Re: [Harp-L] harp vs. guitar

[Ken Deifik <kenneth.d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As a guy whose website is HarmonicaGuitar.com, I guess I should chime in.

I think it's easier to start by learning harp, IF you have friends you can 
play with - i.e., guitarists.  The best situation would be if you have a 
friend who plays harp well.  That person may be willing to show you a few 
ways in.  More important, just being in the room with a real harp player 
has an oddly inspiring effect.

Presence is an odd thing.  For years I wanted to learn how to yodel but it 
just wouldn't happen.  Then I did a session with a singing cowboy from 
Wyoming and just by being in the same room with him while he yodeled - 
shazamm, I got it.  He didn't show me a thing, but I went home and nailed 
yodeling in a few minutes.  Never got great at it, but I can do it.

The same with screenwriting.  I had been interested in screenwriting for 
years when, at the age of 30 I met a 30 year old guy who was a successful 
screenwriter - and like me he was a Jew from Long Island.  He looked like 
every kid I went to school with.  I didn't think "Wow, if he can do it, I 
can do it."  I just got a change in mindset - in a flash.  I never got 
wildly successful as a screenwriter, but I made my living at it and created 
a TV series that ran for two years.

Anyway, I think harp could be easier to pick up and trick yourself into 
getting good at because
1. They cost alot less than guitars, so they're easier to obtain for an 
experimental foray.
2. The basics are simpler.
3. You can carry it around with you.  When I was a newbie I played a whole 
lot outside the house - I'll bet 90% of the people on this list could say 
the same thing.  So I really got in the hours.  I even used to noodle 
around while studying and doing homework, and discovered some techniques I 
use to this day that way.  I developed one of my signature riffs, one I've 
simply never heard anyone else use, while walking the family poodle.  She 
HATED harp, as she'd heard that that is what a dog is supposed to do.

I learned how to play banjo next, because my mom bought me a nice one for 
my 16th birthday.  That got my fingers ready for guitar.

I learned guitar because I lied about being a guitar teacher.  I had never 
played a guitar in my life, didn't own one.  But I wanted out of NYC for 
the summer, so I told a staffing guy for one of the big Catskills hotels 
that I could teach guitar.  He called back and said, "Your audition is 
Friday."   I got a guitar playing partner to teach me something that looked 
impressive - Alice's Restaurant.  I could play the first 8 bars of the 
guitar part by Friday.  Another guy sold me a cheap, but not junky, 
guitar.  I went for my audition, told the guy I was nervous, played four 
bars of Alice's Restaurant and flubbed it, but the guy said "Okay, you have 
the job."  Which was a counselor for the teenage children of guests.  Very 
little guitar was actually required, though I had to lead a hootnanny every 
week.  So I learned how to strum a very few chords and play a very few 
songs, and once a week.

Learning how to strum a few chords and play a few songs was pretty 
easy.  But I was a MUCH better harp player at 17, which is what I turned 
that summer.

And I didn't get much better at guitar until I hit 40 and became the guitar 
player in a duo, and THAT'S when I finally got good at the durned 
thing.  But I already had more than 25 years in as a musician, had picked 
recording sessions in NYC, Nashville and LA on harp.

I got good at harp pretty quickly, because I knew a sensational harp player 
who let me nab all his most impressive licks and because I wasn't just 
another guitar player among the billions in Queens.  I got invited to more 
jams because good harp players were scarce compared with good, by teenage 
standards, guitarists, and those jams were incredible learning experiences.

I have somewhat regretted getting good on harp instead of guitar ever 
since, because many of my friends who got as good on guitar as I got on 
harp have worked ALOT more than I have.

Getting good on either instrument is hard, as Richard Hunter 
observed.  Being able to fake it on harp is easier. Most people really have 
no idea if the harp player they are hearing is any good.  When they hear a 
really good harp player, they are often blown away, but the next time they 
hear a patzer they won't quite hear the difference.  Heck, the worst 
harmonica player I ever heard got TONS of bookings in Nashville back in the 
70's and beyond.  Even professional music business people in Music City 
itself couldn't tell the diff.  (Charley McCoy, possibly the best harp 
player I ever heard, himself must've been puzzled by this guy's success.)

And being able to fake your way through a jam is an underrated skill.  If 
you can trick yourself into thinking you're doing okay, you'll keep going 
and maybe learn a few things, and maybe even learn lots of things.  I think 
it's HOW most of us find ourselves in the middle of getting good at 
something.  We think we're doing well long before that's actually the case, 
and are heartened to keep going.

Learning to strum a few chords and play a few songs on guitar is about as 
far as most people ever get.  If that's what the original questioner meant 
by "learning" guitar, it's really not that much harder than being able to 
fake it on harp.  What'll make it hard is that you'll probably start on a 
crappy guitar, and they're REALLY hard to learn on.  It's possibly the main 
reason most people don't get further than a few chords and songs.

To sum up already, I think it's easier to fake it on harp, and to trick 
yourself into thinking you're getting somewhere with it, which is the royal 
road to actually getting somewhere with it.  Sticking with either 
instrument long enough to actually "learn" to play is the main key as far 
as I'm concerned.

Ken