Some interesting stuff here.One thing that caught my attention in particular was the rule about mixing Major and Minor within your solo,can anyone explain this to me as it applies to the Harmonica within the 1 1V V chord progression, by that I mean how do I learn which holes either drawn or blown at a given point within the music will create Major or Minor sounds? I have'nt worded that very well I know, but I'm rather hung over today so I appologise if this question makes no sense!
Good advice - and a lot of it is in line with David Barrett's improvising material (ie. rather than changing fret position on the guitar, he talks about changing focus notes - but the outcome is the same). Geordie, I'm not much of a theory guy, but I tend to hit the unbent 3 draw, the 3" draw, the 7 draw, the 5 blow and the 2 blow over the I chord when I want to sound major and the 4', 3', 2" and unbent 5 draw to sound minor. Over the IV chord, to sound minor, I play in first position and avoid the 2 blow. Over the Video chord, I think of it as third position with 2" instead of 2'.
Edit: stupid predictive spelling thing - I meant the V chord, not the video chord, whatever the hell that would be.
Last Edited by on Feb 03, 2013 5:48 AM
@Geordie....I try to learn horn licks, even going back to the big bands of the forties, just to play things that everyone else isn't. A lot of this stuff has a major ring, even when you "blues it up" or "harp it up" a little.
great stuff. I am digesting it slowly...he explains it so well. Lately, someone posted something about Paul deLays playing style. I'm aw struck, and resonate to his phrasing style...alot. It would seem to me, he plays alot of major minor stuff? Incredibly pleasing horn sound, too.
Big Walter Horton sound... Full of surprises. Just when you think he is gonna do something...he does something else. And makes it work reeeeeally well. ----------
While I find some good advice in this video, personally I am not a fan of "lick based" learning. I prefer to explore musical line through understanding it from "inside" and thereby able to create interesting ideas without cut and pasting other's licks.
I'm not saying there is no value in learning licks and stockpiling them. I just favor a different approach.
Paul deLay is not a "lick based" player. This is why he is full of surprises. ---------- The Iceman
@The Iceman....I say yes and no to "lick based" learning. Learning licks by rote and then just repeating them and/or laying them end-to-end, I say no. BUT...as an example, I took one blues lick from a Ronnie Shellist download and learned it. Then I played it as a repeating lick. Then I turned it "inside out" as a repeating lick. Then I extended it using a lick I learned from Todd Parrott. Then I put a Carlos Santana lick from his cover of Sunshine of Your Love in front of it and integrated it. Finally, I played the extended Shellist/Parrott lick and put the Santana lick at the end as the resolution, so I can play it either way OR partially in a variety of ways. The genesis was the Shellist lick, but the rest grows therefrom......is "therefrom" a word? If it isn't, it should be.
For my own purposes, I try to avoid saying "lick", but prefer "musical line" or "idea".
So, understanding other's "musical lines" is another way to educate yourself in music theory without the theory as such. If a student brings me a note for note reproduction of a musical line, I'll have him slow it down, attach it to a groove, learn to start it at different placements in the form, fracture it out into smaller pieces, and also distort it as to the "time spent lingering on each note". This way I'll educate the student into taking one musical line and creating a whole host of spin off ideas that he can use and start to call his own. ---------- The Iceman
@Iceman...very nicely and clearly expressed thought. You must be a fine teacher. "Time spent lingering on each note," indeed, and accents on different notes. I've also found that a lot of horn phrases start on the upbeat and use syncopation more often then I hear in traditional blues.
Thanks for deLay´s "Mean old world", some truly great playing there, hadn´t heard it before. As mentioned, surprising at times; but whether it´s based on "licks" or "musical lines/ideas" seems to be very dependent on what we let those notions mean ... (unsurprisingly).
That there´s a whole lot of premeditation in the stuff he plays is evident (and I recognize some things from his records) but very good musical judgement in the deployment of the ideas. I suppose there´s nothing inherently wrong in calling a musical phrase that extends to a dozen notes or so a "lick"? So -- contrary to the Iceman -- you could say that, yes deLay is a lick based player but he´s got greater, longer, more interesting licks than most. One reason for this is that, contrary to 98,5% of all blues harp players, he´s not fully at work trying to sound like all those other blues harp players.
