Subject: Re: [Harp-L] How about just plain old harmonica?

[EGS1217@xxxxxxx]

Fabulous post, Dave...definitely the kind of harmonica  
story/background/thoughts on playing I love reading about here and the  occasional gems like your 
and Walter's posts still showing up out of the blue  like this is why I'm still 
a harp-l'er.  
 
You should be a writer, Dave   ;) 
 
(that's a joke, folks...he is). 
 
Elizabeth
 
"Message: 6
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 12:36:54 -0700 (PDT)
From: David  Payne <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] How about  just plain old harmonica?
To: Harp L Harp L  <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Message-ID:  <844054.35305.qm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type:  text/plain; charset=us-ascii

I apologize for my total lack of brevity.  Walter's post got me thinking... a 
lot.

Until around 2003, I had never  actually met another good harmonica player. I 
had never heard of Harp-L, never  really listened to anybody except Charlie 
McCoy and the old guys like Sonny Boy  II, Big Walter, Little Walter, or as the 
Fox says "Medium Walter." I'd been  playing since I was five and for the 
folks who heard me, I was the best they'd  ever heard. There was simply no one 
else to hear, really. I have always run  around in Bluegrass circles, that might 
be one reason I never saw any harp  players. Another reason is where I grew 
up. West Virginia's Elk River is the  most beautiful place in the world, I've 
seen the Danube, Rhine, Salzach, Elbe,  Seine, they've got nothing on the Elk. 
Yet, the Elk doesn't have a blues scene  and doesn't have a medium-sized city 
anywhere on its nearly 200 mile course  until the very end in Charleston. You 
get the point... I grew up in the middle  of nowhere for blues, but the 
Mississippi Delta of Bluegrass.
I finally came  across another good harp player about five years ago, he won 
the Ohio State  Championship a couple years later.  I'm used to playing fast 
bluegrass  breaks and have always been a harp tech at heart. He hits spot on, 
perfect pitch  bends much better than I. We enjoy hearing each other because we 
do things so  differently.
In the last few years, I have found the harp community on the  Internet and 
learned there's another whole world out there. I felt like I had to  overblow, 
it seemed everybody else was doing it, thus it seemed a bar had been  raised 
that I didn't know was there. I thought deep down if I couldn't overblow  maybe 
that meant I was less of a player. 
My biggest shock was my first  convention, Buckeye. There I heard some 
amazing harp players and not just the  pros. Hanging out with Jimi Lee was one of 
the coolest things I've done.  Listening to Jimi Lee, and others as good play 
two feet away was a bit  initimadating. Rupert Oysler, Mr. Seydel USA, is as 
good a player as any. After  playing for 25 years, I saw where I fit in on the 
talent ladder. I was now  officially a small fish in a big pond. I seriously 
considered giving up playing  while I was there, I got over that quickly, I could 
never give it up, but I was  still intimidated. 
What changed my mind? I got to hang out with Charlie  McCoy last year (if you 
see me, ask me to show you his belt buckle. I wear it  everyday. I did not 
steal it, he willingly took it off his belt.). 
You'd  think for guys like Charlie, stuff is easy. They make it seem SO easy. 
At that  time, Charlie had just released "A Celtic Bridge: From Nashville to 
Dublin." He  makes it sound so easy. Yet, even the great Charlie McCoy has to 
work at it, in  fact, he's as good as he is because he works hard. About the 
Celtic album, he  said, and I quote, "Irish stuff is hard." If some stuff can 
be hard for even  Charlie McCoy, that's comforting. Some stuff is hard for me, 
too.
I asked him  about the overblow. He said he had talked to Howard Levy about 
it in detail,  Howard told him he needed a Golden Melody, but Charlie is a 
stock Special 20 man  (has been for like 30 years), doesn't like the GM, so that's 
as far as it went.  Charlie said he has never overblowed and he really isn't 
that interested in  learning how to do it. 
I asked Charlie what he would say to young harp  players (I actually meant 
me) who think they have to master the overblow to feel  like they are legitimate 
players. I kept my notes from the McCoy interview, so I  can tell you exactly 
what he said: "I play the harmonica for Herman and Pearl  who come down and 
buy a ticket. I don't play for other musicians. I make records  for people who 
watched 'Hee-Haw.'" 
I thought that was quite profound.  Charlie is who he is. He does what he 
does. I suppose that makes the great McCoy  a Popeye kind of player, too.
What I didn't realize at Buckeye was how  learning accelerates. I had learned 
what I learned in 25 years, but I learned  nearly as much in the short time 
following that. 
I have also come to an  important conclusion, other players don't care how 
well you play (provided you  aren't gussing). If there is something you can't 
do, it's not a hinderance, it's  a benefit. If you don't know something, that 
means you have something yet to  learn, and, to them, something they can teach 
you. Harmonica players at  different levels have so much more to talk about 
than two of equal  talent.
One thing that I can do well is work on harps and there's still a lot  for me 
to learn there. I wonder sometimes if maybe some beginner is out there  
watching my videos, or looking at my ehow articles on harp repair, whatever, and  
thinking he has to be a tech to be legit, in much the same way I had been  
looking at the overblow as this pie in the sky. I certainly hope not, but to  that 
guy I'd repeat what McCoy told me. 
"I have no interest in fooling  around with harps to that extent. I'm 
thinking about what I can do different on  the harp, not what I can do to the harp to 
make it different. I'm too busy  playing." 

A while back, I had the pleasure of shooting the harp-tech  bull with Brad 
Harrison. Brad was talking literally, I mean, literally, about  harps at the 
MICROSCOPIC level. I talked to him for about an hour and honestly,  had a severe 
headache by the end of the call, because I was thinking so hard  about the 
things he was saying. Brad opened a whole new world of stuff, I didn't  even know 
existed. Talking to Brad reinforced my belief that no matter how good  you 
are, there is always somebody who is a hell of a lot better than you. Only  by 
the time I talked to Brad, I saw that as a benefit. If someone knows more  than 
you, that only means there is much that person can offer you.

I've  learned how to learn from people better than I, without feeling myself 
less  accomplished for it. Now, I'm listening to guys and watching and 
learning from  folks, not to copy what they are doing, but to pull elements from what 
they do  and apply it to what I do. I don't want to sound like Little Walter, 
I want to  sound like me, only better. In the past year, I've been studying 
what Igor Flach  has been doing. I am just so spellbound by the numerous sounds 
he incorporated  into his playing. I've not tried to copy anything he plays, 
but I've been  analyzing what he was doing, then later, maybe I take something 
from that and  incorporate it into what makes me sound like me. I was looking 
so forward to  meeting him, but he died. Now, all we can do is wonder how 
Igor would have  sounded in 20 years. He was a master at taking seemingly 
unrelated sounds and  fusing them into something new. If only I could have turned him 
on to bluegrass,  ;)

I eventually learned the overblow and don't really consider myself a  better 
play for having learned it. However, I realize, maybe some day, that  won't be 
the case.  I'm just going to, pun intended, play it by ear and see  what I 
develop.

Considering all this, I've decided I will just be me. I  am what I am and 
that's all that I am. But, a year from now, what I am then will  be something 
even better. 

Dave Payne 
__________________
Elk River  Harmonicas
_www.elkriverharmonicas.com_ (http://www.elkriverharmonicas.com)  
"Message: 3
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 13:59:33 -0400
From: Walter Joyce  <wtjoyce45@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Harp-L] How about just plain old  harmonica?
To: Harp List <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Message-ID:  <BAY101-W328E7F6833E867C9FC6CBCB7020@xxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain;  charset="iso-8859-1"



I've been playing harp for about 35 years  now, some years more often than 
others. Frankly, I'm not about to carry around  any more baggage about what 
instrument I play, why or how I play it any more.  

I love music.

I love harmonica.

I play the best I can  whenever I can and I get my share of positive comments 
from audience members and  about the only negative comments I get about my 
playing are from one guitarist  in particular who constantly reminds me that any 
hope of becoming a great player  is pure delusion on my part. He's entitled 
to his opinion but I sure am done  listening to whatever he has to say and only 
take his comments as motivation for  those days when I'm not feeling like 
practicing.

As much as I admire the  playing of certain players, I don't want to play 
like them, I'm still trying to  play with my voice and my ideas. I'll practice 
certain methods, and continue to  try and learn and grow as a player and a 
musician, but I guess at heart I'm a  Popeye kind of player.

Like any performer I want to touch my audience in  a positive way, put a 
smile on their lips and get their hips shakin' and feet  movin', but I'll 
concentrate on the positive and hope to eliminate the negative,  as for Mr. In 
between, well we stay on our own sides of the boulevard.

I  love diatonic harp, and am envious of good chromatic players. 

It doesn't  have to be blues to be good for me. 

Who knows, maybe I'll finally get  off my comfortable horse and start 
practicing some chromatic again. 

Like  a lot of people, I see music as another language and I'm just trying to 
find my  voice. I try not to speak out of turn and strive to add to the 
dialog when I  play in a meaningful way. That's about all anyone can do. Sure there 
are those  with better vocabulary and who are more articulate, but that 
doesn't mean I  can't join in too, cause no one else can speak with my voice but  
me.

Thats my $.02 on the topic, thanks for giving me a forum in which to  share 
my thoughts." 







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