Along with most of us I was captivated by Konstantin Reinfeld's Blues in 7th Position. Yesterday I got a posting from my friend Jacob Venndt showcasing a duet with another 18 year old, his fellow Dane Mathias Heise. It's not the Blues but it's very tasty:
There seems to be a constant stream of great young European players emerging, in a variety of styles. I've been extolling the virtues of Jacob and the brilliant Spanish chromatic master Antonio Serrano, whose work should be much more widely appreciated in the harmonica scene. But they're in their mid-thirties, old men by comparison with Konstantin, Mathias and Russsia's Alex Paclin.
Too much talent! Great for the future of the harmonica :-)
Not only are these both incredible players, but I was also most impressed with the tone of these chromatics. Very nice instruments by Suzuki.
I think there have always been young players through the years, but the advent of the internet, and especially YouTube, has allowed many players, both young and old, to gain more exposure in the harmonica community. I also believe that the tremendous wealth of information available to new players today has certainly contributed to their faster than normal progress.
I was blowing my lungs out at 13 years old, but there was no internet back then... just a lot of hours spent practicing on the front porch (kicked out there because my parents got sick of hearing harmonica music! :))
Today is the perfect time for young, up and coming harp players. There are so many that impress me, too many to name here, but the young man in this video is another to add to my list of young players to keep an eye on. Thanks for posting!
I know them both here from Denmark, - especially Matthias Heise, - I have been teaching him for 3 years. He came as a 12 year old running out of my stairs and just wanted so much to play harmonica. But dammit, - even as a 12 year old, he played as an adult man - he is just fantastic and wish him an amazing future
Hi, thanks for the encouraging words - Ringo just showed me this thread, and I was surprised and amazed to see it and to find this forum in general :)
I have a couple of other videos if you should be interested in taking a look:
This is one with my band, also playing chromatic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKsxTbk1GJQ&feature=relmfu Here I'm playing diatonic with the danish bassist Hugo Rasmussen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUbxFSnxiAY&feature=plcp
Looking forward to a lot of harmonica talk in this forum.
