"He is pretty good. Imagine what he'll be like in 20 years time!"
This has been said about every kid player.
There are several kids that have NEVER progressed because they were told how great they were when young. In general, the low standards that are kept for harmonica only serve to keep the mass of as poorer and poorer musicians. Ever see the movie Idiocracy?
I HOPE Josh keeps his drive and becomes the best harmonica player ever, so far though he like most young kids are not on the track. Jay Gaunt is the only young player that seems to have a shot at being great.
THIS is a child prodigy
Listen to the dynamics and the emotion behind the playing. Also NO time or Rhythm issues like you hear with Josh's playing.
Josh King is strange because the first time I saw him I was convinced he was miming. Not because I didn't believe he could play, but because there was something fake about his facial expressions. I guess when he's older he'll develop real feeling.
Josh is not a bad player at all. For me, the first thing I judge a player on, regardless of age is whether or not I can listen to them for more than a few seconds. The best young harmonica player I heard was Uwe Penzoldt, I first met him in 1994 but haven't heard anything from him since. I met Buster Brody that year too and he was supposed to be the young hot shot... NOT EVEN close when compared to Uwe. Uwe at 10yrs was playing Don Les style jazz and already had a level of technique that few ever achieve. None of these young kids like Brandon, RJ, Zach have the depth that of technique and style like UWE at 10.
However I also think that the teachers have a huge role to play in whether the student progresses.
I think that for Pianists and Jazz or Classical musicians in general there are a lot of opportunities for students to learn from respected people who know their instruments "inside out". This of course can aid the progress of a student immensely.
For most blues players (especially with the harmonica) this isn't generally the case.
The level of teaching in blues harmonica is notoriously poor.
So much of the instrument is in most cases self taught usually by accompanying CD's etc.
People like Adam, Dennis, Jason, Dave Barratt are thankfully beginning to make that situation a lot better, and explain to people the nitty gritty of playing
But until that goes down to the grass roots level and we have better teachers in peoples localities it's always going to be an big uphill struggle for a lot of people.
"For most blues players (especially with the harmonica) this isn't generally the case."
I'd like to agree but I can't. While this is true on a local level there is the internet and applications like Skype that work very very well for lessons. Skype give you access to world class players and teachers for about the same price as working with locals who are at a lesser level.
I think most large cities have a very good harmonica player living there. When I lived in Minneapolis, there were people like RJ Mischo, Clint Hoover and Curtis Blake... some of the best players around.
I know there are a ton of great ones in chicagoland, St Louis, KC, Los Angeles, San Francisco... there are great players everywhere if you know where to look.
Personally, I don't allow the excuse of not having a teacher to become a good player. Nobody taught me how to play except myself and the record player. There was no internet back then. If you have the drive to succeed then you can do anything.
Last Edited by on Jul 13, 2009 8:32 AM
In other words, are there not 10,000 adults who all play the same stuff on the harp in the same way, and there's very little chance to shine - you don't need to be good, you need to be original as well.
OK, so you're teaching em jazz - it's harder, they stand out a little bit more and they shine for a little bit longer, but is jazz on a diatonic not just a gimmick? I mean, there is this thing called the chromatic harp...
I don't teach Jazz. I don't teach any style. I teach people how to be better musicians. I teach them how to find themselves, how to apply themselves. I teach people to play MUSIC on the harmonica.
Who am I to dictate what a person plays? Regardless of what most of you think, I'm not at all arrogant. I help people be themselves. Unfortunately I need to break through a bunch of bullshit to get to the real person.
Brandon Bailey can best describe the process.
I teach things you won't find in a book and things nobody else will teach you. In general, I think the way music is taught is backwards. I approach teaching and playing music in a very different way.
I agree that if you have the drive and determination you can achieve great things.
But most people don't have that level of drive and need to be assisted along the way.
I also agree about the Skype comments (at least in the USA).
But the fact is that if you go into most music stores they have lists / adverts of piano, woodwind, brass, bass, drums, guitar teachers and a lot even have in-store teachers / lessons.
For the harmonica this simply isn't the case. They invariably just point you to a rack of music books and say something like "there should be one in there somewhere".
As for Skype, for young kids in the USA / Canada I agree it's a great tool. But for some kid in Europe where there can be a 5 hour time difference it's just not feasible, for them to have lessons with someone like you. As for most of them it would be the middle of the night when it was lesson time.
Last Edited by on Jul 13, 2009 8:51 AM
"As for Skype, for young kids in the USA / Canada I agree it's a great tool. But for some kid in Europe where there can be a 5 hour time difference it's just not feasible. As for most of them it would be the middle of the night when it was lesson time."
I teach more people across the globe then people in the USA.
Drive and determination is something that can be taught too, you just need the right teacher.
I know it looks as though it was addressed to you personally, Chris, but it wasn't really. Perhaps I should have written "OK, so you can teach them jazz" - i.e. jazz on the diatonic harp is becoming popular. I just wanted to acknowledge it as a fact, that's all.
I'm awake every morning before 5am and tend to go to sleep around mid-night. So my evening is their morning and vice versa. It's a lot easier than you think. Most of the lesson times are planned so its not like I'm just sitting here for somebody to randomly buzz in.
About playing jazz on a diatonic : I don't think it's a gimmick. Chromatic harps sound very different from diatonics, to me it's just not the same instrument, almost like trumpet and sax.
There's also the fact that, while knowing how to play chromatic helps a lot to learn diatonic, the opposite is not true, at least not in the same amount.
I've been playing both for more than ten years, and I still find it much more difficult to play the chrom than the diatonic.
"There's also the fact that, while knowing how to play chromatic helps a lot to learn diatonic, the opposite is not true, at least not in the same amount."
Not sure that I agree. To me they are totally separate instruments. Learning to play piano or guitar will make you a better harp player too. It's not exclusive to playing chromatic. The reason is, the chromatic is more clear in how it functions but a piano is even more clear because you can actually SEE what you are doing.
BTW- the first recording session I ever did was played on chromatic instead of the diatonic. The diatonic is easily one of the hardest instruments in the world to play well. Think about it... it's three times the work. On a piano or chromatic, the scales are consistent through the octaves. On the diatonic, each scale is played differently in each octave.
About teachers of harmonica compared to other instruments... I would even say that its some kind of advantage that its so little developed.
With other instruments theres a mile long list of students that want to be taught by the top teachers/professors. The only way that you will get there is if you are accepted at the top music schools and prepare for a soloist career.
With harmonica all you have to do is buy a harp of buddha, and, here you go, you get to have an hour to work with one of the top pros around. I know music students that would pull all their teeth out to be in this situation...
Btw.: what other international teachers are there...?
The kid is young, which makes his harmonica skills seem impressive, but he better not stagnate around his current skill level if he wants to be a harp player as an adult. ---------- "Without music, life would be a mistake" -Nietzsche
I hate to say this, but I don't think the kid is great, but for being ten he is good. Becoming a virtuoso of the harmonica at such a young age is nearly impossible because of the JUST RECENT usage of overblows, and overdraws. They are not taught techniques by most parties. I do not believe in virtuosos, they are usually just young kids who were forced to play. Will they become good? Yes. Will they WANT to play? No. As a younger player I would like to say, I may be no Howard Levy, Jimi Hendrix, Gene Krupa, or Mozart but I understand how good I am not, and I understand what it will take to get to where I want to go. THAT is what is important, and I bet many adults would agree.
I don't believe anybody has pointed out that Josh is playing my song--mine and Ben Bouman's, I mean. "Stone Fox Breakdown." Not "Stone Fox Chase." It's great to know that the young are picking up on the good stuff.
I've never met Josh, but he and his mother contacted me a few months ago via email and he was supposed to have a lesson with me in Piermont back in June, when I was supposed to have been in town to play a gig at the Turning Point. Gig/tour was postponed. We never had the lesson.
Whatever else one might say about Josh, he gets a remarkably big sound for such a little guy. At 8, he's made a good start.
Last Edited by on Jul 13, 2009 7:03 PM
Actually, I'll make a comment here. I speak disinterestedly; Josh isn't my student, I have no stake in him. In fact, I have a negative stake: I am philosophically opposed to producing 8-year-old blues harmonica prodigies.
Still, the three video examples posted by Buddha all have one thing in common that distinguish them from Josh's example, apart from mastery of the time-issues that Buddha rightly notes: the three young musicians aren't improvising. Or at least the first and third aren't. They're parading repertoire. (The second pianist is slightly different in this respect. She's a true prodigy, like mathematical prodigies. She's channeling from somewhere else.) Nor, for that matter, are they vocalizing--because their instruments don't allow that. Well, I take that back: the bass DOES allow that, but we don't see the young bassist do that. He just plays the head, beautifully.
Josh, by contrast, is enmeshed in the big messy world that is blues harmonica. He starts by trying to interpret/copy the script that Ben and I laid down. Then he moves onto something else.
Josh is actually trying to create, for better or worse. I like that. It shows spontaneity. Young piano virtuosos are a dime a dozen. Savants, like the second girl, are fewer in number.
But 8-year-olds with as big a sound as Josh gets on acoustic harp are fewer in number still. I have no idea what he'll become, but I'd be worried, frankly, if he played standard repertoire as smoothly and professionally as Buddha's first and third examples. He'd have no future in blues harmonica, in that case. Or jazz harmonica. Josh is already taking risks. That's good.
Last Edited by on Jul 13, 2009 7:17 PM
"He starts by trying to interpret/copy the script that Ben and I laid down. Then he moves onto something else."
That was my point Adam. He tried and couldn't Those youngsters in the vids I posted had no trouble copying much more difficult music. All of those kids with the exception on the bassist had a nice sense of dynamic and were able to inject emotion into their playing. That all had a good internal meter as well. Josh has issues with time, lacks rhythm and lacks attention.
There was a recent post on harp-l where Josh's mother had an emergency where she needed to know what harp Josh needed to use to play in the key of E. She was frantic because she was at a recording session.
You can bet everyone of those kids in the vids I posted can read music or at the very least could figure out what they needed to do to play in the key of E.
Playing Blues and playing in the key of E are nearly synonymous. What blues harp player doesn't know how to play in E? Josh is a no musician and a harmonica player who doesn't know the harmonica. That's his harsh reality. I hope he improves and I expect that he will but he comes off being like a young girl who is brought to beauty pagent to beauty pagent. For me Little Miss Sunshine was a good movie. For Josh, it's his reality. Yikes!
BTW- Adam just because one can play smoothly and cleanly doesn't mean they can't "bring the nasty" on the blues.
I don't know much about Josh, although I did see one of his Youtubes before - Amazing Grace I think.
I think comparisons to musical prodigies aren't helpful. He quite clearly isn't a prodigy. It seems to me he is just learning to play the same way most of us did, by picking up the harp, goofing around and copying the sounds of players he likes. what is different about him is he's got a headstart on most of us. I bet most of us here picked up the harp seriously in our teens.
I completely agree with all the criticism - his timing issues, apparent lack of theory and uncertainty once he goes off track from rote learned to true improv. Aren't those stages that most new players go through? Heck - he's just demonstrating the normal stages of learning development for someone his age, but in a skill that we normally don't associate with an 8 year old. Think about how a kid learns to read - they start by just learning how books open, pages turn. Then they watch and listen when an adult reads to them. Soon they start to copy and 'pretend' to read books they've learned by memory. I would say Josh has gone past the equivalent stages in harp playing and now he's at the next step, whereby there are rules and associations are starting to form. Psychologically nothing unusual is going on (other than picking up a harp at a tender age). Give him time, as long as he stays interested he'll get better.
Sounds like he has supportive parents who are helping him access professional guidance. He's certainly confident, but not having met his family I cannot say whether they are 'pushy' or not. If my son played like that at 8 I'd be pushy about getting him a good teacher - especially if my own knowledge was lacking (as his mum's harp-L plea showed)
I think he's another one to watch at least. Maybe he won't be one to rest back on his laurels as others have done. Everyone's different.
"What the hell is that about...??" http://www.inorg.chem.ethz.ch/tango/pic/pdf/AA_142.pdf
That's a bandoneon's two keyboards (one hand for melody, one for chords, I think) - note that when you squeeze the bandoneon, you press one key to get a note, and when you pull it apart you have to press another key to get the same note! izqiuerda is Spanish for left, derecha is Spanish for right.
Means nothing and says nothing to me.The video clip of the good times role second video with kid sitting in. To me as a pro jazz muso it's painful mainly for the band.
It's evident they just want to get on with their gig and don't need this intrusion. It is summed up well by the tenor sax solo if one cares to pay attention to it,bearing in mind a very average guitar thing going on,very basic, with the band. And the off beat comment of vocalist before kid plays.
My take on playing other instruments is being any kind of pro musician you want to survive, I say you have to. Unless your such a F...... genious on the harp and have the other much more important credentials to make a healthy living.
I see musical instruments as an artist would use oils or water colours etc. You will excell in one for sure but I think its important to know your way around others.
young Kids paraded on sit ins in this way, its like a monkey that can do 1 or 2 isolated tricks. It has no bearing on anything and relates to nothing.
Last Edited by on Jul 14, 2009 2:38 PM
