I started playing lead guitar notes and single harp notes together back in the late 70's. I had heard george benson do it with his guitar and voice in a concert and later albert collins do it with his guitar and voice. I said - heck I have been doing that for years with the harp and guitar and never have heard anyone else do that. Playing both the guitar and harp at the same time lets some stuff spew out that could never happen with one guy on the harp and another on the guitar. There are tons of simple things out there like this to still be discovered. Most people write off the simple stuff as already done. Here is a song I recorded today with what I am talking about. Walter
---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
Dude, you could have totally done the Peter Frampton Live! album before he did! I love stuff like this, like the first recorded overblow was in the 1920s... whoever you think did something first, almost always somebody did it before.
Hi David: Thanks! I have done this thousands of times at gigs an often have wondered why no has picked up on it or asked me about it. People on the dance floor have boogied crazy to it and people in their seats has screamed to it, but not a soul has yet to ask me about it. That makes me think it is all mine. I did it at the harmonicollege get together when I was playing my guitar with the harp on the rack and no one said anything about it. I think like the spontobeat concept, it goes right by most people? I would love to hear of someone doing it before me and better yet, hear it on a recording. I think the rack harp concept has never gone to the lead harp, lead guitar thing. Most rack players strum or finger pick rhytms and don't do the dual lead thing. I was a big fan of rock music as a kid. Bands often did the dualing guitars and every now and then onstage the 2 guitarists would hit some cool stuff that I bet triggered my heart to do this with the harp/guitar. ther outlaws did it alot and I remember it staying with me after their gigs. Being the one doing both at once makes for such a connection I doubt it could never be duplicated by 2 people. Walter
here is another from my old studio that was in the basement. MY wife said it reminded her of a jail cell.
---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
Yeah, I think you are right, Walter... I think it goes right by a lot of folks. I think you hit it on the head: it sounds so "right" people just assume it's simple stuff... Not so! I love that sound you've created, and I've tried a few times to do it with my cigar box guitar and harp, but I can barely barely barely pull it off... It's like one of those "pat your head and rub your belly at the same time" things. I can do either one okay, but put them together and, man that's hard!
Here's one of my own pathetic attempts to do this:
I liked it exspecially around the 1st third of the song the part where you harmonize the lead guitar and harp playing the melody like that sounded cool ---------- Hobostubs
Last Edited by on Apr 04, 2012 3:49 PM
Isaac: I am touched it inspires you! i listened to your video. It sounds alot like how I started out. My guitars that I went through learnign to play were in worse shape than a cigar box rig. I had to play slow because the action was so high it was painful to play it. They often only had a string or 2 on them too, not out of choice but out of lack of funds to buy a good guitar or strings. If that is any indication you should be hitting them together fast and hard in time. I actually feel like the guitar and harp and drums are all different people but all of them are me. I guess that doesn't make sense but it feels like that and that makes doing it all at once actually very easy because every one of me knows where the other of me's are going. the feet are one me, the hands another, the harp another, the keys another, and the voice another. If I start to think about things as I am playing it usually looses its magic and falls apart. I have been doing it long enough to fake through a performance but I don't have to do that anymore because I don't depend on music $ to support me. If it doesn't feel right nowadays I just stop playing say goodnight and go home. Walter
thanks hobostubs! ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
I have a little something I do on harp that I've never heard played by anyone else, until I heard Charlie McCoy do it on stage a couple of years ago! I was standing next to a well known working harpster (killer player) and he remarked that he'd never heard anyone do that before and wondered how he did it. I just smiled.
Thanks Walter! That makes me feel a lot better to know that you started off the same way! What I really need to do is just practice it some more! :) Thanks for being such an inspiration to us all! ---------- == I S A A C ==
I now understand why the word "brains" is always plural in english... If I'm not wrong classical music had the "counterpoint", similar to what you perform: it's actually the ancestor of our modern "chord".
That's really cool stuff, Walter. I approve. It's not a sound I've heard elsewhere; it's your version of the three-second test. Hear that on the radio and it has to be Walter Tore. That's a nice thing to have in your pocket.
thanks guys! I can do it much more note to note with the guitar and harp when I have a real bassist and guitarist behind me. Keeping the drum time on my feet limits the experience. Thanks Adam. That is how I classify my heros- I can drop the neddle down and immediately identify them. It will be interesting if anyone else is doing this. I posted this on harp-l as well and a Finnish rack player sent me this video. With the worldwide web it is getting to where you can find most everything has been done before at some point. That harp was one of my cutomized MB open door harps in eb. I have some band cuts doing this somewhere in the 4,000 songs on my soundclick site. I will have to find one. Walter
---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
Isaac: You are on the right road and like you said, time, time, time, and then more time. I remember Sonny Terry telling me, after I asked him how does he get such sounds, keep on what you are doing for another 30-35 years and you will be there! I have passed those marks and really feel like I am getting out what is wanting to come out. I put in probably 150 years of what most people put in. I did 10-20 hours a day for many years, played about 200+ gigs a year for 20 years, and still put in 20-60 hours a week playing. My life has been based around me being able to play my music. I am very thankful I had the faith to follow where it has taken me.
7limitJI: I listened to a soundbite on amazon. Yes they are doing it! It is very thought out and predictable though(from what I heard) and fairly recent. With what I am doing I can go all over the map because I am doing both sounds and don't have to have any thoughts as to where things are going. IMO there is a world of difference in his take and mine. His is more in line with horns playing the same riffs and mine as 2 instruments playing a lot more unorthodox. I have a youtube b/w performance art documentary on my video link that was made in the mid 80's with a drummer and keys behind me. The drummer is Ken Cooke who left me to spend a bunch of years with James Harman on the left coast. Maybe William heard about me doing it via Ken? Walter
At the 10:30 mark is the song-fire -with me doing the dualing harp/guitar. It is the first recording I did of this stuff with a band. I had just done a string of gigs with jimmy carl black on drums and he brought arthur brown of Fire fame to a gig. I think that must of inspired that song. He and jimmy painted houses in austin - black and brown painters. People hired them to just get their house signed at the end- your house painted by the oringinal frank zappa and TMI drummer and famed singer of Fire.
---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
