[Harp-L] Playing in your head and reading music

[Burke Trieschmann]

 Greetings Harp-L-ians:  (Hmm- Harp-A-liens comes to mind too)

Thought I'd follow up with 2 bits on T.Lizzie's comment:

 "I heard someone say, once, I could never learn to juggle
well until I tried to  *talk*  and juggle at the same time.?   Something
about forcing your brain to ?automate? a skill by increasing the workload
with an added skill.  So, clearly, we should all start playing harmonica
while riding unicycles!"

I have played rack harp for many years with various instruments:  Guitar, Banjo, Bouzouki, Mando, and once in a fit of Billy Joel inspired Piano Man-ic, tried with the piano.
I find that when I am just focusing on the one instrument, its obviously easier to get more out of it.  For the harmonica, there is much more nuance when I can use my hands too of course and it gets 100% of the music brain focus.

Same with the string instruments, playing one at a time.  

But when combined, certain muscle memories and patterns kind of take over and play themselves so I can clock out of focusing on my right hand rhythm or picking patterns on say, guitar or banjo, and focus more on the harp solos (and lyrics/ singing) when they come around.  There are also a lot of typical "cheater" riffs that rack harp players can rely on which are on a lot of recordings, (mostly first position).  I've mentioned this before, but Johnathan Edwards was an early inspiration for really being able to kick out a good rack harp solo.  Recently saw him and he's still rockin' it.

Hoping that someday I can play Bela Fleck or Tony Rice riffs note for note and follow along note for note with the harmonica, and maybe while riding a Unicycle.

Happy holidays to all.

Burke T.- Audio Producer
www.opendoorharmonicas.com
Open Door Productions
www.opendoorprod.com



Subject: [Harp-L] Playing in your head and reading music

Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 09:26:29 -0500
From: Tin Lizzie <TrackHarpL at xxxxx>
To: harp-l at xxxxx
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252

Hi, Aongus!

I am not a neuro-scientist, but I have a keen layman?s interest in that
kind of stuff.  I heard someone say, once, ?I could never learn to juggle
well until I tried to  *talk*  and juggle at the same time.?   Something
about forcing your brain to ?automate? a skill by increasing the workload
with an added skill.  So, clearly, we should all start playing harmonica
while riding unicycles!

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