[Harp-L] does anybody NEED another book on playing Chromatic Harmonica?

[JON KIP <jon@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I've just been avoiding life and cleaning dishes today, by reading some posts  over on the chromatic harmonica site, from which I'm gratefully banned from posting,  (a great time-saver for me,)

I'm disturbed just a bit about the numbers of people who say "we NEED a good book on chromatic harmonica, let's annoy Winslow enough that he convinces his publisher to publish another book, even if they lose money...".

There is NO need for another book on the instrument. What people mean is "Gee I'm not as good as I want to be, instead of logically practicing, I'll go look for a book to help me." 

That's just silly. Avoidance at its best.

Playing chromatic harmonica is, in theory, a very simple thing. In practice, however, it takes......er......Practice.

You find the right hole
you blow or you draw
you realize that there are several ways to play certain notes, and you figure out which would be easier in the particular passage you're trying to play..the other silly things about the instrument, you learn to live with. (The "If Toots can do it on the same instrument, then it's possible, so why not give it a try,? approach.)

for the adventurous (usually not me), you learn what double and triple stops work....(all the chromatic harmonica books have them)

you practice long tones, just like a real musician on most any instrument does.

You learn that every piece of music is really just ONE LONG NOTE, divided up into tiny, sometimes, annoying, and difficult,  bits and pieces, some silent and some less silent....and they all count as music.

Then you practice for X hours a day for ten years and go play you some music and hope that some very elderly person in your family, after living a great life for well over 96 years, dies and leaves you some money, since you won't make much playing harmonica.

But when you die, Nobody will have to say "Gee what a great person he/she was, but what do we do with all these redundant books on chromatic harmonica?"

Buy any one of the beginning chromatic harmonica books as a reference if you want, and then buy some flute or oboe studies....

And do not, under any circumstances, put the little indications on the flute/oboe music regarding hole number, wind direction, slide position and so on. 

Actually, perhaps DO put those hieroglyphics in the books, but immediately take the books and quietly (shh! it's a library!!) and secretlly put them in the local library's Flute Study bookcase, just to confuse the flute players....yeah, that's a good idea.

there is nothing really complicated about the chromatic harmonica.

that's why it's so difficult to master.


jk



The philosopher Socrates, discovered to his dismay that he was the smartest person in Athens merely because he, and he alone, recognized how ignorant he was.
http://jonkip.com