Besides Danny Wilson, who has been very helpful to my endeavors, I
rarely meet serious bass harpers except at SPAH. I have also had good
couple of talks with Buck Weed from Jason Ricci and New Blood who
plays it as well. Yet most people with a bass harp are bass harp
owners, not high level players.
I knew about bass harp before I went to my first SPAH in Dallas (7
years ago? 8?) But SPAH was my first real liuve experience with it.
Watching the performers, I was really floored by how much I enjoyed
harmonica band music. I played electric bass for a couple of years
but it dropped by the wayside. Perhaps my electric bass playing
connected me to the lower frequencies.
I found myself watching the bass harp players.
This is easy, I thought. Country bass lines, one - five, one five,
and blues/walking bass lines. That's the whole thing.
I had a fantasy about getting one, learning it quickly and being the
bass player in a punk band. Also, I had a vision of New Orleans brass
band music with a harmonica band and drums.
I went to SPAH 3 years ago and interviewed a bunch of bass players. I
bought a 2 octave Hohner. I met Richard Smith who created a pickup
for my bass so I can plug it into an amplifier. I met Steve Watne who
tricked out my bass to play easily.
I have practiced between 2 and 4 hours a week for 3 years. I am
learning to read bass clef, I am practicing arpeggios, walking bass
lines, blues bass lines. I play it on as many songs at gigs as my
bands will allow and have recorded on two tracks for other people's
CD's. I brought it with me to the Kerrville Folk Festival and jammed
at the campfires and did the harmonica band with Brad Trainham on his
new chord, Norton Buffalo on chromatic and Rob Roy Parnell and the
students on diatonic.
My analysis is this:
The bass harp is a ridiculously difficult instrument!
In my opinion, there's really only three things to learn:
1. How to get nice tone
2.the role of a bass player in music
3.the layout/muscle memory to be able to jump from note to note.
Number 3 is a killer! I was working on something yesterday that I
think I should easily have under my belt by now but I did not. Not
even close.
Part of the problem is that until Brad bought his chord harp a month
ago, I have been living in a harmonica band vacuum. I really do not
have a lot of time to find friends to jam with, so actual jamming with
others has been hard to come by. Hopefully Brad and I and others can
create a monthly or more practice for the harmonica band. I also am
dealing with practicing diatonic, chromatic and mandolin as well as
earning a living teaching and performing and giving my wife attention.
So basically I am looking for validation. Has anyone else really
delved into Bass harp? Please tell me it was hard.
Michael Rubin
Michaelrubinharmonica.com
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