Re: [Harp-L] Positions a misnomer and harp Jargon

[Garry <harp@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I was at a jam the other night and this player was really struggling 
> with minor key tunes.  Nice guy, so we got to talking and i tactfully 
> suggested that he might want to try playing minor material in either 
> third or fifth position (neither of which is difficult to do) instead 
> of staying in second position all the time.  This suggestion 
> confounded him and he was resistant to any further explanation.  The 
> problem seemed to be that he had no understanding of where any of the 
> scale tones were in second position, so the concept of playing in 
> another position was beyond his grasp.  As a practical matter, it's 
> harder to play completely by ear in other positions because one cannot 
> bend randomly and still stay in key like many players are able to do 
> when they play in second position.

i found 3rd baffling until i saw a simple suggestion from adam gussow's 
videos,
to just start on hole 4 instead of 2 and play like you do in second. 
 the first few
holes work, you need to adjust for the 6/7 blow/draw switch, and that's 
enough
to get you started.  once i "got it", i worked on figuring out the rest.

but hitting someone who's probably been playing by ear with the theory is
not likely to get him far, so i'm not surprised at your experience.


--
We make a living from what we get,
but we make a life from what we give.
- Kathy Moser