[Harp-L] Kim Wilson TB/Pucker

[SONNYTONE@xxxxxxx]

When Kim stopped by my house on one of his tours, I straight up asked him  
if he TB'd all the time.. He honestly told me that he does both whenever he  
wants, then proceeded to mess with me and played the same lines, asking 
which  was which, and I have a pretty good ear and could not tell whatsoever. I 
do both  and find the more relaxed I am playing TB helps to get the same 
basic tone with  Pucker. I hit the gym six days a week and work on my 
breathing while doing the  elliptical after the strength training. This helps 
immensely as I use yoga  breathing which is much harder with your heart rate at 
150 BPM... Your lungs  fill from the extreme bottom of your diaphragm, slowly 
letting them fill over a  10 - 12 second span, then blow it out with a 3 
second burst, then immediately do  the deep breathing, even though your body 
will want to take that fast full  breath, then going back to the deep 
breathing the next breath. With Sonny's  style it helps as he was a pure diaphragm 
player, no throat involved.. Another  way to help is to pull the air in with 
your throat, in light bursts, and  exhaling the exact same way. You can 
speed up or slow down your vibrato, have  more control of it practicing like 
this. Doing cardio according to your heart  rate is key; if too low you are 
only burning the stored glycogen, not fat, and  if too high you are burning 
muscle with the fat.. There is a formula that uses  your resting heart rate as 
part of the equation of what range you should be in,  but an easy way is to 
subtract your age from 220, and to be in perfect fat  burning you want to be 
at 80% of your maximum heart rate. So if you are 50, your  max is 170 BPM>> 
80% of 170 is 136 BPM, which is on the low side. The  better shape you are 
in you can hit 85% to a bit more. So 136 - 150 is great for  working on your 
harp playing while keeping fit. Always do cardio after you train  
anaerobically, weight training burns up the glycogen stored in your liver so  that 
when you go to do cardio you will get to fat burning much faster... I am a  
National Academy of Sports Medicine certified personal trainer and 
nutritionist.  The guy on the original Bowflex commercials, Tom Pervis, was my teacher 
of this  4 day, 12 hours a day course...  If people are interested, give it 
a try  and see if it helps you like it does me.  
I will be posting soon some solos from 1993 with my band, Sonny Jr and Code 
 Blue, they kicked in those ideas I had at the time.. Amp at the time was a 
 Gibson GA45 with 4 x 10 which is pretty bright.  
I have been talking with Paul Davies about being at SPAH next year and  
giving a seminar on Sonny's style, being in the vendor's booth and part of the  
whole thing.. I will be possibly at the Garden State Festival, I will need 
more  information on it. Sept 25 - 26 for Raleigh, not the 23rd. Just trying 
to create  a different subject maybe for a day or two.. Sonny Jr.