[Harp-L] Re: country/western/McCoy




On Jul 16, 2008, at 1:49 AM, Rick Dempster wrote:


"> He really turned it into a 'voice', and really made me think very
differently about the instrument.

I ALWAYS thought about it that way. I suppose listening to Neopolitan
love songs, gave me an idea of where I wanted to go.
"
..........If you started out on chromatic Joe, I can understand that. But I'm not aware of anyone prior to McCoy who combined the blues-born technique of pitch-bending with a European concept of melody, on the diatonic.


RD

Ok, the key word here was 'voice'. If you watch American Idol or Show Time at the Apollo, you will notice that singers no longer 'stay' on notes. They will do something I like to call 'dance around the notes' (if I'm in a good mood), OR 'warble around till they find a note that fits' (if I'm in a naughty mood).

In other words, instead of singing "Oh say can you see", we get "o-o- oo-o-ah, sa-a-a-ay Can you-o-oo-o-oo-o Se-eeeee". Now imagine that while you are mouthing these words, the musical notes are all OVER the treble staff. Sometimes the singer doesn't even hit the CRUCIAL note, and they don't always stay true to the chords. Usually placing anywhere from 6 to 9 notes into the warble, its still important to land on the crucial mandatory note.

Ok, you don't get this garbage with Neopolitan ballads. The singers are in the alto range (not tenor) and they add more like 3 to 6 notes (not 9), and they aren't warbling around in an effort to impress everyone that they have soul. The HAVE it........ naturally. If I were to play a tune, I would study the singer who made the tune MOST popular. Chances are that there was a reason that that singer had a hit. Example: If you're going to do Alfie, do it like Dion Warwick.

Now, while I'm sure he wasn't THE first, the first time I recall noticing 'dancing voice' coming from an American was Stevie Wonder. I don't know why, maybe the high pitch attracted my notice. He is one of the few where it fits. Most singers turn it into a scream-fest.

The same thing happens with some harmonica players. Some will go into orbit and forget where the space station is. Then they're lost in space and can't find their way back. So, after they run out of fuel, they drift around. The idea is to 'turn' the chords but stay true to them. In other words, work around but DO wind up where you're supposed to be, or everything sounds like trype.

a... Good example of going into orbit and NOT getting lost..............Mike Turk
b... Good example of someone hitting strange note combinations...Toots


When I was a youngster and spent my first 18 years pretty evenly divided into 2 year stints between New York City and (mostly) Italy , there were 3 kinds of musics one could listen to. They were:
1... Local Italian...nice stuff but an awful lot of mandolins
2... Armed Forces radio out of Heidelberg...30s & 40s American big band geared to the senior officers and non coms who were left behind after the war.
3... Radios Wien, Praha, Buda-Pesht, Bucharesti. You had to have a short wave. We had a Telefunkin.


So, my early influences were these. And it was a time when musicians were musicians. Not noise makers. Eventually I played at the Sea Garden. It was a cafe/bistro/restaurant/night club that was in the park on the waterfront in Mergelina Naples. We did tunes like 'La Stella di Napoli', Maruzella, Quando si Bella Roma. That's why I played chromo first. The drifts from majors to minors and key changes were not conducive to diatonic.

smo-joe



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