Willspear, technical mastery, but there isn't a hook that gets stuck in my head after the song is over. I appreciate it with the wrong part of my brain to get passionate about it.
+1 for Howard, once again. I only wish he would correct people (like the tv interviewer in this piece) when they attribute the discovery/invention of overblowing to him. According to Pat Missin, others were doing it well before Howard was playing the harp (or before he was born, if I remember right). He could rightly be credited with developing/mastering/expanding the use of/revolutionizing the overbend techniques though. Maybe he's just gotten tired of correcting people, and now just lets it slide.
A great welcome back to the great Flecktones, too. ---------- Matthew
Harp-er I am with you. Recently I heard an interview where he states he was the first person to overblow. He must be aware of Blues Birdhead, Toots Theilemans (Yes he played diatonic overblows), Will Scarlett and Mike Turk, to name a few, all who did overblows on recordings before he was born. It would take one minute to say, "Other people did it before me, but I was not aware of it and discovered it on my own. Then my work brought it to the awareness of the greater harp community." As I have written before, when I saw him do 3 solo shows, he often seemed to be doing technique for the sake of technique and often does not slow down when it seems more appropriate to my ears. But I have recently seen the Flecktones and he did some great stuff, so I like him again.
I think any negative feelings I have about him are my own ego struggling with itself. He's a great player who does amazing things.
Yea, great stuff. Sure it's not something your'e going to be humming along to but what an extraordinary skill he has. It's muscially mesmerising. He plays the piano extemely well too.
He also interviews very well and is easy on the ear.
Is there anything the man can't do? Like outsprint Usain Bolt in the 100m whilst juggling - Yes of course he can!
btw It's been said above he didn't actually invent the overblow. I don't know if those early recordings featured overblows on more than one hole. So was he responsible for filling in the rest of the overblow blanks and also inventing the overdraw(or did the overdraw appear on any recorded material?)
Howard Levy independently systematized playing chromatically on diatonic harmonicas and then published his discoveries. No one else did that, not even Will Scarlett, who quit playing overblows for years shortly after making those ground-breaking recordings. You can draw a direct line between Levy and your favourite modern diatonic overblow player: they all either learned from him, or learned from someone who learned from him.
Maybe someone else would have eventually come along and taught players to overblow, if Howard hadn't but he was the first.
And the statement that Turk, Scarlett or even Toots were recording overblows before Levy was born is ridiculous.
Last Edited by on Mar 07, 2012 8:03 AM
Time, I made a mistake. I meant to say they recorded overblows before Howard bought his first harp in 1969. However, Birdhead recorded an overblow in 1929, just two years after Levy was born. ;)
Last Edited by on Mar 07, 2012 8:49 AM
Michael, I thought your initial statement was correct, as Howard wasn't born until 1951.
If he were born in 1927, this would make him 85 years old.
So, ol' Blues Birdhead did overblow before Howard was born. lol
Technically, no one invented overblows and overdraws.... they were always there, but it took guys like Blues Birdhead, Turk, Scarlett, Toots, Levy, etc. to discover them. As far as I know, Howard was the first to discover all of them and systematically use all of them.
Last Edited by on Mar 07, 2012 9:43 AM
Hm, maybe Howard is the definition of a mensch, as Adam says. But I think in my definition "humility" would come in, and then, as Michael points out, it would be no problem at all to say something on the line that this technique was known before him, but perhaps further developed by him etc. It would also be in perfectly good taste. (Scarlett´s OB´s are surely not on a par with HL´s; also don´t know if Scarlett knew how to OD?)
