RE: [Harp-L] Re: amps for beginners?

["Bill Hines" <billhines4@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

"But I wish I had gotten involved with amps sooner than I did, since the
close-mic'ed amped sound is what I always loved."

I agree with Rick. Having come down the path from beginner to
intermediate over the last few years, I think I was too focused on the
instructional material in the beginning and I was forgetting to have a
little fun as well. I had that mentality that I would do this in a
structured manner and get the amp, etc when I earned it. 

I'm a big advocate of getting an inexpensive small starter amp/mic, like
the pignose hog20 or roland microcube and learning the distinction
between playing amplified and acoustic while you are learning. The
majority of your learning should be just harp to mouth, for sure. But
once in a while plug in and have some fun to some backing tracks, even
if it sounds really bad. The only way to get better is to work through
that, and again have a little fun to reward yourself.

I also found it a big difference to learn to play while holding a mic
rather than just the harp. I felt I had to re-learn some things which
was disappointing since I had them down when playing acoustically.

Bill H