Re: [Harp-L] Jerry Portnoy's Masterclass 3 CDs

[Michelle LeFree <mlefree@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 Zvi Kresch asked:
> Does anyone have experience or thoughts on Jerry Portnoy's 3 CD Blues
> Harmonica Masterclass series?  I saw a couple youtube videos of him
> playing and was blown away, but that says nothing about his ability to
> teach.  Thanks!

Zvi, several others have responded to your question about Portnoy's 
Masterclass CD set. I figured I'd wait to let you see what others said 
before I chimed in because I'm a sort of a Portnoy Masterclass (PM) 
evangelist. I gave very serious and concerted efforts to learn via 
several other "systems" for learning to play diatonic harmonica before 
trying the PM (remember, this was long before Winslow's excellent 
treatise, "Harmonica for Dummies" became available). I found one very 
popular book/CD set to be too "cutesy" and distracting for its 
cartoon-like approach and another method too dry and studied with what 
seemed like only step-wise improvements. I wanted to get right down to 
playing harp and Jerry Portnoy's CD set was perfect for me.

With PM, I was able to listen to him describe what he was about to play, 
then listen to him playing it, and finally listen to him describing what 
he just played. As someone said, he is very articulate and an excellent 
teacher (ask Annie Raines, et. al.). Having each instruction laid out 
like that I could (with a CD player that has fast forward/reverse, not 
just track skipping) rewind as necessary until I could reasonably well 
reproduce what I heard Jerry play (you have to decide what "reasonably 
well" means; I have gone back through the Portnoy CD's at regular 
(roughly yearly) intervals and am able to extract more each time -- 
listening with a more practiced ear and playing increasingly well 
(hopefully anyway ;).

Let me just say that Portnoy's CD set was the key that unlocked many 
doors for my harmonica playing. I found that though centered on Chicago 
Blues style (and yes, that includes some tongue blocking) it teaches the 
fundamentals you need to play in nearly any genre.

I heartily recommend the combination of Winslow's book and Portnoy's CD 
set to my students as an ideal way to get playing quickly and have an 
excellent study and reference guide as well. No doubt thousands of other 
harpers have used the many other options out there, but Portnoy worked 
for me. I just wish I would have had Winslow's book to go along with it, 
but I'm not as lucky as you... ;-)

BTW, Zvi, you now also have available via the internet complete 
instructional material from David Barrett, Howard Levy, Adam Gussow, 
Ronnie Shellist, Dennis Gruenling and others, as well as a vast array of 
youtube videos (admittedly of varying quality). A veritable smorgasbord 
of learning material is available these days. A good fraction of it 
resides on my bookshelf and if you get bitten by the little tin sandwich 
the way I have, you will soon be saying the same thing. :-)

Michelle