself. Just sit down every once in a while and forget all the licks you've learned and just move around on the harmonica. Work around up high in the blow bends. Talk through it, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yw9he67vpM cough through it, experiment with all these sounds you can make. 
  Hear for yourself what sounds good and what does not. Find your own voice and, I think, 15 years from now, we're probably going to be talking about YOU. 
  Precision bending is something a lot of excellent players can't do. If you can do that, you're a step ahead. On the overblows, just learn it when you feel like it, then work them in to what you are playing. 
  Just try to let these things come naturally. 
   
  The other question:  ? Most importantly, what could I
improve about my playing??
  


  Besides the info in the response above, you might want to back off the pressure a little bit. You're playing at full intensity the entire time. Couple problems with that: 1) it's hard on the harmonica 2) there are times you need to increase the intensity, volume, growl or whatever and if you're running full steam the whole time, when you need to increase tension, volume, etc., such as on the V chord, you can't, because there's nothing left additional that you can bring to it. 
   
  Dave 
  _________________
  Dave Payne Sr.
  Elk River Harmonicas
  www.elkriverharmonicas.com