Interesting stuff. Filisko may be a genius at customizing harmonicas, but as an instructor, his musical perspectives are drastically limited if his free pages are a representative indication of what he offers.
Example:"When playing basic beginning blues, Rule #1 is: Restrict yourself to only playing the lower half of the harmonica, holes 1-5."
Yeah, right. A real prescription for musicianship. Right up there with choo-choo train noises as far as trivializing the capabilities of the harmonica as a musical instrument. Go figure....
He said for "basic beginning blues", and he's right. Adam has said almost the exact same thing. He doesn't say you should never learn to play in the upper octave, but when you're first learning to play blues in 2nd position holes 1-6 are going to be your home base. 90% of the blues harmonica that a beginner is going to be listening to and learning from is going to be taking place in that section of the harp. As the beginner harp player eventually begins to progress, then yes he should start to explore the upper octave. Part of being a good teacher is knowing how to structure someones learning, and not just throwing everything at them at once.
Last Edited by on Feb 12, 2012 11:58 AM
I don't agree with the conventional wisdom. As far as I'm concerned, the easiest way to teach a beginner to play blues is to start them with the blues scale in THIRD position which gets them playing NOTES instead of patterns and requires minimal bending so they are able to intonate the scale properly with less difficulty. Then, after they have command of the notes, move them to second position when they can learn to intonate accurately based on their already knowing what the target NOTES are supposed to sound like. Then they are better equipped to learn to vary from the target notes in order to hit the blue third and harmonic seventh with some degree of precision. This way they will also have simultaneously developed an appreciation of how to play the harmonica in different keys (positions) like a real musical instrument.
The free stuff on Filisko's site seems to be wordy conceptualizations of otherwise simple stuff sprinkled with a few gems of true wisdom here and there and generally consists of the sort of regurgitated conventional wisdom about how to play harmonica that is inconsistent with approaching the harp as a musical instrument. But most published instructional materials suffer from similar deficiencies, IMHO.
Not that I actually expect anybody to agree with me about this.
But, how many casual harp players with less than 10 years of experience do you know who can play above hole 6 competently? Ever wonder why?
@hvyj-Joe Filisko has more to offer musically on holes 1-3 of the harmonica then most people have on the complete register of the harmonica. Joe hosts a weekly class at The Old Town School in Chicago. With players like Buddy Greene,Tad Robinson,David Barrett and many other top harp players teaching and visiting,Joe's teaching and musicallity are beyond reproach. You sureley cant be serious about teaching a beginner third position-most beginners know nothing about first or third position-they need to learn second position before ANY other position.
Last Edited by on Feb 12, 2012 12:32 PM
@tmf714: If you say so. I'm not really all that familiar with Filisko's performance material. About a month ago I was listening to some of his stuff on YouTube. That mostly consisted of different sophisticated variations of choo-choo train rhythms, which may or may not have been a representative sampling of his work. I dunno.
hvyj - I think you first have to realise where Filisko is coming from musically. Before you can make judgements about whether he has the credentials for teaching harmonica. He has a deep love of prewar blues harmonica and for him the 1950's was most likely the high pinnacle of "electric" blues harmonica. So when he teaches harmonica it's those stylings that most of his teaching is aimed at. Yes sure if you want to be a "modern" player or concentrate on music styles other than blues then he may not be the best person to learn from. If however "blues" is your thing, then Joe is acknowledged as one of the best teachers around for prewar and classic Chicago style blues by his peers.
Last Edited by on Feb 12, 2012 1:07 PM
@Kingley: Sure. I understand what you are saying and I absolutely agree with you. What you are saying is another way of saying what I was saying: His approach is limited. Limited to a certain style that was more prevalent in earlier times, but limited nonetheless.
He is very good at what he does. Frankly, his choo-choo train stuff on YouTube is very impressive. I've never heard anyone play so many varied and somewhat sophisticated train rhythms with the skill and musicality that he does. On the other hand, why anyone would WANT to is a different question.
IMHO, wallowing in a specific style does NOT make one particularly well qualified to teach others how to play an instrument that has much broader musical capabilities.
Filisko is marketing his materials as "HARMONICA instruction" and "HARMONICA tips and secrets" which is a gross and misleading overstatement. He is about teaching pre-war and 1950s harmonica stylings which is NOT the same as teaching someone how to play the musical instrument we call a harmonica.
He may be very well qualified to do what he is doing. But what he is doing is NOT what he is marketing.
IMHO this creates confusion about the capabilities of the instrument that is damaging. The problem is that he creates a pretense that the certain limited and antiquated style he teaches is the epitome of good harmonica technique when, in reality, what he is teaching is a limited sub set of good harmonica techniques. And, IMHO, that is the operative concept: LIMITED.
Last Edited by on Feb 12, 2012 1:56 PM
From Joe's bio page- @hvyj-READ THE FIRST SENTANCE!
Joe is arguably the worlds’ foremost authority on nearly all aspects of the diatonic harmonica, and he is one of it’s most respected players and teachers. He IS the world’s most respected diatonic harp technician and customizer with his work directly affecting countless players and all harmonica manufacturers
His client list includes most of the players from the who’s who list of the harmonica elite. His harps are in the hands of notables from rock, film, and even a former President.
Joe has taught and performed on 5 continents. He was awarded the “Harmonica Player of the Year in 2001 by the SPAH organization. Joe performed at the 2006 Country Music Hall of Fame, Medallion Ceremony for the induction of DeFord Bailey.
Documentaries that featured Mr. Filisko include: “Harmonica Summit,” Imagination is Limitless,” “In the Reeds,” “Tin Sandwich” and Pocketful of Soul”.
Described as the Johnny Appleseed of the harmonica, Joe has had a tremendous influence on the culture of the harmonica world over the last 20 years.
Last Edited by on Feb 12, 2012 1:56 PM
"He may be very well qualified to do what he is doing. But what he is doing is NOT what he is marketing."
hvyj - I'm not so sure about the marketing point you make. The quote below is the very first sentence of his website. It reads "You are at the exclusive web site for the sale of the traditional blues harmonica study songs composed by the legendary player, teacher and harmonica customizer, Joe Filisko. ".It sounds pretty accurate to me.
Last Edited by on Feb 12, 2012 2:00 PM
Events of Note where Joe has taught and performed: Harmonica Masters Workshops Germany Augusta Heritage Festivals "Blues Week EBA Euro Blues Association, UK
The World Harmonica Festivals "SPAH Harmonica Festivals les Harmonicales, France
Eslov Blues Festival, Sweden Trossinger Blues-Fabrik (Germany) Schorndorfer Gitarrentage, Germany
WFMT FM "Folkstage" Paramount Blues Festivals Asia Pacific Harmonica Festival
35th Annual San Francisco Blues Festival Buckeye Harmonica Festivals Jon Gindick's Harmonica Jam Camp
Bean Blossom Blues Fests Centrum'sPort Townsend Country Blues Workshops Mark Hummel's Blues Harmonica Blowout
Chicago Blues Fest Fitzgerald's American Music Festival Mississippi Valley Blues Festival
Spring Blues Festival, Belgium Sibelius Academy, Finland Heart of the South Harmonica Festival Birmingham, AL
BP Jazz Club, Croatia Amanda's Rollercoaster David Barrett's Harmonica Masterclasses
@tmf714: Well, I suspect Joe wrote his own bio page. He is unquestionably the world's foremost diatonic harmonica technician and customizer and there is no doubt that he has had tremendous influence on the harmonica and harmonica culture. He's probably forgotten more about harp customizing than most customizers ever learn.
And he certainly plays the best and most varied choo-choo train imitations I've ever heard.
Why don't you educate me by posting some other material he's performed that illustrates proficiency on a broader range of material. I'd love to hear it.
Btw, John Mayall also has a very impressive list of venues he has appeared at over the years. Which qualifies him as a performer who has appeared at a lot of venues.
Last Edited by on Feb 12, 2012 2:14 PM
Joe Filisko By Dennis Carelli HarmonicaSessions.com August 2004 Harmonica player, instructor, historian and master harmonica technician Joe Filisko is an often-heard name in conversations of the harmonica. We caught up with him this week to learn a bit more about him and his life experiences. DC: Let’s start at the beginning. When did you and the harmonica become one? JOE: Good question. I’ve had an interest in the harmonica from as far back as I can remember. My mother gave me one when I was a child. I sniffed around with it then, and I sniffed around with it again when, I think, I was in middle school. But it wasn’t until the beginning of 1989 that I got “bit by the bug.” I was playing guitar and I was very interested in blues at the time when I had gotten a guitar magazine that had a beginning blues harmonica lesson in it. It was sort of an introduction to the blues harmonica. I checked it out and read through it. It intrigued me so I went back and dusted off the harmonica again. And in the words of Walter Horton, “I started from there and I kept on pushing.” DC: Blues as a musical style that interests you, that interest goes way back? JOE: Well, I’ve always been interested in music but I think I really started listening to blues seriously when I was in college. DC: Going out to clubs and venues in the Chicago area? Or settling down with LPs and playing them until the needle broke through? JOE: More with the LPs. I’ve never been a big nightclub type, club-goer person. Certainly I’ve seen plenty and gone out to numerous festivals. But my face has never been a frequent one on the nightclub scene. DC: You must have gone through a couple of needles during those years? JOE: Yes (laughs). That was really where I got my greatest exposure, listening to recordings; going to the library and getting records; ordering stuff through the mail. I remember the first two harmonica records that I had purchased were “The Best of Little Walter” and “The Soul of Blues Harmonica” by Walter Horton, “Shakey” Horton as it says on the album cover. And that intrigued me. A couple of things that I think were unusual for your typical harmonica player were that I had picked up an album, I think it was called “Great Harp Players” on the Match Box label. Let me look here. Yeah, “Great Harp Players” Match Box Blues Master Series #209. On that record were a bunch of fox chase type pieces and train imitation pieces. And that REALLY intrigued me. The concept of the small harmonica mimicking the enormity of a train had really captured my imagination and has never let go. So I was listening to a lot of the early stuff right from the beginning including the Yazoo CD called “Harmonica Blues of the ‘20s and ‘30s.” That was also something that I had made one of my listening bibles. 2 DC: So as you mentioned a moment ago, when you talk about “going back to the beginning” (of harmonica blues), you went back—much further back, back to the music and recordings of the 1920s and even earlier as contrasted to a lot of people thinking beginning as the Chicago blues in the late ‘40s for your starting point. JOE: It wasn’t a conscious thing. It merely was a matter of me being interested and essentially going to music stores and looking in the blues section under harmonica and buying just about anything that they had. I remember ordering records through Elderly [Instruments] in Michigan, the Elderly store, and getting a whole big bunch of blues albums that featured the harmonica. In Chicago the biggest record store is the Jazz Record Mart, which is owned by Delmark. Bob Koester's Jazz Record Mart. I remember at that point in time when I found out about the store, the first two times I went I clearly remember spending more than $100 each time. Being the college student, that was a lot of money for me at the time. But I had to have the stuff. Kind of an extremist response. I was interested in playing and I just picked up any record or whatever that seem to feature the harmonica. DC: At that time they weren’t costing $15 a piece, were they? JOE: Well, the records that I was buying were definitely more expensive records. They were $15 apiece because they were a lot of the limited pressings and imports. DC: Not that I’m trying to date you in any way, but I was thinking $5 or $6 an album. But $100 of music is still a good handful. JOE: Right. Definitely a lot of the contemporary albums of the time were, sure, $5, $6 or $7. But the rarer imports that featured the pre-war type recordings were a lot more money. DC: Of those pre-war type recordings, who comes to mind that had a strong influence on you? JOE: DeFord Bailey. Palmer McAbee. There are only two recordings that he did, “The two recordings of Palmer McAbee.” George “Bullet” Williams. DC: That’s a great nickname. JOE: Yeah (laughs). Quite the fierce harmonica player. Jaybird Coleman. And Gwen Foster. DC: I would say that some of those players would be new names for some players reading this interview. JOE: You can get a good cross-section of those performers if you purchase the “Harmonica Masters” CD on the Yazoo label #2019. DC: Did this interest in the harmonica and blues music drive you, as it often does other players, into joining a band? JOE: I had never had a need to play out and be in the spotlight. It was mainly driven by an interest, an intrigue, and a curiosity of myself. Certainly that can only go so far and then the inevitable is going out and playing. And now because I so seldom run into new things, new recordings or new information, the way that I have to get my fix is to go out and play now. That is definitely what I am into now. But it was not something that I really felt like I needed to do. 3 DC: A fix. That’s probably an apt term. JOE: Well, in my case it really describes it well. DC: What did you study in college? JOE: Machine tool. I basically studied to be a machinist. DC: Did you pursue that when you graduated? Was that your first “real” job’? JOE: Well an interesting thing happened. Because of a neighbor I ended up being turned on to a business that my neighbor told me that he had seen for sale. Basically it was oneman machine shop. I literally bought that at the same time that I was getting my degree and graduating from college. I paid $10,000 for a bunch of equipment and the know-how to make a certain industrial assembly tool. I borrowed money from all my friends and all my relatives (laughs) because at the time having $200 was a lot of money. So buying that business was really the start of my official self-employment career. And it turned out that it gave me some free time to experiment doing harmonica work and also it happened to give me some of the equipment necessary for milling out harmonica combs. DC: Yeah, I was going to ask about when the “marriage” of your technical expertise from college and your interest in the harmonica took place. Is this taking place in the 1980s? JOE: Yes late 1980s. DC: So is it fair to say that this resulted in you producing our first customized harmonica? JOE: Well, I have an infinite curiosity that knows almost no bounds. I frequently have to make efforts to suppress it. And so naturally I wanted to understand how the harmonica worked. Why does it do this? Why does it do that? Why doesn’t it do this? The natural progression was to start taking it apart and fooling with it; modifying this and rebuilding that. At the same period in time I was naturally interested in being the best player possible. I quickly found that the instructional material of the time wasn’t able to answer many questions and teach me what it was that I wanted to know. And the best source for learning, besides doing my own research and listening, was getting to meet players that were known to be great players of the time. That’s when I meet Howard Levy and Charlie Musselwhite, Peter “Madcat” Ruth to name a few. It wasn’t as though I took private lessons from them, but just being in able to be in the presence of somebody that was an accomplished player was a priceless opportunity for me. DC: Either by osmosis or by occasional questions, it gets underneath your skin. JOE: Right. Exactly DC: Did you work at your industrial machine shop business for a while before you became deeply involved with your customized harmonica business? Or did the customized harmonica activities sneak up on you and your interest in harmonicas just gradually took over your time? JOE: The business has always been a part-time business. It was then and still is now. I still do it, but it usually takes an average of two days a month of my time to keep it going. DC: And the rest of the time? Do you do any teaching? JOE: I teach one day a week. I’ve been doing it since 1992. It’s usually about a 10-hour teaching day. The rest of the time I’m basically involved, in one form or another, in doing harmonica work. I guess you would say custom harmonica work. 4 DC: But you also travel doing some workshops as part of the broader definition of teaching. JOE: I do perform at most of the festivals I teach at. Although I don’t really try to promote myself as a performer first and foremost. I really promote myself as being a teacher, educator and historian. And almost always in those situations they want you to perform, and that’s fine too. Of course I thoroughly enjoy performing. DC: Your students over the years, have they been mostly intermediate and advanced players, or do you get involved with beginners? JOE: Anybody who has ambition, I’ll take. Makes no difference to me. I have a lot of beginners and I absolutely love teaching beginners. I have never ever gotten remotely bored with it. A lot of times when I go out of town and teach at a festival, I usually find that it’s easiest for me to teach the level that the other teacher or teachers is least comfortable with. Of course I love teaching the advanced students, but I learned when I started teaching that the best way to get advanced students was to teach them how to be advanced. DC: Over the time you’ve been teaching, have you seen certain problem areas that are common with beginning students? Something that you can almost anticipate will be a problem knowing that they will get this certain idea or technique but not this other technique. One thing that you might note as being the most difficult? JOE: Yes, there positively is. That is learning to relax and breathe through the harmonica. I’ve had some amazing results taking students that know nothing about playing and getting them to pretty impressive level in a pretty short time. But the hardest students are the ones that have been playing for six months and play with too much force, not enough relaxation. They are trying to suck the reeds out of the thing. Those students are the hardest ones to deal with because then you have to back pedal with them. That is definitely the mortal sin of beginning players. Number one: playing too hard, too aggressively. DC: With the students that are further along, such as high intermediate or advanced player, with some good and bad habits, what is the hardest thing to get across to them? Are there some common things that would help this group of players or are the problems more individualized because they are more advanced in their playing JOE: Well, yes it really depends on what their goal is and what sound they are trying to achieve. Usually I find myself giving the advice which consists of a few things. Number one; don’t play so hard. Play quieter. That usually solves a multitude of problems they are having, especially technical playing problems. The second thing is to listen to great recordings. I find that players may put a lot of energy into playing but they don’t tend to put enough energy into listening. And the two most important things that I think any player or musician should listen to are recordings of great players that they are trying to emulate and recordings of themselves. If they don’t make it a habit to listening to recordings of themselves then they are missing a dimension of their own playing. DC: Yeah I think some players are a little hesitant to record themselves for fear of what they will hear. But in the end it is one of the most important things to put any ego aside and listen, because you are going to learn a lot. JOE: I agree with you 100%. It’s a lot less embarrassing to listen to recordings of yourself before you go into the studio to try to cut a demo CD than to do it after you get it out and 5 pass it around to friends and other people and they ask you, ‘How come you always play that note flat?’ DC: You mentioned before that you often go to festivals and workshops and do a lot within what I will call the harmonica community, is there something driving you to work this way to keep this community alive and expand it? You associate with it so strongly. JOE: Good question. I feel that numerous people have been very generous towards me and I find that I want to reciprocate that. Another thing is that is I just like it when the kettle is continually boiling. I guess I need a lot of stimulation. And yes I guess I am always in there working it. And another thing is, quiet simply, I don’t have a lot of respect for people that talk a good game but so slow to get involved and actually do something. So therefore I choose to lead by example. Anxiously awaiting for somebody to come along that can do a better job than me so I step aside. DC: Coming back briefly to the post-war Chicago era, you mentioned some notable players in the pre-war era, what about some other players that may not be as well known in the post-war era? Most everyone is going to know and have heard Little Walter, James Cotton, etc. Can you mention a few players that people may have missed or passed over in their listening because they are not as widely known? JOE: Well, I am very fond of Poppa Lightfoot. He certainly is a lesser-known player. That’s a good question. I’ve been greatly inspired by George “Harmonica” Smith and the many thing that he does. In some circles he is very popular, in other circles he is much less known. In terms of kind of a country blues, I’ve learned a lot recently from the harmonica player that accompanies Mississippi Fred McDowell by the name of Johnny Woods. Those are a few. But really it is the same old guys. There are really not that many new names. But the Chicago type, post-war blues players are well known; Little Walter, Walter Horton, Rice Miller and George Smith are definitely the really big ones. DC: Certainly can’t go wrong listening to those great players and absorbing some of their licks either directly or inspired by. You can’t go wrong doing that JOE: It hasn’t felt wrong yet! DC: Some of the other people doing custom harmonica work like Richard Sleigh, were they students of yours? Did he approach you to get involved working with you? JOE: I met Richard Sleigh in 1992. He read an article that the Associated Press did on me with the harmonica work that I was doing. He came to Chicago to share with me an invention that he was working on which was a different way of going about the XB-40 harmonica that Rick Epping has put out on the market through Horner. I was very impressed with Richard’s skill, with his musicianship, with his character and we have known each other ever since. A few years later he moved from Philadelphia back to his hometown in Phillipsburg and didn’t have any jobs lined up. We both kind of simultaneously came together. He asked me if I would be willing to work with him and get him started doing harmonica work and I volunteered the information and said, “Hey, why don’t you think about doing harmonica work.’ I started doing harmonica work full-time in 1995. It was about that time where I was completely overloaded and was thrilled to work with somebody of his skills and character. I have certainly learned much from him. My business is certainly a fusion of ideas of myself, Richard Sleigh and Jimmy Gordon. DC: Sounds like a win all around. JOE: Yes, absolutely. We work to create maximum opportunities for everyone. 6 DC: Thanks for your time and consideration Joe. Any last parting bits of wisdom that I may have glossed over that you want to be sure that our readers get? JOE: I think we covered a lot. Any other bits? You know the most important advice is really keep the thing in your mouth, keep playing and keep working at it. DC: Thanks again Joe. I appreciate you setting aside some time to talk today and share some of your experiences and knowledge. See you in Chicago at the Harmonica Masterclass Workshop in October JOE: You’re welcome. See you then.
Last Edited by on Feb 12, 2012 2:10 PM
Nice performance. Interesting and skillful variation on the choo-choo train rhythm. The problem is that you can only use this sort of rhythmic technique with an EXTREMELY limited set of chordal structures. But it's very well executed.
Re "Whoopin' the Blues:" Choo-choo train with whoops, and some intricate chordal work very well executed. Purely as a subjective matter, I find it sort of embarrassing listening to a grown man whoop and holler like that on stage in public, but that's probably a cultural bias on my part since i grew up on the east coast.
You know, after Brownie McGee and Sonny Terry split, Brownie used Sugar Blue as his harp player.
Last Edited by on Feb 12, 2012 2:43 PM
@hvyj-It's really called a train rhythm or chug-cho-choo is what my 2 year old nephew calls it. With your limited knowledge on the subject,I would not expect too much from you. I grew up on the East coast as well-I remember hearing Gary Onofrio aka Sonny Jr doing the whoops and hollers onstage back in the early 90's- I have also heard Kim Wilson use the whoops and hollers as recently as 2009. It does not make them any less of a man to do so-they are paying homage to the heros and influences of harmonica playing from the early years of blues and roots music.
Last Edited by on Feb 12, 2012 2:34 PM
@hvyj - you really should consider filling the gap in the instructional market with your own instructional materials. I would happily purchase them. You're very passionate about the harmonica and clearly have a lot to offer. I bet your instructional materials would be top notch.
@tmf714: I like the stuff he plays that is interspersed with the interview.
I admit that my knowledge of chugging techniques and chordal rhythms borders on ignorance. This is deliberate. You see, the chords available on the harmonica are so primitive that if you play a lot of chords as your primary technique it drastically restricts the type of material you can play on. I find that I can fit harp to a much wider variety of material (including a wider variety of blues material) if I DON'T play chords very much.
But Filisko is really good at that chordal playing, chugging and choo-choo train stuff. A true master.
Last Edited by on Feb 12, 2012 3:36 PM
" You know, after Brownie McGee and Sonny Terry split, Brownie used Sugar Blue as his harp player." They performed on the movie "Angel Heart " together- hardly a world tour.
"@hvyj - you really should consider filling the gap in the instructional market with your own instructional materials. I would happily purchase them. You're very passionate about the harmonica and clearly have a lot to offer. I bet your instructional materials would be top notch." Yes-please enlighten us.
As far as instructional methods are concerned, if you want to search the archives. I've put up posts on MBH and harp-l explaining in detail why I consider most published harmonica instruction materials to be deficient and how I think harmonica could be more effectively taught.
FWIW, based on experience, I find a whole lot of the conventional wisdom about amplified harmonica playing to be impractical. And, btw, I'm not into hero worship.
I do not consider myself qualified to write instructional materials because i have no formal music training or education. I've had the good fortune to have played with some really good musicians over the years and from them I've picked up a basic practical working knowledge of music theory. And I've performed live, on stage in public with other musicians often enough over the years to have an understanding of what actually works and what doesn't in real life performance situations.
So, even if I don't think I'm qualified to write a book, I like to think that I know enough to differentiate between myths and realities.
Last Edited by on Feb 12, 2012 3:03 PM
Exactly-your living a myth if you think Joe Filisko is not qualified to teach harmonica. I have listened to your playing-what little i can find of it-the playing I could find does not qualify you to judge Joe Filisko,or anyone honestly, on technique,teaching,playing or musical knowledge. I understand you work,or have workes with "college trained" musicians-that only rubs off on one to a certain degree. You have to have some musical knowledge yourself,which you seem to be lacking. I have met Joe and talked to him in person-he is one of the most knowledgable and intelligent people I have ever met-great personality-light hearted and kind. Seriously,if you have never met the man,you cant really judge him.
Last Edited by on Feb 12, 2012 3:36 PM
@tmf714: It takes me so long to enter CAPTCHA codes twice that there are intervening posts after the post I'm trying to respond to before I can post my response.
Anyway, I know Filisko is the premier customizer in the world and we should all be grateful for his immense contributions in that area. I also know he is a well-regarded student and historian of early blues harp recordings.
Personally, I haven't paid much attention to him as a player because most of the stuff I've heard him play doesn't interest me stylistically. I'm not into chordal based harp playing for the reasons i explained previously. Although I recognize that some of that stuff is pretty intricate and Filisko is really good at it.
Btw, I don't consider myself to be a great player nor have i ever claimed to be one.
Last Edited by on Feb 12, 2012 3:30 PM
Frank, thank you. Like I said, i ain't into hero worship and if you detect a touch of irreverence in my gibberish, well, I'm flattered. The pomposity part is less flattering, but i can accept honest criticism.
hvyj - Your inability to master a simple train rhythm seems to have eluded you and made you a sour grape...Don't give up so easy - you can do it, remember the story "the train that could"...
Yes Frank I have noticed this in the past! Joe Filisko is very much interested in prewar Blues. He teaches the type of music he is into. Not everyone is into it, but WHY complain about it? I don't like John Popper's music, but I don't feel anyone should give a shit how I feel! I have great respect for his passion for the instrument. I like the choo choo stuff because it's becoming a lost art. Most harp players feel the same way hvjy does. That style of harp works best without accompaniment, a duo or say a trio with a stand up bass. Most modern music is just to loud! Anyway I find myself getting into this stuff more and more lately. I use to pracice that stuff alot butt in a different way. Adam has made the Harmonica based One Man Band a little more popular lately. I know Adam doesn't do it this way, but I think chugging is something that every harp player should learn early on. The reason I say this is you can set the tone with chording then riff or solo to that tempo and go back to the chording. There are many ways of chording also. You can vary the chording as you go, but always go back to the original chugging.
Joe is sure to end up reading this page; he's got many friends and students around the world, and my experience teaches me that what is said on the MBH forum most certainly does NOT stay on the MBH forum! I just thought I'd say that.
I haven't checked out his website except in to give it a very quick pass, but the first thing I'd like to do is congratulate Joe for his wisdom--and his willingness to join me and the several other modernists who figured out some time during the past five years that digital downloads were a fantastic way of sharing knowledge about harmonica with the wider world and making a profit into the bargain. When I started selling instructional videos and tabs as digital downloads in April 2007, I could find nobody else doing that. I believe I was the first. I'm delighted to welcome Joe aboard.
During a recent gig in Huntington, WV, I stayed with a kind person who had attended Blues Week at Elkins and had studied with Joe. He showed me Joe's instructional CDs and a book of his tabs. I was struck both by the different way that Joe and I arrived at the tabbing process, and--when I looked at several tabs for songs that I knew--the precision and accuracy of what he does. Like me, he's uninterested in the standard harp tab formula that includes no time-cues. He wants to show you which beat every note is centered on. He's speaking French, I'm speaking English, but we've both come up with elegant, workable languages--or so I'll humbly submit.
It would be fair to say that I in stylistic terms I skew somewhat more in the direction of the "advancement" wing of SPAH (the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica) and Joe skews somewhat more in the "preservation" direction. But we're a big tent, we blues harmonica teachers, and I'd happily point any beginning student in Joe's direction.
I do indeed recommend that beginning students focus primarily on holes 1 through 6, because I've found that even solid intermediate players tend to forget just how useful the 6 blow is for creating melodies. But again: there are many routes to the One, as the interfaith religionists are fond of saying. Zen and Sufi, Hiniyana and Mahayana, A Course in Miracles and the Baptist faith. They've all got insights to offer.
I'm happy to know that Joe has put his stuff out there. He's bound to gain an even wider audience, and that's good.
"You see, the chords available on the harmonica are so primitive that if you play a lot of chords as your primary technique it drastically restricts the type of material you can play on."
@Adam:"I do indeed recommend that beginning students focus primarily on holes 1 through 6, because I've found that even solid intermediate players tend to forget just how useful the 6 blow is for creating melodies." You and Filisko are in disagreement on this point. Joe recommends that beginners venture no farther than hole 5. Yeah, I know...doesn't make any sense to me, either.
@timeistight: Similar to Levy's work with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones that you posted is Madcat Ruth's work with the Brubecks: Diatonic chordal playing in a jazz contest. Levy and Madcat can pull it off in an appropriately sympathetic arrangement. I suspect that there's a lot of things Madcat and Levy can do that most of us can't most of the time. But I do think the arrangement was intended to allow Howard to play that way at the beginning of the tune which he does not do as the tune progresses. But, yeah, credit where credit is due.
@Frank: You're right. I really should find more time so I can work on improving my choo choo train rhythms. I can only do a couple, BUT i can do a diesel horn sound as well as a couple of steam whistle sounds and I'm sort of proud of that. Not a lot of harp players do diesel horns. But, unfortunately, I've got a lot of non-musical demands on my time due to the nature of my job, and I'm gigging regularly with a band and a duo which is also time consuming. In my spare time, I've been trying to learn to play chromatic, but maybe I've got my priorities screwed up. I bet I'd make faster progress if I worked on train rhythms on the diatonic which, after all are pretty hard to do on a chromatic. And, anyway, i wouldn't have to worry about struggling to learn all those scales and arpeggios and stuff like that on chrom if i focused on getting better at choo-choo train noises on the diatonic. Thanks for the suggestion--makes me realize how misguided I've been.
Last Edited by on Feb 12, 2012 4:55 PM
Your welcome - you seem like a good but troubled student and I trust you'll get better at developing the proper way to play a train rhythm, like I said keep at it, it's obvious your frustrated - there's light at the end of the tunnel, don't lose faith ;)
Frank, I appreciate the encouragement. Maybe it's paranoia that retards my progress. When I see a light at the end of the tunnel I get scared that it might be a train coming at me.
I can't help thinking that if Buddha were still with us,he'd be gleefully chiming in to hvyj's defense. I understand and at least somewhat agree with what hvyj has to say.However,purely from a blues harp player's typical POV,not learning train rhythms on harp is akin to not learning "Chopsticks" on piano. It does teach you some basic stuff. Is it the best approach to learn harp as a musical instrument? Probably not. But the vast majority of people who want to play blues on the harp,don't care about learning the harp as an instrument. They just want to squeeze something at least remotely musical from the damn thing. As far as learning those upper 4 holes- students sound bad enough on the 4 hole until they learn proper technique. Those upper holes would be like fingernails on a blackboard. Incidentally,I can't remember the last time I played a train rhythm,but I practiced them a lot at the beginning.
Also I must take exception to some of the ungentlemanly responses to hvyj's gentlemanly posts. He's posted some really useful things to this forum and deserves some respect for that.
Or maybe the train symbolizes progress and that is what scares you...We'll help you overcome your fear of train rhythms. It's okay we won't laugh at you, just cause you can't do them well yet!
The forecast must be pretty bleak if even within the harmonica community - surely one of the most micro microcosms - tempers flare over so little. I happen to prefer the chordal "choo choo" stuff over the theory-over-soul, single-note snakes-and-ladders stuff (that seems an equally patronising characterisation,) but they can coexist, can't they? And I think it's fair to say that if we should apportion respect on the basis of services done to the harp community, then Filisko deserves it too.
Jordan, you are really good at the kind of playing you do and i enjoy your stuff. But I don't think traditional style playing has any monopoly on soulfulness. Look at Butterfield for one example--primarily a single note player who forged a style of his own and whose playing was groundbreaking at the time and is considered by most to be deeply soulful.
Btw, for all of my irreverence I did not suggest that Filisko's playing lacked feeling, nor do I think so. Quite to the contrary. And what he does is not easy to do with the subtlety and complexity with which he does it. It's just my opinion that there is a sameness to a lot of the stuff Joe plays and that the style he employs only works well in a certain musical context which i do not find particularly inspiring.
I have had the pleasure of taking classes from Joe at Augusta Elkins, WV over the last 4 summers. Last fall I had the pleasure of being his guest in his home overnight. Here's my opinion
1) Joe can do ANYTHING on a harmonica. Is a hell of a nice guy. And knows bucket loads of what to teach, and teaches with a high level of quality.
2) There are faster ways to learn to play simple blues tunes than Joe's way. I learned my first Robert Johnson tune via Jon Gindick in one hour. I have seen guys at Augusta spending a year on a Filisko tune and still screw it up. Joe's stuff is not quick and easy.
I think these are two points being said, and they are both right.
---------- HarmoniCollege March 24, 2012 theharmonicaclub.com (of Huntington, WV)
Frank- I can't for the life of me recall any useless things said. All I see is a difference of opinion. I believe Filisko and Levy are good friends. If they can get along,why can't we forum members?
hvyj - I once again bring your attention to the thing you are obviously attempting to ignore in your assessment of Joe Filisko. He states categorically in the FIRST sentence of his instructional website "You are at the exclusive web site for the sale of the traditional blues harmonica study songs composed by the legendary player, teacher and harmonica customizer, Joe Filisko. " You seem intent upon ignoring this to meet your own criteria to validate your point. Which is completely and utterly missing the point. The EMPHASIS on Joe's teaching is TRADITIONAL BLUES HARMONICA. WHich as you so quaintly put it includes a lot of "choo-choo train rhythms" and music created in 2nd position between holes 1-6.
Last Edited by on Feb 12, 2012 10:26 PM
&Kingley: Yes, you make a valid point. I had initially gone directly to the free downloads and started reading those and their titles without seeing the first sentence of his website. I read through the downloads pretty fast and never bothered to closely examine the title page, so you're quite correct to point that out.
So, this means my remarks about misleading marketing are not well founded. But I stand by my remarks about the approach employed being somewhat limited, and judging solely from his post in this thread, it would appear that even Adam does not subscribe to the notion that a beginner should not venture above hole 5.
I think Tuckster probably said it best: "But the vast majority of people who want to play blues on the harp,don't care about learning the harp as an instrument. They just want to squeeze something at least remotely musical from the damn thing." He's probably correct, and most harmonica instructional materials are probably intended to pander to that lowest common denominator instead of approaching the subject matter as learning to play a musical instrument. I guess that given his reputation, I was expecting something better from Joe Filisko. Quite frankly, I was disappointed with the materials. Maybe he's different/better when providing instruction in person.
So, yeah, you're right.
My personal point of view is that it tends to trivialize the capabilities of the harmonica when a reputable instructor does NOT approach it as a musical instrument. For some reason I find myself reacting to that with resentment since it tends to reinforce the disrespect a lot of other musicians have for harmonica players in general. So, FWIW, I remain disappointed.
Frank, Why don't you go practice playing your harmonica between holes 1 through 5. Some of us aren't into hero worship. It's not a question of right and wrong. It's an analysis of substantive content.
If you don't agree with my analysis, articulate yours. Btw, analysis involves more than conclusory reasoning and name calling. So, if Joe's right and anyone who dares to criticize him is wrong, go ahead and explain why without relying on reputation alone. If you can show me how I'm wrong (like Kingley did) I'll admit it.
Your initial post started spirited discussion from different points of view. I don't understand why that seems to bother you. After all, isn't that a primary purpose of a forum like this?
Last Edited by on Feb 13, 2012 4:45 AM
