MN
297 posts
Nov 23, 2013
1:24 PM
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A few days back, for the first time in something like 12 years, I had the pleasure of taking a harp lesson from Jason. WARNING: If you're not in the mood for rambling, just skip to the last paragraph. ;-)
A little background: Back in the late '90s, I met Jason at a weekly jam at a blues joint in West Palm Beach, Florida, where I was living at the time. I took lessons from him off and on for maybe a little over two years. I was pretty new to blues harp, and he was -- I suspect -- pretty new to teaching. He was able to get my embouchure and approach to where I could develop some semblance of tone, and he gave me enough of a vocabulary in the first three positions that I could begin to play the riffs that moved me on CDs, as well as the ones bouncing around inside my somewhat thick head. I got competent enough to take his spot in an acoustic trio once he left south Florida. Jason never pushed me in the direction of playing like HE does. Instead, he schooled me in the fundamentals, the basic building-blocks that go into solid harp players from modernists like Mark Ford, Adam G. and Pat Ramsey (who we both hold in great esteem), to more traditional players like Kim Wilson, the Walters and George Smith. The idea was to develop an understanding and some level of comfort on the instrument with the eventual aim of letting me develop my own voice.
Enough babbling ...... I'm now living across the ocean and haven't seen the man since (I think) 2002 or 2003. I remember we hung out at a Denny's after a Big Al & The Heavyweights gig in West Palm, so that might help put a date on when it was. We've communicated a bit online, but that's it. Well, I've been feeling quite stale as a musician of late. I felt my playing needed a shot in the arm somehow, so I decided to go back to the well, this time via Skype. As most of you know, Jason's based in Indiana now and not gigging much. He IS, however, giving lessons. I mainly just wanted to catch up with and talk to my friend. But of course I had a harp in hand as did he, so we quickly fell back into our teacher/student relationship. He asked what I'd been working on and I told him I felt my playing was a series of "words," but too few "sentences," and certainly no effective "stories." I don't know what I expected him to tell me. Certainly not "go memorize ______'s solo in _________." What I got was a pretty deep discussion of how to develop new ways to coming at notes within the pentatonic scale, along with a couple or three scale-type patterns to work with as a way to help develop new riffs. Again, nothing to push me in "his" musical direction but, instead, some ways to help me expand MY wheelhouse. Our chat really fired up some neurons and I'm sure that next gig out I'll have some fresh ideas ...... I don't know if anyone else will hear the effect; probably not enough time for that. But again, more than a decade out, the Teacher has given the Student some tools.
The short version: Guys, right now all you need is Skype and a few bucks and a willingness to work, and you can take lessons from a master musician. Jump on the chance. You won't regret it.
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