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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
I’m drawing a line in the sand!
I’m drawing a line in the sand!
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kudzurunner
3373 posts
Jul 13, 2012
3:10 PM
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@Old Hickory: It's fine for developing players to copy licks by other players. Take a look at the lessons I offer for sale on this website. I'm making money encouraging students of all levels to copy licks. It's extremely important for students to do that.
But there are two catches:
1) If all you do is copy licks from other players--especially if you're a harmonica player copying licks from other harmonica players--you'll remain a student and a copyist. That's fine if that's all you ever want to be. But if you have ambitions to play gigs, entertain people, make a little money at the instrument, you need at some point to put your student phase behind you, your copying-other-people phase, and actually try to play some real music, with other people. And if all you do when you do that is recycle licks that you've copied from other people, you won't be much of a player
2) If, like David Gogo, you're trying to convince people that you're a working professional, then lifting your style wholesale from one of the best players in the world, doing your best to mimic and replicate that style, is setting the bar pretty low. If I did that and somebody came up to me and said, "Wow, you're an amazing player, you sound just like.....", I'd understand that they were trying to compliment me, but I'd also realize that I'd failed to develop an original voice. There's no honor in being a superb copyist--unless you're a student who is taking his final exam and you're playing solely to prove that you're an expert copyist. In that case, there's some real utility in doing that.
Joe Filisko does a wonderful job with his advanced students at the Old Town School of Folk Music, getting them to play extended arrangements of classic Chicago blues repertoire. He helps them model their playing, with exquisite attention and exquisite care, on specific half-century-old repertoire. There's real utility in that, and I applaud the fact that he's willing to take them that far, to walk the walk with them. But of course he can't take them beyond that point--and there's a huge wide world of artistic growth, of real creativity, that only BEGINS at that point. Hopefully it has begun long before that.
So there's nothing wrong with copying licks, as long as you understand that getting them exactly right, and then recombining them, is merely the first part of a very long process of becoming a competent blues improviser with something valuable and original to contribute on the instrument.
Babies mimic. Young people look in the mirror and style and profile. At a certain point we become adults. I encourage all my students to become adults--in part, because it's extraordinarily enlivening to realize that you've moving into new territory, creating something new, speaking the complicated, messy language that's actually inside you trying to burst out.
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kudzurunner
3374 posts
Jul 13, 2012
3:19 PM
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btw, I do want to rein in what I said in my irritable earlier post about David Gogo. I'm quite sure that he's come a long way from where he was in 2002, when he was ripping off Albert Collins note-for-note. He's certainly not a total fake--unless he's still playing that way--and it was intemperate and ill-considered of me to say so. But perhaps it's useful for a player like that to realize that not everybody is impressed--and particularly not his fellow professionals--by expert mimicry. I happen to love, truly love, the playing of Albert Collins. He was one of the most brilliantly exciting AND ORIGINAL blues guitarists who ever lived. I saw him live half a dozen times and never left less than thrilled. That orignality, if truly felt by the student, should inspire MORE originality. A talented recording artist like Gogo who strives to copy his every explosive move is missing the point, tragically.
Truth be told, I wish I could make my harmonica sound like Collins's guitar. Translated to harmonica, it would, of course, be something original.
In any case, I got grouchy and I apologize.
Last Edited by on Jul 13, 2012 3:22 PM
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harmonicanick
1661 posts
Jul 13, 2012
3:23 PM
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@kudzurunner
Very well put in words
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Tuckster
1092 posts
Jul 13, 2012
3:41 PM
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Kudzu- I'm glad you came to your senses,I was mulling over taking you to task on that. It would be like judging an author on one paragraph. :)
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Frank
876 posts
Jul 13, 2012
4:06 PM
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So I suppose the moral to the story of this thread is that there are a shit load of crappy harp players stinkin up the bars, correct?
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timeistight
693 posts
Jul 13, 2012
4:09 PM
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"If, like David Gogo, you're trying to convince people that you're a working professional..."
I've been trying for ten minutes to put together a response to that nasty slur but words fail me.
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Tuckster
1094 posts
Jul 13, 2012
4:10 PM
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Frank- I don't think that's the moral. The question is: are they crappy because they don't know theory or because they don't know technique or timing?
BTW- I looked for you at the Dennis Gruenling show last night. I didn't see you. Only about 30 people there. I was hoping for a bigger crowd.
Last Edited by on Jul 13, 2012 4:20 PM
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SuperBee
408 posts
Jul 13, 2012
4:53 PM
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I didn't read kudzu's remark as a slur against Gogo. He stated explicitly that his earlier comment was unfair. The remark about "trying to convince" did not imply failure or fakeness, simply intent regarding his chosen career path. It wasn't even about Gogo per se, his name was simply a pertinent example used to illustrate an argument kudzu was making.
I think the ostensible topic of this thread, about which there appear to be several different understandings, is nowhere near as interesting as the insights it offers into human psychology.
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Michael Rubin
608 posts
Jul 13, 2012
5:45 PM
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Adam:
You say about Joe Filisko:
But of course he can't take them beyond that point--and there's a huge wide world of artistic growth, of real creativity, that only BEGINS at that point.
Why can't Joe take them beyond that point? Is he a one trick pony, only helping students learn to imitate? Or do believe that no teacher can help you with real creativity?
Added: I really do not mean to call you out, it was just a strange phrase and I wonder what you mean by it.
Last Edited by on Jul 13, 2012 6:04 PM
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laurent2015
325 posts
Jul 13, 2012
5:47 PM
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(Not in time)
Last Edited by on Jul 13, 2012 5:49 PM
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hvyj
2546 posts
Jul 14, 2012
10:09 AM
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@Michael: Frank posted a link to Filisko's written instructional materials a while ago which started the acrimonious choo-choo train threads, You can check out Joe's written materials and draw your own conclusion about what they are designed to equip a player to be able to do.
Last Edited by on Jul 14, 2012 10:20 AM
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Noodles
109 posts
Jul 14, 2012
10:40 AM
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Here's the link
http://www.filiskostore.com/
There are 2 pages of sample tracks (mp3s). Try listening closely with your headphones on.
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Frank
880 posts
Jul 14, 2012
11:57 AM
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Potts is flabbergasted, because Joe didn't make a level one instruction guide for students as himself...
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Michael Rubin
610 posts
Jul 14, 2012
1:37 PM
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Hvyj
Nah, Until I spend a few years taking directly from Joe, I do not know what he is capable of doing. Anyone who watches my videos and thinks, "If I take lessons from this guy, all I will learn is theory" would be wrong. I know Joe, he is a pretty smart guy. I do not think his work is limited to teaching imitation.
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hvyj
2547 posts
Jul 14, 2012
2:31 PM
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Frank, It would be nice if you wouldn't have a hissy fit and feel compelled to personally insult posters who engage in substantive discussion that doesn't happen to validate your particular musical prejudices Your diseased ego continues to be a festering pustule on the MBH anatomy. Why don't you do something more constructive like post an instrumental kaereoke recording, a hero worship vid or some goofy picture since you are intellectually and emotionally incapable of participating in threads involving substantive discussion without insultiing people.
Last Edited by on Jul 14, 2012 2:37 PM
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Frank
882 posts
Jul 14, 2012
3:29 PM
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jp...being a beginner is not an insult, embrace it , you will get better in time...Till then, don't count out Master Filisko to help you reach your goals - he has the credentials LINK to get you to the next level...
Last Edited by on Jul 14, 2012 3:32 PM
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nacoran
5978 posts
Jul 14, 2012
3:40 PM
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Nasty Old Dog is running an over under over on FB one when this thread will implode. I've actually got stuff to do tonight, so I'm going to ask everyone to behave themselves and prove NOD wrong. (Hi NOD).
If you have anything inflammatory to post, please wait until tomorrow.
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Nate
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hvyj
2548 posts
Jul 14, 2012
4:05 PM
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@Frank: I've been playing harp since 1979. Whether of not I'm any good at it, I'm not a beginner. Nor am I ignorant. Nor do I have a diseased ego like yours that compels me to try to belittle others whose views don't validate my own.
This thread has gone on for 3 pages of intellectually stimulating dicussion before your defication. But that's the sort of thing you do since you are, for reasons unclear to me, allowed to repeatedly get away with it, perhaps because the powers that be recognize your intellectual and emotional limitations render you incapable of conforming to the forum creed. So, I guess all of us will have to continue to put up with your pedantic behavior, especially since you apparently lack the acumen to contribute to a thread like this in a substantively meaningful way.
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Admin1
4 posts
Jul 14, 2012
4:51 PM
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Noodles my apologies for locking for what I thought was an excellent thread.
Frank and hvyj this is an official warning to cease and desist. Continued bickering like this over multiple threads will result in one or both of you having your membership deleted which would be a shame as you both have a lot to offer.
The admins and Adam are aware of you ongoin feud and if you wish to discuss it further please contact any of us off list.
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kudzurunner
3376 posts
Jul 15, 2012
4:16 AM
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Just a quick response to two queries made about my last post above:
1) Joe Filisko and I are good friends; I stayed at his house two weeks ago on my way through Chicago. Great guy; fantastic teacher. Nothing I write above should remotely be construed as attacking him. To clarify, I meant to say that Joe's method of teaching students 50s Chicago blues repertoire, note by note, can only take them so far. Learning repertoire like that is merely the first half of the journey towards becoming a skilled improviser--in part because it doesn't pretend to teach one to improvise, but merely to replicate. 98% of the videos for sale on this website teach exactly the same thing: replication. Replicating is extremely useful for a student, but only up to a point. The question is, what do you do after that? I'm sure that in his other classes--not the one I attended--and in his private teaching, Joe helps students create original improvisations using other methods, and in that case, of course he'd be helping them get past the replication point. In my own case, here, I help students along some portion of the same path that Joe is helping them along. But except for a few videos and the jam tracks, I don't really teach them improvisation, either. I do offer them some adventurous repertoire, including stuff with overblows and some jazzier things, but that's still not improvisation. For THAT, I direct students towards David Barrett's IMPROVISING BLUES HARMONICA. And I encourage them to find private teachers--again, in the hope and assumption that such teachers will go beyond repertoire into the finer points of improvisation.
2) By walking my criticism of David Gogo back to where I walked it in my post above, I said exactly what I mean to say. I'm sure he's a terrific player these days, with an original voice. I'm happy to trust timeistight on that. In the recording I directed people towards, recorded and released a decade ago, unfortunately, Gogo was an extremely skilled but entirely unoriginal player who was expertly parroting the highly original style of a truly brilliant player. The evidence for this claim of mine--call it an informed opinion--speaks for itself, or at least it should speak for itself to anybody who is familiar with the music of Albert Collins, whose style, I've argued, Gogo was parroting back then.
Last Edited by on Jul 15, 2012 4:25 AM
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