[Harp-L] Subject: Re: Dave Payne and the Ohio championship

[EGS1217@xxxxxxx]

Way to go Dave!  Congratulations on such a nice acknowledgment of your  
playing, and you're not even an Ohio resident...so cool that someone from WVa  
beat out native Ohioans,since I thought Ohio had a wealth of players  there 
who would enter such a competition. Major congratulations are in order  :)
 
I love that you were told you had them at 'I'm so Lonesome I could  
cry'...even when you thought you'd had to force yourself through the song.   It 
really IS all in one's perspective...and sometimes another's viewpoint  is 
quite different from one's own (found that out for myself this past  
weekend)....kudos to your guitarist Greg Vincent, as well.  
 
Also enjoy your finding interesting old wood, especially  American 
Chestnut, wherever you go in your travels. I think it's  great that you work with 
and appreciate good woods since I used  to refinish furniture years ago as 
well as make pine carvings, fell in love with  exotic woods used for inlays 
(for chess sets)...so I've been following your  American Chestnut comb thread 
with much interest. 
 
So I'm quite sure I'll be a candidate for one of your Chestnut-combed  
harmonicas one of these days...
 
Elizabeth
 
Message: 5
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2009 10:57:06 -0700 (PDT)
From: David  Payne <dmatthew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Dave  Payne and the Ohio championship
To: Harp L Harp L  <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>



----- Original Message ----
From:  Joe and Cass Leone <leone@xxxxxxxx>
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent:  Sunday, July 19, 2009 12:51:58 AM
Subject: [Harp-L] Dave Payne (Seydel  Rep)


I just heard a rumor that our own David Payne Sr. is the 2009  Ohio state 
harmonica champ.
What about it. Anyone know something about  this?

smo-joe
______________


I know a little about how it  went, I was there. I woke up with a 
congratulatory phone call this morning and I  was a bit puzzled how anybody knew 
about it, but apparently Steve Williams, who  was there, let the cat out of the 
bag on the Elk River Harmonicas forum.   It is true, I did win first place 
in the Ohio State Harmonica Championship  yesterday.
It was held in the old courthouse building in Chester, built in  1823. I 
was sitting on the inside staircase that led up to the second floor  listening 
to the other contestants, look down at the stairs and I'm like "wait a  
minute, these stairs are made out of American Chestnut. That's a great 
testament  to that wood and 19th Century craftsmanship, people have been walking up 
and  down those stairs for 189 years now and they are perfectly fine. I must 
have fed  off some of that chestnut mojo, cause I avoided serious train 
wrecks in both  songs. First was "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." My mouth seemed 
OK when I got up  there, but as soon as I tried to move the harmonica to 
play the second note of  the intro, my mouth was so dry, it was like a tongue 
frozen to a flagpole, so I  had to force the harp during the hole song. I 
was able to summon up some  moisture for the second song, a fast bluegrass 
instrumental I usually play about  90 beats a minute. But in my
nervousness, I kicked it off at about 130 beats  a minute (we have never, 
ever, played it that fast) and my guitar player, Greg  Vincent of Big Possum 
Grin, was about a half beat behind me. I am freaking out  at this point 
about five seconds in and I've got a decision to make, I can slow  down to the 
guitar and risk a back and forth timing adjustment/train wreck, stop  and 
start over (the safest) or trust myself that I could maintain my current  time 
and have confidence in Greg's guitar abilities that he can catch me after I  
screwed up and kicked it off so fast. I decided to trust Greg and myself, 
so I  closed my eyes went into a zone, blocked out the guitar and kept my own 
 time.  
I learned afterwards, that right after the kickoff, Greg held  back on the 
guitar and was doing more of a light snare thing on the guitar until  he 
caught me right at the beginning of the second progression. 
Steve  Williams, another contestant and a fine multi-instrument musician, 
said I  managed to keep the same time throughout, I was worried about that, 
and that  Greg had handled it perfectly. I was looking at the judges' feet, 
they were  tapping together with the timing I had, so it must not have been 
that  obvious.
However, Steve added, "you had them on I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry.  You 
would have REALLY had to have screwed up the second song to have anything  
counted against you." 

So, I suppose there is a lesson there for me, and  newbies as well, when 
you've played with somebody for years and developed this  musicial bond, 
sometimes you can really trust each other.  



Dave
_____________________________
www.elkriverharmonicas.com





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