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beginner forum: for novice and developing blues harp players >
What Are You Workin' On?
What Are You Workin' On?
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Killa_Hertz
1708 posts
Aug 20, 2016
9:22 AM
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This is in response to SuperBee's post in the "Great Blues Albums" thread.
I would Love to see some videos of your new band.. Hopefully you can get somebody to shoot a couple. That's really cool that your in a good band that your psyched about. How many different bands have you been in? How long were you playing before joining/forming your first band?
I feel like I'm almost ready. I'm getting pretty decent. I know there are some guys who go out and play gigs even though they can't play worth a damn. But im not trying to be that guy. Lol. Im going to start hitting some local jams soon. Im just wierd about playing in front of people still. I find it hard to play well and focus. So jams should help with that. Aswell as actually playing with "Real" musicians and hopefully picking the brains of some good harp players. If i can actualy find any around here. Might have to goto philly for that.
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SuperBee
4015 posts
Aug 21, 2016
5:18 AM
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Man, I dunno how long I played. I mean I started playing folk songs and 'Americana' and civil war marches and Aussie colonial stuff and I did that for quite a while before I really started to get with the blues and I developed some bad habits because I treated the blues pretty loose, just playing solo and chugging rhythms and fills. I didn't use tracks. I dunno, I played harp for a decade before I started to really work on getting blues down.
2007 I think I did a little adult ed course and the tutor invited me along to his gig and got me up to play 3 songs with him. That guy also encouraged me to get tongue blocking. Maybe I'd never have gone there but for him
But in 2010 I had started tongue blocking and had done a few of Barrett's lessons and I started jamming with some guys in a garage.
In 2009 I did some guest gigs with a prog metal punk band.
Funny stuff, dress-ups and shock.
Another band at one of those gigs were looking for a harp player who was silly enough to play with them and offered me a job. I played with them about 2&1/2 years.
Those guys were all about 15-20 years younger than me. It was all original music with lots of theatrical stuff, 3 front people, antics, stunts, circus elements and clowning. The music wasn't very good usually but it was all about the show. I learnt a load in that band as we used to travel a lot and had quite a few gigs where we supported some real pro acts. So I learned about sound, amps, p.a., people, loud stages, tiny stages, drunks both on stage and in the audience, no sleep, touring in small vans, all sorts of stuff. Recording and making video too. I always complain I was too old to hang out with 20-somethings. But I had a lot of fun and it was funny how I was treated as the old guy in the punk band.
And I kind of learned how to play. I had to make up all my lines.
Actually not true. They had made an album before I joined, and there was a harp player whom I copied when possible. But I had to make up the new stuff.
2&1/2 years but I don't know how many gigs. Sometimes we do 5 a week, other times nothing for 3 months. Maybe 3 a week about 10 times. We travelled through NSW and all over Tasmania. Also South Australia and Victoria. No money in it but I was never out of pocket and was always fed and watered etc. and the travel paid for. sometimes some actual cash but we always ploughed it back in to making CDs.
And through 2011 I was trying to get a blues band happening. That band played 1 gig and folded soon after due to some disagreement about the next gig. I still don't really understand what that was about but I was riled up about it.
I had another blues band in 2013/14 which played a half dozen - 10 gigs and always was quite well-received. But it was really hard work trying to build a list and I think we only had like 20 songs after 18 months.
The main problem with my attempts to play in blues bands has been that I'm a harp player and I learned songs by frontmen. That put me in a frontman role. And I am quite inexperienced at that so who wants to play with me? Mainly people who are less experienced.
So I've had players from punk and metal backgrounds and it's been pretty hard work for everyone.
I gave it a rest from mid 2014 because I found it all too hard and I was full of doubt about wth I was doing anyway.
I figure you have to feel good about what you are presenting or why do it. I'm ok with covering standards but you gotta bring something of yourself to the show. I guess I just felt too exposed being in front 100% of the time. Once you start feeling fake it's hard to get back if you can't take a break. It's probably best not to even start thinking about it.
Anyway. I took 2 years off and worked on harps and amps and just played how I felt and not songs I only played to be in a show.
And gradually I felt better about playing and got some confidence back.
I joined the local blues club, got on the committee, met some players who know the music, got back to jamming for fun. Met a lot of good players around Australia through mending harps and I think I've got a pretty good reputation for that now.
All that goes to give me some self-belief.
And I've done some public jams this last year.
So with all that, this one guitarist has continued to stay in touch and at last a band seems to have come together.
A band is always a bit tenuous because life but these guys seem switched on, not too much neurosis and I love that I can be both a frontman and sideman. So I can get my kicks doing songs I love and also get out of the spot and give my voice a rest.
Same for the guitarist I think. He is used to being in front and everyone following his lead but now he has to step back and play support half the time. I think it's a better show.
We've picked that set because we're on from 10-11pm and it's the 3rd of three sets so it's mainly uptempo. And well known stuff because we are not known. Although people know the guitarist and they will know the drummer pretty quickly. And I hope they'll soon know me.
I'm trying to not overreach. It's tempting to try and impress by playing all the flashiest stuff I know but I think the danger of just being not very good is very high. Better to be solid and in the pocket. Let the guitar take most of the fills when I'm singing. Let my singing be the main thing when I'm singing, let the band be the band and do their thing, let the harp do its job.
Last week at practice I recorded and I found I was trying to hard. This week I worked on only playing where I knew it would help. It was much much better.
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Killa_Hertz
1709 posts
Aug 21, 2016
7:22 AM
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Thats excellent.
Theres so much there to comment on. But all in all I think that really helped shape what im looking at when i start playing. Something based in reality.
You know the part that hit me the most was ....
"The main problem with my attempts to play in blues bands has been that I'm a harp player and I learned songs by frontmen. That put me in a frontman role. And I am quite inexperienced at that so who wants to play with me? Mainly people who are less experienced."
I had never really thought of it like that. But that would be me absolutely.
I mean pretty much everyone who had played with muddy waters has played the harp pretty masterfully in the "non-frontman" position. So i would think his endless catalog would be a good source for material and examples on how to play that role well. But wow what an eye opener that was.
Im dying to get video of both the prog punk band and the other band with the theatrics and circus stuff. That sounds awesome. Lol. Even if there's no video is like to hear some cuts.
You say you gained some good knowledge of sound, amps. Etc. I did sound and lighting all through my teenage years. With a rather small sound company. We did a few big acts. Skynyrd. America, We did alot of gigs for a pretty big Beatle Mania group, some other bigger ones, and a few big festivals. We travelled to Boston, New York, etc. ..... But for the most part just bar bands in the tristate area. So i learned about about the buisness end of it. Everything but the playng on stage part. But being a sound tech is a bit of a curse. When listening to live music i often want to yell things out at the sound guy. Like "he's taking a solo, why the fuck is he the quietest instrument on stage." Or you can often tell if the sound guy is a friend of one of the band members, because the Bass Guitar is all you can hear clearly. Lol. Things like that.
Anyways im rambling and i lost my train of thought. But im glad you found a new band. Hope it works out good. And send me some clips when you record something after yall get sorted.
I never really thought about a band not wanting you to switch from front to supporting, etc. It's seems foolish to me Not to do it that way. Seems like more variety in the show. But what do i know.
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SuperBee
4018 posts
Aug 21, 2016
2:35 PM
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Yeah with those guys there just wasnt anyone prepared to step up. And thr drummer was pretty good and really trying to build his blues chops but he still struggled with some of it and i didnt know enough to steer him right. I remember the guy who is playing guitar with me now sat in at one of our rehearsals one time, and he was able to able to show thr drummer how to play shake your hips in about a minute, where id never been able to help at all.
And that drummer probably wouldve made a much better frontman than me, because he had so much natural front. But hes behind a kit so its pretty hard.
The bass player did sing 1 or 2 songs but he really didnt like singing except badly, as a joke. Hevalso was a guy with a fair bit of front, and lots of drive. Mainly thanks to those two that the band gotvany work.
Anyway, a lot of crap went on, most of which i handled badly. I see now that i needed to lead that band and i was trying hard not to lead, mainly because i was the least competent musician in the band, albeit the only person with much inclination for blues.
But also, there was a guy with a penchant for intrigue and that just was so distracting and destructive. And he burned me for about a grand i suppose, in the washup. I mean, i know what his problem was, but then again, not really. But i learned something there i hope, which is not to get into it with guys thatvwsnt to complicate music and friendship and business and make side deals that dont include everyone. Just dont get into it. Even if it means getting cut, finding yoursellf replaced is better than being in some shitty power game relationship with a headcase.
But anyway, i found tge front of a band a pretty hard place to be when you arent confident of what youre doing.
Going back, when i was a teen i was put forward to front a hard blues rock sort of outfit and that took various forms for several years until one day i just totally lost confidence in my ability to sing that stuff. A lot of that was about never having a decent PA and just screaming my throat raw, but once i lost that confidence i was done. I was about 24 i guess when i called it. I actually don't regret it but i see what i should have done was find a singing coach.
So you know, the guitarist in this new band is a guy who loves to sing and he loves this music. He is also a schoolteacher and pretty cool headed i think. Understands crowd control ha ha. Knows lots of chords. And prepared to lesd. Thats what i need. Im no leader for a band, i think that takes a lot of knowledgevand experience or at least a lot of self-belief. I have a little of those things, not a lot. Im a good sideman, but i like to sing. Ive become a better singer over the last few years but a long way to go before anyone wants to hearva band because they dig my vocal. And if you think like that, you cant be the frontman/bandleader.
But this guitarist has kept involving me and im singing half the songs on this debut gig so i should see that as some kind of endorsement hey.
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Mirco
442 posts
Nov 23, 2016
7:32 PM
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For your consideration, a 2nd position original instrumental, "Ready Go Steady":
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Marc Graci
YouTube Channel
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SuperBee
4322 posts
Dec 06, 2016
10:19 PM
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I'm 120 pages into converting a text document into a spreadsheet.
Do you know the 'artist listing' which breaks down a lot of albums into the key and harp position for each track? It's kind of handy sometimes but it's not so easy to search. It's easy to miss what your looking for. So I'm creating a spreadsheet which will make it easy to filter. If you were looking for recorded examples of 3rd position songs, for instance, or songs George Mayweather played harp on. Or songs in the key of F#.
It's kind of a big job to get the raw data in. I'm 2/3rds of the way and that's about 5000 songs. There'll be over 7000 when it's done.
I've used some formulae to extract the key and position info and tidy up the track titles but there'll still be some tidying up to do as some cuts are more complicated than others.
I'm excited about it, I hope it will be a useful tool for the 'community'.
I did something similiar a while ago, when I turned Richard Sleigh's reed replacement PDF into a spreadsheet, which made it easier to see the overlaps in hohner handmade reeds. That was a bit of a specialised nerd project. I think this one will have wider appeal. It's not a comprehensive list by any means but it's got enough material to be significant I think.
AnywAy, it's coming along.
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Killa_Hertz
2072 posts
Jan 06, 2017
9:36 AM
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That's great Bee. I missed this post. I would love to have access to such a thing. Should be pretty awesome.
Im glad this thread is still Alive.
Well I am starting in on one of the parts of my New Years list. 3rd position. I have started a trial of Bluesharmonica.com. And Im REALLY liking it this time. I have done trials twice before, but never really liked it and didn't get much out of it. I think im clicking with it this time because I can actually play now. And i know exactly what it is I want to learn. Whereas before I was trying to learn SO much and it was just too thorough and slow for my taste.
Im focusing on 3rd Position Right now. And im figuring since Im learning all these new licks and patterns, i might as well learn them Tongue Blocked from the start. I think it easier to learn a new position now because I can leverage my knowledge from 2nd position.
Theres so much good stuff on here, i guess i just had to be ready to learn it.
Last Edited by Killa_Hertz on Jan 06, 2017 9:40 AM
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JSalow
9 posts
Jan 06, 2017
2:02 PM
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I'm working on Charlie Musselwhite's "The Blues Overtook Me." Such great composing for the harp.
I'm making significant progress and it's great to see parts that I originally found very difficult becoming so much easier, and with that the speed is coming automatically.
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