Re: [Harp-L] Learn 6 positions first year

[Rick Dempster <rick.dempster@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hmm.....what about first position? There's a reason for calling it 'first'. 
If you learn first and second, then you have really learned the guts of 4th and 5th, at least in their function as minor modal positions.
But I do agree with you about folks getting bogged down in technique and being unable to play 'music'.
RD


>>> Ken Deifik <kenneth.d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 7/03/2012 5:06 >>>

>Should a diatonic (Richter) student be introduced to 6 positions during 
>the first year?

I think this is a terrible idea.  I have heard too many people who know 
lots of positions, who invent all kinds of interesting tunings, who have a 
broad knowlege of gear - who can't play a lick of real music.  Many can't 
put three clean notes together in a phrase.

My own advice to new players: if you're playing diatonic harp because you 
like blues, rock and roll, country, folk music - learn second position 
really well, play for hours every day, break through to the upper holes of 
the harp, improve your single notes until people tell you how pure your 
sound is, learn how to play with guitarists, string bands, blues bands.

When you have a command of second position and a sense of what making real 
music is about, THEN you'll have a basis to learn how to make music in the 
other positions.

The other positions become magic portals into completely other harps and 
sounds when you're already playing strong, beautiful riffs and melodies in 
second position.  Frankly, they are new languages.  Learn your native 
language well first, so that you can actually utter intelligible sentences 
and ideas, and only then learn the other languages.

Ken