RE: [Harp-L] transferring instruments - sax to harp

["Stephen Jennings" <harpfixer@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Or find a sax player who teaches, and agree that he worries about musicality
and you worry about the easiness (or otherwise) of your chosen instrument.
Or not.
Steve Jennings

-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of philharpn@xxxxxxx
Sent: 17 June 2014 7:19 PM
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Harp-L] transferring instruments - sax to harp

The music world is full of examples of music written for one instrument and
played on another. And not all of it is classical.


Some of the times the music can be transferred note for note; other times
certain notes do not fall in the right pattern on the second instrument for
too much success.


Doug Tate used to talk about the difficulty of playing notes in a smooth run
(legato) when dealing with change of breath direction. Some of the notes
could be played smoothly and some roughly. His solution was to play ALL the
notes roughly so the whole pattern was consistent.


This is what has to happen with the transfer of sax to harmonica. Chances
are the Richter chromatic might be the best instrument in 2nd position to
mimic a sax. Best to check with a sax player who plays harp for the final
answer. 


No matter what happens, the transfer from sax to harp (unless it's Moon
River) is not going to work completely. 


People play all kinds of horn, guitar and piano riffs on the harp. Most of
them sound pretty good. But they sound different than the original
instrument.