Re: [Harp-L] blowing rags and wiping way the cobwebs



If you listen to the Memphis Jug Band and similar groups from the late 1920s and early 30s, they usually choose first position for tunes that prominently feature a V chord (such as the raggy tunes that use some kind of progressions that follows the iii-vi-ii-V-I axis), and second position for tunes that prominently feature the IV chord (i.e., blues). Twelfth position is an option as well, as Daddy Stovepipe showed in his Greenville Strut.

However, whatever position you use, unexamined habit can steer you to the swamp of moldy cheese and stale licks.

So what are the components of your stultifying habits?

Are you following familiar breathing patterns? Going for certain notes just because they bend? Avoiding certain notes (or ranges) because they require inconvenient bends?

Why not put the harmonica in the back seat for awhile and put the musical structure in the driver's seat and let it take the harmonica to places it won't go out of habit?

First off, what are the chords in the chord progression?

Play each individual chord as a series of arpeggios all up and down the entire range of the harp. Play whatever bends are requred and don't wimp out because you need to bend Draw 2 or 3 and sustain the note in tune and with good tone.

Try making it from an arpeggio of one chord to the arpeggio of the next chord. Then try to do it in a musically interesting way, either switching over at a point where the chords share a common note, or by covering the same ground twice, highlighting the contrast between the notes of the chord you just outlined and the notes of the new chord. Or find a cool place to jump to in changing chords, and then a cool direction to go in once you've made the jump.

Next, put each arpeggio in the context of a pentatonic scale, either major or minor according to the character of the chord. Play the scale through the entire range of the harp, and explore small areas of the scale - two, three or four consecutive notes that you can turn into a lick. 

For ragtime, look especially for three-note licks that you can repeat in a two-note rhythm - ONE two THREE one TWO three ONE two THREE one TWO three, etc. See if you can play a lick like that one one chord, then find another lick that is either its parallel in the next chord (repeats the same scale degrees relative to the chord root, such as C-D-E on a C chord and F-G-A on an F chord), or its cover (where it covers the same range of notes, with the actual notes changed to fit the new chord, such as C-D-E on the C chord and C-D-F on the F chord).

Look for line tones. This is a term I just made up, similar to the more familiar guide tones, but without specific harmonic implications. Line tones are chord notes that move from one chord to another and progress in a fairly smooth line. For instance, the chord progression C - A minor - D minor - G might have line tones of:

C (C chord) - A (Am chord) - A again (Dm chord) - B (G chord).

C - A - A - B makes for a very smooth line. What you can then do with that line is use it as a skeleton for melodic and rhythmic elaboration. You can elaborate a sequence of line tones to the point that the line becomes unnoticed while still functioning as a coherent organizing principle.

Ways of elaborating a line tone: You could move away from the line tone, then back to it, play little ornaments and noodles around it. Repeat it (and the neighboring notes) rhythmically. Use the line tones as the starting or ending points of little licks pulled from the pentatonic, major or even blues scales.

A few additional line tone sequences for the progression above: 
C-A-A-G, C-E-F-G, G-A-C-B, G-A-C-D, G-E-D-D, G-E-D-B, E-D-C-B

Hope this helps

Winslow Yerxa

Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5

--- On Wed, 10/28/09, James Conway <harp3333@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

From: James Conway <harp3333@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Harp-L] blowing rags
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx, harp3333@xxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 10:06 AM


Hi group!

 

I've recently been playing a regular gig at a barbeque joint here in Chicago and I'm blowing harp with a great fingerpicker(John Hasbrouck) who plays a lot of ragtime pieces(III-VI-II-V-I changes). I'm stuck in a first-position rut where I'm mostly on the upper register using a lot of blow bends. It works but everybody ,including myself, is sick of the same old riffs I'm spitting out. This is new territory for me and I would appreciate any tips(positions, techniques, attitudes, etc) to improve my ragtime soloing. I think I recall in my travels somebody saying that 12th/1st flat position is good for this. I know on Levy's instructional video he dissected Sweet Georgia Brown and explained some stuff, but I don't have the tape anymore. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!

cheers,
Jim Conway

harp3333@xxxxxxxxxxx
www.jamesconway.net
www.youtube.com/jamesconway01




                           
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