Howard is an amazing musician. I am blessed to have had a very close relationship with him for well over 10 years. The interesting thing is, we almost never talked about harmonica.
Anyway, there are so many people that can stand his harmonica player and I have found that after many listen to his other music they are able to put his harp playing in context and begin to enjoyed. Wow that was quite the fucking run on sentence eh? (a nod you canucks) I don't remember what I was saying. I'm baked at the moment and so this little ditty is more or less or more and more a stream of consciences.
Oh yeah Howard. What you guy can't tell is that I spaced out for about 20 minute between writing this and that last little ditty of more or less or more and more a stream of consciences.
Yeah Howard, listen to his piano playing. Listen to the lines, they are the same what he would play on the harmonica. It's also good to note that he is not confined by either instrument. What I mean is, he does play typical instrument specific lick and just plays music as he hears it. That's how you tell a real musician. For contrast, listen to Sandy Weltman. I love his playing but you will notice with his playing, when he plays Harp he's very howard levy-ish and when he plays banjo, he's very bela fleck-ish. That tells me he's playing from an internal source of music. He essentially is reproducing stored licks rather than actually creating music in the moment.
---------- "The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are." - Joseph Campbell
I have a small problem in this area. I play alot of instruments. Some well, others not. But not matter what instrument I play, if I'm improvising, I end up with similar melodic phrasing and ideas.
Working blues licks on harmonica has helped me break out of this, and go in a direction that appeals to me more. I want my improvisational mind to work like its working a groove, and grow tension from a rhythmic standpoint, whereas in the past I've always used harmonic tension to lead my mind.
So what about harp specifically? If one has to pick a position to play from, is that limiting the stream? I have thoughts on this, but would like to not influence this point of discussion yet.
---------- Mike Fugazzi http://www.myspace.com/niterailband http://www.youtube.com/user/NiteRail http://www.twitter.com/NiteRail http://www.facebook.com/mike.fugazzi
what about harp? Positions are just a label. you can play anything in any position. It may sound like shit but it can be done.
a few years ago I had a party at my house where Howard played Have you met Miss Jones over Giant Step changes in all twelve keys. There were a lots of world class musicians at the party and we did all we could to fuck up Howard and Jon Weber but we couldn't. There was literally nothing they couldn't play. ---------- "The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are." - Joseph Campbell
I love that piano work! If I could live my life over, the one thing I'd change is that I would have learned piano at an early age. As a rule, piano players are the best informed about chord structure, modes, scales - and harp players I've met who play piano can visualize the keyboard as it relates to harp, and therefore are more fluent/creative in the use of positions, modes, interesting chord tones etc. Damn I wish I could play piano. Yeah, I suppose I could learn but .... too many excuses. Some of them are actually good. ---------- /Greg
