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

[william price <promultis33@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jon,

Thanks for the commentary. I know some will not like it, but they can just go cuddle up to another redundant book on the harmonica, for some fun... 
Also, let this be a lesson (your ejection from the holy Chromatic site) to others that may be so bold as to think for themselves.
 
B.P.
--------------------------------------------
On Wed, 10/22/14, JON KIP <jon@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

 Subject: [Harp-L] does anybody NEED another book on playing Chromatic	Harmonica?
 To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
 Date: Wednesday, October 22, 2014, 2:23 PM
 
 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