[Harp-L] re: beginner here

["Jim Alciere" <jim.alciere@xxxxxxxxx>]

First, take heart, anyone with a little patience, anyone can be a
competent musician.

When you start playing an instrument bear in mind that the notes are
the least important part of the music. You should know where the notes
are and play the right notes, absolutely, but there's a lot more to it
than that. Music is a language.


Learn when to play the notes, when to get loud and crazy (in Sonny
Terry's case it was always) and  when to ease up. Nothing helps you
learn this better than playing with other people. One verse and chorus
solo played well is much better than caterwauling through the whole
song.

Listen to music. It doesn't have to be harmonica music and it doesn't
have to be blues. Just actually listen to the music and try to figure
out what's going on. I like listening to live Grateful Dead music and
trying to figure out when the key changes and when the song changes in
the improv and trying to figure out who initiated it and how. You
might prefer to listen to Shostakovitch and try to get a feel for when
the strings come in and when they fade out.

Learn how to keep the beat--practice with a metronome (they're cheap)
or a drum machine or a drummer. Then you can learn all sorts of fun
stuff like call and response by simply only playing on some beats and
leaving other beats empty. Reggae musicians are masters at this.
Almost everybody plays on a different part of the rhythm.

Get a simple book on music theory. When you realize that a G major
scale has the same notes as an E minor scale, suddenly you figure out
how to play interesting weird stuff besides blues. I wouldn't worry so
much about positions so much as what is appropriate to the music. I
might play a jam band song in A minor on an F harp, a blues song in A
minor on a G harp, and a reggae song in A minor on a minor tuned harp.
 A little music theory helps make all this less confusing but so does
experimentation and goofing around.

Work on tone and vibrato. To do this, remind yourself that we play
music, we don't work music: therefore music is supposed to be fun.
Goof around. Experiment. Loosen up. Relax. Mistakes are good. Whole
compositions get written based on mistakes.

You've got a whole life time to learn. Take your time and enjoy the journey.

-- 
Rainbow Jimmy
http://www.spaceanimals.com
http://www.myspace.com/theelectricstarlightspaceanimals