I'm excited to debut the following video here. (It's marked "unlisted," so only those with the link can watch it. It's not searchable on YouTube--yet.) The technology I'm messing with may indeed have the power to transform blues harmonica education, as I breathlessly suggest in the extended video description, or it may be no more than a curiosity.
I'll say more below, and I'm eager for any and all reactions. Here's the video:
If you're not familiar with the GoPro camera, you can find out more here:
There is currently, as I far as I can tell, only one other harmonica video on YouTube filmed using a GoPro:
I didn't discover this video until I became convinced that I was doing something entirely new. Of course I'm not: he beat me to it. Still, given how many tens of thousands of harmonica videos can now be found on YouTube, it's hard to come up with something new.
This was a first experiment. There's obviously too much nose! It's difficult to avoid that, given the head-strap mount I'm using. But optimizing the shot will surely mean getting a bit less nose into the picture, which can be achieved by simply angling the camera slightly more away from my face.
I'm not sure how to use the technology to teach the harp--yet. For now, it's simply neat (I think) to have stumbled across a way of putting folks in my shoes. Or, more precisely, perching them on my head. It's a weird perspective. It's weird for me to watch, so I'm sure it's weird for others. But if it's done right--and I haven't begun to exploit the possibilities--it should be possible to bring developing players much, much closer to the perspective of the experienced player.
In other words, this is cool stuff. I hope you agree.
Any and all reactions are welcome.
Last Edited by on Oct 08, 2012 2:15 PM
The good thing about the GoPro is that it is light and can be put in some interesting positions. Here is a cycling video I did. https://vimeo.com/22889470
At 47 seconds the GoPro is mounted on a boom attached to the riders head, looking back at her face. A bit more of a flattering angle than the nose cam! A side view would be interesting for showing lip position. I am not sure what the closest focusing distance is, but if its not suitable it would be easy to use a supplementary lens.
I once used a thin flexible medical camera, which would probably been suitable for an in the mouth looking out shot.... Sadly I don't have access to it any more. Which thinking about it is probably a good thing!
Keep up the experiments!
Last Edited by on Oct 08, 2012 2:52 PM
Good quality video and sound. May be a little hard on the viewer if you do a headshake warble but apart from that it's good to see your cupping movements and harp movements.
Price in the UK is much higher as we've come to expect.
For education/instructional purposes I think a better angle would be mounted on a chest bracket 6 inches or so in front of and level with the mouth , facing back. A modified diy steady cam might do it.
For instructional purposes you could play without cupping to demonstrate a lot of things, and even that angle would show different cupping techniques.
Seeing the harp slide from left to right is going to help people learn how to play? Really?
I kept my skepticism secret and asked my daughter to watch the video. She has zero interest in learning the harp but was willing to do it out of curiosity. She watched the whole thing and I asked her if that camera angle would be helpful if she wanted to learn to play. She shrugged her shoulders and said "you have to move your hands a lot?"
Well, that's the question, isn't it? Can putting somebody in the shoes, the subject position, of a competent actor--in this case, a good harp player--help a developing player learn any useful skill? You're asking the question with a sneer; I'll ignore the sneer and just say that I think it's an extremely interesting question. I don't know the answer. But it's a question worth asking.
The first thing to be said is that "seeing the harp slide from left to right" isn't, I hope, all that a student might get from such a video. My hope is that a student will listen as well as watch, and will, for example, have an epiphany that goes something like, "Oh, the side to side movement needs to be smooth, forceful, and precise....It needs to correspond clearly and precisely to the sounds being produced." That may seem like a trivial discovery, but as somebody who has taught hundreds of beginners in person, I can tell you, one of the single biggest weaknesses such players have is making smooth, forceful, and precise movements in real time, as the beat rolls relentlessly onward.
So perhaps seeing the movements this up-close-and-personal can help create a gestalt-moment in which they suddenly..........GET it.
That's a theory worth exploring.
Last Edited by on Oct 08, 2012 5:55 PM
Are you talking about doing entire lessons from that perspective? I can see where it might occasionally be useful for a short cutaway shot to explain a certain technique but I wouldn't want to watch the whole lesson from that angle...especially the talking parts which make up the biggest percentage of your video's. Unfortunately the harmonica doesn't lend itself well to a visual media since most of the technique takes place inside the mouth. I can see how that angle might be helpful in showing some hand placement and cupping details though. Intertwining that angle with frontal, profile, and 3/4 views would definitely make the video's more interesting to watch and give them that extra professional look which you rarely see in online instruction. Personally I enjoy watching your video's just the way they are from the frontal cam position but throwing in another angle every now and then would be cool too.
Last Edited by on Oct 08, 2012 7:41 PM
You are correct to ignore the sneer; It was meant innocently.
You are fearless, Adam. Where other schools are actively teaching dozens of students through webcams and online subscriptions, you have literally taught thousands of people the truths about playing, bending, overblowing, comping, listening, etc. Ruthlessly and for free on YouTube.
Adam Gussow has conquered harp instruction.
But you're only as good as your latest attempt - You could just leave it there. The question is a very good one regardless of what the answer turns out to be. And being the skeptic I am about this, if someone else would have run with this and have success, I doubt they would have ever come close to the impact you have had.
I would hate for you to be known as the harmonica player with the camera-thing on his head instead of the guy with a million YouTube hits.
I admire that you want to be ahead of the game. Considering you have already played the game and won.
There’s two questions here (for me.) 1. Does the overhead perspective have relevance as a training tool? 2. Do you need a GoPro to pull it off?
I think showing the different perspectives of harp playing is a good thing. Whether over head, under the chin (camera looking up), side views, with hands or without hands the positions are all relevant and helpful as a teaching aid. But can’t that be done with standard video cams?
The GoPro has some very nice features, like the ability to plug in a mic or use a lavalier.
The impression I get from watching a couple of GoPro tutorials is that it’s designed to give a different perspective of objects in motion – a different point of view to see a moving object. The camera has the ability to move or travel with the video object without the need of a second person to do the filming. I suppose that’s why it doesn’t have a view finder or LCD screen to see what you’re actually shooting or to set up a still shot. In Adam’s video he’s in motion, but he’s basically a stationary target for the camera. Do you really need a GoPro to film it?
That's always the trick with the harp, the hands or mouth are always in the way. I hate writing out tab for people because I can play something by ear and still need to count to which hole I'm on because I can't see what I'm doing. One solution my be to use a split screen with something like Harp Ninja (the app, not Mike!) or Bend-O-Meter would show what notes/bends you were hitting. The top down angle certainly helps for some stuff though. It's too bad there are no see through covers for harps. You could see the reeds vibrating from that angle.
My reaction is that it seems like a nice little tool for harp educators, but I'd say that it's value is more at the margins rather than being transformational to blues harmonica education.
i don't think the majority of students fail to comprehend that the embouchure has to move around the harmonica smoothly and forcefully to get the sounds that they want to produce to sound muiscal, but rather that they fail to put in the time to develop the skills that will allow them to do just that.
It's not a bad tool. I mean more angles, better angles, closer angles is always preferable to less information, i just don't think it's a transformational thing.
I feel an analogous situation is the proliferation of guitar videos which feature closeups of fretboard fingerings. I'm thankful that they're there, but my inability to play those riffs as smoothly and musically as the instructor is more due to my lack of finger dexterity and practiced muscle memory than not intellectually "knowing" where my fingers are supposed to go.
Then again, I have not taught hundreds of beginners, so if it results in an Aha! moment for even one student, I suppose it's worth it..
Last Edited by on Oct 09, 2012 6:24 AM
I think it has a place but not as valuable for me personally as the to camera stuff, a number of year ago I attended a dental course where the instructors decided to use a head cam to teach a practical skill, like adam the head of the instructor was moving and his hands were moving, in a very short time a large proportion of the room began to feel nauseous. Maybe its just being comfortable with the status quo but I like all the utube stuff as it is.
Just film yourself in front of a mirror, zoom in for closeups, and look ski slope cool at the same time! (not sure if you have any indoor ski slopes in Mississippi though)
If the student has a way to mess with the speed of the video...slow it down as needed - The why's, when's, where's and how's might make more sense to them.
I think it would be cool to have a split screen of this perspective and one from a "regular" camera playing in sync at the same time. You'd get around the "noise" issue of the gopro by using the audio from the other camera. As for what angle to have the other camera, you'd likely want to alternate between "straight on", and from the side. I really like it in your YT vids when you turn your head perpendicular to the camera to "show" what your mouth is doing. That particular perspective really helped me learn what you were actually doing with your lips/mouth for specific moves like the lip-slap stuff.
Actually, I think the go-pro video would be better suited for edited filming of specific lessons like on your pay-site, and NOT the quick, off-the-cuff style vids of your YT channel. It could also work in the context of Skype lessons IF you could have a way to switch between it and a "normal" front view camera at will. You would have to have the thing strapped to your head all the time, but one's ego should never get in the way of pedagogical advancements! :)
EDITED to add: Also, I think the go-pro perspective would be REALLY COOL to have for filming an actual performance from your perspective... It'd at least be great to have a couple clips like that to insert into a music video or something like that... ----------
Nacoran wrote: It's too bad there are no see through covers for harps. You could see the reeds vibrating from that angle. -- TurboHarp calls their transparent cover plates "Crystal Ice"
Last Edited by on Oct 09, 2012 8:23 AM
The camera position provided an interesting view of handy work...a little pun...but, I had a vision of an animation drawn as a skeleton harmonica frame where you could see through the lips onto the holes. A little far out but cad drawings can do amazing animations. The x-ray youtube looks interesting. I'm going to watch it.
