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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! > Influences from SPAH--Sittin' on Top of the World
Influences from SPAH--Sittin' on Top of the World
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ToddAllenGates
31 posts
Sep 09, 2012
11:23 AM
Okay, I probably *could* have played everything in my latest video, "Sittin' on Top of the World," before I went to SPAH.

But I *wouldn't* have, or at least I wouldn't have put it together quite this way--not without being inspired by:

* Michael Rubin's chromatic harmonica workshops (I play the chromatic in the fourth verse),

* the jams with Todd Parrott in which he called out a different key every 12 bars (although not possessing the skills of Parrott, I switch harps when I switch keys),

* the dissonant piano chords that Sam Friedman mixes into his blues playing (I save this mostly for the end)

* the various guitar jams I listened to that reminded me how good an 8-bar blues can sound.

Harmonicas used in this video:

G (cross-harp, key of D)
Bb (cross-harp, key of F)
D (cross-harp, key of A)
C Chromatic, playing in key of Bb
F (cross-harp, key of C)

Gig74
124 posts
Sep 09, 2012
3:40 PM
Todd that was fantastic, I really liked all your differents
Styles and approaches, it worked really well, also your tone was nice throughout with some cool vibrato.

Nice job
Greg.
----------
Living the dream and learning the blues one little trouble at a time.
ToddAllenGates
32 posts
Sep 09, 2012
5:58 PM
TO GREG: Thanks! I feel my tone has improved some since I switched to tongue-blocking earlier this year ... I'm finally getting comfortable TB-ing just about all the time (100% in this video).

TO MICHAEL: Thanks for the plug, and thanks for the inspiring SPAH chromatic workshops every afternoon, and blues jams every morning!
BronxHarp
77 posts
Sep 10, 2012
7:48 PM
Todd, this is great. I'm already a few bars in learning what you've done.
Re: tongue blocking ... Do you tongue block all your bends, and can you describe for us in any way how you came to learn that? I feel like the air stream is at the side of my mouth when I try to bend and tongue block, and that makes it so much harder to control.
Thanks for sharing this vid!
-Jordan
ToddAllenGates
33 posts
Sep 11, 2012
11:02 AM
@BronxHarp
Thanks Jordan! And yes, I tongue-block everything now, including bends, thanks to the few lessons I've taken (so far) with Dennis Gruenling. (I'll also admit it was a pain in the ass at first, because I had been a 100% lip purser for years.) As for describing tongue-blocked bends, well, Lee Sankey's "Harmonica Tongue Blocking - How to Bend" video does a much better job at explaining it than anything I could write in text: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KOBVKTkXmc&
Todd Parrott
1035 posts
Sep 11, 2012
11:04 AM
Sounds really good, man.... the piano does too!


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