Ok, so how many of you think you could do this? I know these guys aren't harmonica players, but it I think it's a good musical challenge, in the same vein as what Kudzurunner said in a post a while back...
For schooling on how to approach this challenge, listen to Miles Davis during his era when he hired Michael Henderson away from Stevie Wonder to lay down a solid one chord vamp over which to create - Jack Johnson CD and others from this time period.
One chord vamp can be difficult or easy, depending on how it is approached. ---------- The Iceman
A classic harp instrumental that was done over essentially a one chord groove is the Little Walter classic, Roller Coaster. The main thing about playing in grooves like that is getting a strong feel for the groove and riding it, using space judiciously because it will become far too easy to over play and completely ruin the groove and feel and many of the lines are really often gonna need to be more rhythmic than melodic (or try to find a balance of the two and there are tons of musicians who play a variety of instruments that have an extremely difficult time with that).
Modal types of blues like some of the things Howlin' Wolf played are classic examples, like Smokestack Lightning or I Asked For Water.
Even in this example, much of what's played is essentially more rhythmic than totally melodic (and far too many people think rhythmic playing means chords only, which is NOT true at all).
Here's Little Walter's Roller Coaster:
The bass line is just the root note and the 5th (since he's playing in the key of E, that's E and B, and this is sometimes referred to as the "oohm-pah beat").
Here's Smokestack Lightning and he just plays short bursts of harp that works just fine and it's the groove that carries everything:
Many musicians who aren't very groove oriented in their approach will always have a rough time with such grooves and that's something many musicians, including harp players, need to spend more time learning about rather than getting crazy over gear (yes, I DID say that and I stand by that).
Even this other Howlin' Wolf classic, Wang Dang Doodle (which was also covered by Koko Taylor) are good examples of a one chord groove and below are both Wolf's version as well as Koko Taylor's:
---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Yeah, I really like and enjoy this style of repetitive groove playing, but I was wondering why it's hard for us a harmonica player to develop a groove and move it to something else as we go? when i used to play bass when our band used to jam or sometimes even in a song we would end up somewhere else... ---------- jj3ff3ry
One of the biggest reasons why harp players too often have a hard time with it is because, right off the bat, the average harp player who isn't a pro often has absolutely HORRIBLE time and they often are too lazy to take the time to work on it and if your time sucks, the groove sucks, plain and simple. I've heard every reason why they don't and they're all straight up lame. I hear tons of them say that when the band kicks in, they can keep the time but by themselves, they can't count the groove in, and to be brutally honest about it, if your time is on the money, you should have ZERO trouble counting in and if you can't count the time in, your time is straight up awful and too often the very first lead player to screw up the time is the harp player. It's basically concentrating too much on riffing and nothing else. If your time is together, you can develop a groove, but it does require some serious woodshedding to get the feel down, and that means understanding where the rhythm patterns are happening, but it still requires you to get your time straight and those who play other instruments have a totally legitimate gripe about harp players because too often a harp player's time absolutely sucks.
If your time sucks, nothing you do is gonna groove and it just becomes noodling and rambling that makes absolutely zero musical sense and depending on the drummer and the bass player to carry that load for you is just straight up dumb as the day is long and those who are the type that say that they can keep the time and the groove happening when the drums and bass comes in (AKA the rhythm section for those who don't know what that is) and then say to themselves that their time is good but can't count a groove in, they're just flat out lying to themselves because, truth be told, it's the drummer and bass player that's doing a helluva job hiding their fatal flaws, but if you're around drummers and bass players who have horrible time, it only makes you as a musician, a crappier musician and there are a lot more players than you think who believe that drummers and bass players are totally incapable of losing or messing up the time and from real experience, especially from the pro side, I know damned well that is not true at all.
If your time is horrible and you tend to play long, musically "wordy" phrases over a one chord groove, it just comes off as rambling, grooveless ad boring as hell. In a one chord groove, overplaying is way too easy to do. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
It's really just a matter of knowing your scales so well that you can improvise off of them without having to think about it. Once you do that, it's just as easy to just sit on one chord improvising as it is having to listen to the chord changes and try to match your improvising to the new scale. I mean, most blues solos I hear these days only play in the 2nd position blues scale the whole time over the 12 bars. It sounds "good" over the changes because the IV and V are modes of the I, but you can (and some do) switch to the native scales of IV and V during a solo. You can even harmonize to the changes too (play a fifth up, for example). You just have to be aware of the changes so that you don't hit notes during a change that clash between the two chords. On a one chord groove, you have the same kinds of options. You can just rip it up on the same scale as the chord, or you can harmonize by running to a complimentary (modal) scale in another key. I find that one chord stuff is liberating because you can be a lot more free with your improvisation without having to worry that the scale you've currently chosen is going to clash on the next chord change. ----------
i think part of the problem is that lots of harp players aren't really very good at interacting with the other musicians in a group. They have their set of "licks" and play them over and over.... i think that to make it work you have to be able to "bounce" of the other players and take their licks and run with them so that you're constantly moving forward not endlesly repeating the same riff... ---------- jj3ff3ry
@james jeffery -- What you describe, unfortunately, is too often the stereotypical jam hack harp player that nobody wants on their bandstands and they give harp players a bad name and often times they're usually really drunk or high and the first ones you can count on to demand that you let them sit in with you as well as brag about how good they are. I've had plenty of them like that when I've done gigs and the ones who brag how good they are usually tend to be players like that and when I hosted a jam for a year, I saw players like that by the truck load and you could count on them to step all over everybody and everything and all they're doing is just listening to themselves and that's it and they;re the first to wonder why so many people don't like harp players. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
@barbequebob writes; "need to spend more time learning ... rather than getting crazy over gear"
This is not unique to harp players. I cant think of a skill that uses equipment where this is not common, cycling, golf, Motorsports, the list goes on. In most cases the better gear does little or nothing until a minimum level of competence is reached. I guess it is just human nature to think there is a short cut or secret in the top quality gear. I know, I have done it. How often does someone with great gear but low skills get clobbered by someone with high skill and poor gear, and yet, the myth continues! For most amateurs like me, some good instruction would get us a lot further for the money than better gear!
Last Edited by STME58 on Mar 17, 2015 4:47 PM
@STME58 from my experience it seems like there's a phase when you're learning when you feel like you inability is a gear problem, then you get past that and think you've got it and then you get to the point where you realize you don't know anything.. ---------- ---------- jj3ff3ry
Last Edited by james jeffery on Mar 18, 2015 11:18 AM
Evans Shuffle was basically a more down home version of Joe Liggins' jump blues classic, The Honeydripper and many of Little Walter's phrasings mirror many of the phrasings played on the saxes here and below is the original from Joe Liggins:
Many tunes by John Lee Hooker are one chord progressions as well and when working with someone like a JLH, simplicity is VERY important or the groove is an absolute mess.
Here's a few examples of that:
Here's Magic Sam in a similar kind of vein, but more uptempo:
---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
One thing I can tell you from many years of experience is that people who put down anything that they deem as being too simple, I can absolutely guarantee that they will usually suck at it. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Hmm…I'm not sure I'm seeing the difficulty factor here. All musicians who regularly improvise can surely solo over a one-chord vamp. If you can solo over three chords then surely you can solo over one. Frank Zappa never soloed over anything other than a one-chord vamp, did he? On "Rainy Day, Dream Away" Jimi Hendrix takes a long solo over a one-chord vamp shuffle. Blues music has a lot of one-chord vamps for soloing over, one example being much of the music of R.L. Burnside. It's a matter of theme, variation, development and denouement.
I think the difficulty is not to sound like you only know one like and to adapt to what the others are playing and fit in and around that tastfully.... ---------- jj3ff3ry
How many chords did Martin Luther King use to deliver his "I Have a Dream" speech?
IF you think of soloing as a series of statements or phrases, then you can build one phrase on another. And when you consider that most people don't talk the way Charlie Parker played the saxophone, then you can think about modeling your musical statements on speech. That and the aforementioned locking in with the groove will give you plenty to work with.
A number of us, including Winslow, accepted Frank's improvisation challenge of playing over a backing track of Roller Coaster. Part of the challenge is not playing LW's song, but playing something that is your own. Certainly I can find the flaws in my own efforts, particularly with time. I would like to see other players show their approaches, so I can learn how it can be done better.
I would appreciate if those who pointed out in this thread how easy it is to solo over a one chord vamp would click the link to Frank's thread that I provided in my first post, download the track provided by Frank, record your version over the track, and post an example for us of how easy it is to improvise the full length of the track.
At the time I was disappointed that there were not more players willing to give it a shot. I would love to hear how others approach it, not just statements that it is easy. ----------
I've just played over the first track in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th positions. Just so enjoyable. Yes, leave some spaces and just groove along. Give me a one chord anytime. Love it, and I think an audience would as well.
I always looked at modal soloing as a flight,you take off from that home sound spot,then you can go any where that's harmonically in step,create new paths,but you always have to land on the starting home tone...
