walterharp
1300 posts
Jan 25, 2014
2:18 PM
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Yeah, I know, Little Walter did it. Tons of harp players say that is what to do. However, if one wants to play modern music, there are very few sax players that are putting out innovative music that is reaching the general audience. The licks people want to hear here and now are from singers, guitars, keyboards, bass and drums.
Now if your goal is to make swinging blues music and move it a little past the 50's then it makes sense, cause jazz sax was where much of the truly innovative music came from in that period.
There is a recent thread here about listening to vocals for phrasing. That makes sense. Many songs on the pop radio are some synthesized drums, samples and some keyboards and all the interesting music is coming from the vocals.
If you want a good groove, why not listen to bass lines, they are the ones that hold it down and really make it swing?
If you want to get your rhythm, drummers are where the inspiration should be.
What I hear in the old early electrified blues is that the harp player has the interesting leads, providing unique phrasing etc. The guitars were playing less innovative or interesting things (to my uneducated ear). Now the guitars have almost completely taken over that role of driving the solos in many songs.. Why not steal stuff from them?
oh yeah, and Ricci said he listened to classical violin!
Last Edited by walterharp on Jan 25, 2014 2:22 PM
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kudzurunner
4516 posts
Jan 25, 2014
3:37 PM
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Good question, Walter. My initial thought was that you were probably right. I've certainly advocated heavily for borrowing from sax players, in part because that's what I did during my period of active harmonica and technical upgrading (1985-1995). But that heroic period in my own career (so to speak!) is now two or three decades in the past. Surely the situation in 2014 is a changed one, and in the ways that you say.
Or is it? My rationale for copying from jazz, blues, and R&B sax players who were active in the 80s and 90s was a twofold one. First, although some players even then, especially Dennis Gruenling (with his Lester Young / Kenny Davern sax/clarinet thing), were copying sax and other horn players, they were doing so primarily to consolidate an older sound, a big-band and jump sound. I was interested in picking up where Little Walter had left off and moving forward. That's why guys like Stanley Turrentine and Paquito d'Rivera were useful to copy: although they each clearly have an audible debt to the tenor and alto players who came before them, they were stylistically distinct, and their runs were adventurous in ways that said "Modern!" Same with Maceo Parker. That's just a different sound, driven by different rhythms. (The rhythms, the grooves, are crucial). And I didn't hear harp players, or very many of them, who were trying for it.
Also, for me, copying sax runs was always connected with the new things that overblows let me do. So even when I was copying a Hank Crawford, somebody who was doing straight ahead shuffles and pretty straight-ahead bluesy R&B, I was hitting the changes in ways that other players--i.e., any player who didn't overblow--simply couldn't. So I could leverage an old (or old-ish) SAX sound into a new harmonica approach.
Dennis actually did exactly this on at least one 12th position jump blues on JUMP TIME. So overblows aren't necessarily needed to do what I'm describing. But they made a huge difference back then, and for many players even today, copying sax riffs note for note will force the overblows into the mix in many cases.
So copying sax players, even ones who might strike us as pretty old school these days, like Sonny Stitt and David Fathead Newman, or Jimmy Forrest (somebody I spent a lot of time copying), can still lead to the cutting edge, or at least in a modernizing direction.
And there's still a lot of interesting sax music being played. I don't think that blues harmonica players have come anywhere close to integrating the discoveries made by smooth jazz horn players such as Gerald Albright and Alberto Monnar. I really like Monnar. This is straight ahead stuff, pretty accessible to a harp player with open ears. The third song, "Smooth Mambo," is MADE to be covered by an adventurous blues harp player
And of course I'm about copying more than sax. I was gripped by trumpeter Chris Botti's "Why Not" and worked up a bluesy version for SOUTHBOUND.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006HP77IU/ref=dm_ws_tlw_trk7_B006HP77IU
Again, a contemporary harp player doesn't need to seek out the most cutting edge art-house free jazz sax in order to copy something and create something new. Chris Michaelek was a good example. He was basically playing pop jazz. (Pop jazz often has a programmed rhythm track rather than live drummers, or at least that's one of the things that differentiates it from non-pop jazz.)
Trumpeters are doing some amazing fusiony forward looking stuff, though. Terence Blanchard is a great example--all his movie soundtracks. Here's a cut called "Flow." Come on, guys. Copy it! Copy a small piece of it.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000THHZ70/ref=dm_ws_tlw_trk1_B000THHZ70
All it takes on the part of a harp player--a blues player--is the willingness to TRY and copy something. I learn something new, often something transformative, every time I do that.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Jan 25, 2014 3:44 PM
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boris_plotnikov
920 posts
Jan 25, 2014
10:26 PM
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In general I don't like to listen to sax. I prefer to steal style from trumpet and bass-guitar solos.
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Excuse my bad English.
My videos.
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FMWoodeye
815 posts
Jan 25, 2014
11:42 PM
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Well, I play harp, trumpet and trombone. I have often gone back to the big bands of the forties to pick up (steal) licks and phrasing. It comes from many places. My favorite (kick-ass) combination of licks comes from a country lick taught to me by Todd Parrott, combined with a blues lick from Ronnie Shellist along with a guitar lick from Carlos Santana, his opening for his solo in his cover of Sunshine of Your Love. I listen for what I like and mimic what I can. Original stuff evolves, but I can always trace it back to its origins. Check out some old Paul Desmond with the Dave Brubek quartet. Ideas are everywhere, swirling about for those who care to pick them out of the air.
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KingoBad
1420 posts
Jan 25, 2014
11:52 PM
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I think you better learn how to play sax lines so you don't get your ass kicked by a sax player.
At least be able to keep up, and for goodness sake - never let the sax out swing you!
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Danny
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nacoran
7511 posts
Jan 26, 2014
12:04 AM
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Kingo, Buddha had a story about a sax player he posted once. I'm may be getting the details wrong, but the general gist was the sax player was down on him, saying there was no reason to play harmonica, because a sax could play any of those parts. Buddha looked at him and played some chords. :)
Listen to anything. I've borrowed from vocal lines, piano, sax, guitar (Buddha did Purple Haze on a Youtube video once, I think.)
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Nate
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KingoBad
1421 posts
Jan 26, 2014
8:27 AM
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You may be able to play chords, but he will still kick your ass if you are not competent.
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Danny
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Littoral
1021 posts
Jan 26, 2014
8:32 AM
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Kick my ass, likely with notes but tone is our advantage.
If that doesn't work then I'll just put JR on em...
They can counter with Parker and we'll trump with BW and then they'd have to think about it awhile before they just left with some super hot glamor babe.
Damn.
I do have one more card though:
How many jobs have we taken from sax players?
Last Edited by Littoral on Jan 26, 2014 8:41 AM
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The Iceman
1416 posts
Jan 26, 2014
9:16 AM
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Why not listen to sax players for modern blues harp?
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The Iceman
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kudzurunner
4519 posts
Jan 26, 2014
10:18 AM
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I agree with Walter that electric blues guitarists are a great thing to copy. I still believe that if a harp player could come up with a plausible version of Albert Collins's explosive, angular attack, it would rock the blues harmonica world. One of these days I plan to hide out for a week or so and see if it can be done. It's hard to get the same combination of sustain and crazy-hard attack on harp. But simply TRYING to get it might lead to something interesting.
Creating the opening 12 bars to my version of "Crossroads Blues," I benefited hugely from drawing on my memory of what Clapton does on guitar in the live version. "Uncanny" means both strange and familiar. There's something uncanny that happens when harp players copy guitar riffs but also pull them incrementally in the direction of harp-playability, rather than striving for absolute note-perfect replication. Flow is important, so I'm always happy to cut corners, cut off little edges, for the sake of playability. That's what I did with Stanley Turrentine's "Sugar," where I simply let go of the 3 or 4 note flourish surrounding each landing note in the melody. I streamlined. It sounds absolutely natural--as though the melody I play IS the original melody. But it's an adaptation, a simplification. It's those sorts of negotiations that help create something new, or new-ish.
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walterharp
1303 posts
Jan 27, 2014
11:46 AM
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looks like the blues guitarists took most all of it at the ibc this year, but at least musselwhite and harper won a grammy for best blues album.
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tmf714
2380 posts
Jan 27, 2014
1:04 PM
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Well-heres one good reason-12th position chromatic-
Last Edited by tmf714 on Jan 27, 2014 1:08 PM
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tmf714
2381 posts
Jan 27, 2014
1:14 PM
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And another in LOW F-
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Ugly Bones Ryan
40 posts
Jan 27, 2014
2:18 PM
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I listen to a lot different instruments such as trumpets, sax's, double bass's, bass guitars, guitars, dobros, violins, etc. Listening to other people play music besides harp players keeps you from limiting yourself.
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Frank
3770 posts
Jan 27, 2014
2:42 PM
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To advance on any instrument it's important to listen how all instruments are used to make music and gather ideas and inspiration from them :)
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walterharp
1304 posts
Jan 27, 2014
7:57 PM
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seriously? (and that is seriously dated) All I get in response to this is some recycled jump jazz blues no further forward than count Baise in the 40's, some guitar from 40 years ago and derivative smooth jazz.
is there really nothing new? does modern blues just mean moving it one step beyond Little Walter and fulfilling his dream of playing "modern" jazz licks on saxophone?
This does not generate as much interest as the "can white people play blues?" question, but in some ways it is more relevant, because at least it moves us past a seriously outdated music point of view..
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HarpNinja
3727 posts
Jan 28, 2014
5:58 AM
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You did ask this on MBH, where a wealth of the players have no interest in modern sounds on harmonica...
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Mike
My Website
My Harmonica Effects Blog
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HarpNinja
3728 posts
Jan 28, 2014
6:01 AM
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Joe Bonamassa did a Guitar Center session that I just saw on AX-TV. He talked about a lot of non-blues influences and compared himself to a Line 6 POD.
If you need country, he can do that. If you need a rock tone, got it. Classical, check!
For him, though, it was about putting all those styles into one of his own and making that work over the music he writes.
If you want to sound modern, learning some theory and scales helps a lot as it opens up a greater tool box to work with, even over blues progressions.
Some of my biggest influences have been Miles Davis, Derek Trucks, and Freddie King. I've spent more time learning off of their solos then any harmonica solo. While I have a huge interest in Jason Ricci and John Popper and Pat Ramsey, I can't play a single solo from any of them note for note. I can go for that "vibe", but the patterns and phrasing I use are different.
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Mike
My Website
My Harmonica Effects Blog
Last Edited by HarpNinja on Jan 28, 2014 6:05 AM
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tmf714
2383 posts
Jan 28, 2014
6:27 AM
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If you don't get it after this,then it cant be got-SERIOUSLY
Last Edited by tmf714 on Jan 28, 2014 6:27 AM
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The Iceman
1426 posts
Jan 28, 2014
9:22 AM
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Nice playing.
I did notice that Dennis cleverly avoided playing over the "rhythm changes" that make the chorus, instead deferring to the sax player or vocalist.
If he wanted to tackle this section, it would be a little more "modern blues harmonica".
Dennis played excellent dorian mode style over the bulk of the tune and has learned to swing from his love of big band jump stuff.
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The Iceman
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tmf714
2385 posts
Jan 28, 2014
9:44 AM
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Yeah-well Dennis composed and wrote that song,so I guess he played as it was written-Dennis is as Modern and innovative a it gets on harmonica-who else does this kind of stuff with a sax player? Plus,I'm not understanding your " not playing over the rhythm changes"- you would have to point this out -
Last Edited by tmf714 on Jan 28, 2014 9:49 AM
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barbequebob
2456 posts
Jan 28, 2014
9:55 AM
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Much of the stuff modern day sax players are doing, especially the guys who've come from Berklee College of Music is largely more or less Kenny G and David Sanborn clones/wannabee types, which is fine for sweet syrupy ballads, but terrible for blues and sax players from the 40's thru the 60's, especially the jump blues/big band types played with far more in your face raw power (and often times called bar honkers) and many harp players from Little Walter onward borrowed heavily from them.
The case for listening more to horns rather than other harp players is that it forces you to get better listening skills by avoiding tabs and get away from playing many of the same cliches harp players tend to fall into.
My old buddy Richard Hunter said something in his ground breaking instructional book Jazz Harp is that if you can't play the actual sax line itself, what you can do as an alternative play something that's in harmony with the line, but since many harp players are too lazy to learn the most basic of music theory, they often wid up being clueless and lost. When I played in a band that had 5 horns and had to be part of the section (and many of those lines played together are rhythm lines), more than a few times, you'r NOT playing every note in unison, but in harmony, where one player starts from the root note, then another from the third, etc..
One sax player gigging today that any harp player should listen to is my friend Sax Gordon, who is a Berklee graduate and can play all of those Kenny G/David Sanborn things that predominate what many of the modern sax guys seem to be doing, plus all the jump and different jazz styles that most of them cannot play at all and I've played with him a number of times over the years, often working together like a horn section and he told me he often took stuff from harp players and that's coming full circle.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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The Iceman
1427 posts
Jan 28, 2014
10:13 AM
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By "rhythm changes", I am referring to the chords based on "I Got Rhythm" used over the chorus.
Rhythm changes occur at about 50 second mark in video. Next time around, it happens during Dennis' solo at about 1 min 20 sec., where he stops playing and sax picks up the solo.
You will also hear the drummer go into more of a full swing beat during the chorus, which only lasts 8 measures.
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The Iceman
Last Edited by The Iceman on Jan 28, 2014 10:14 AM
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tmf714
2386 posts
Jan 28, 2014
10:29 AM
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I do hear the one at :50 -heres the original-but at the 1:20 mark here,he is simply letting Doug have a solo-
but I think its an intonation issue at :50,rather than laying out-so its ok to not play here-
Last Edited by tmf714 on Jan 28, 2014 10:35 AM
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The Iceman
1428 posts
Jan 28, 2014
10:41 AM
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I still believe it to be a choice not to play over these particular changes, as they are harder to negotiate than the standard blues ones.
I've also laid out during the chorus of a tune if the changes make me a little nervous...mostly jam situations in which I wasn't prepared to go off in that direction.
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The Iceman
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MP
3079 posts
Jan 28, 2014
11:01 AM
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As far as copping saxophone I think the most modern thing I do is James Browns 'The Chicken'. I took it from a later day Maceo Parker record. It's really fun to play and I get to use a long overblow that sounds really cool. I totally love the 6 OB cause it takes me away from 1/2 step 3 draw bend. Also my self customized Eb SP/20 w/ a Hetrick Dymonwood comb gets another tune to work out on.
I used to take sax and flute lessons. i even worked out a two man horn section in my band. Tenor and i played alto. i would write out our parts (very slowly i might add)
My taste even back in the eighties was pretty old school. Lester Young, Dexter Gordon, etc. I like melodies I can wrap my head around. You know, they play the head/main melody, deviate, trade fours or something, return to the head/main melody line and out.
People say there is a lot of great new music out there. I wonder. I'm sure there must be good new stuff but a lot? In jazz? a lot of jazz left me cold when it went fusion. new jazz leaves me cold. New Blues? Hmmm. There are great players but modern?
Harmonica technique has vastly improved. It's startling just how fast it has improved. my fav player is Carlos del Junco. I don't know if his swinging music is all that modern.
Horn lines are something I've done forever it seems. I seem to be losing the topic.
I'd have to say that if you are playing blues it's best to listen to old school swing sax. funk sax. blues horn section sax. Unless you are of the musical temperament and have the chops of Levy modern sax will be elusive. One has to play what they like.
let's wrap it up. I personally try to mimic everything- sounds or songs I hear. a truck backing up, birds,etc. Maybe i heard 3rd Stone From the Sun coming out of a window. I take walks w/ several harps so I don't bother people at home.
Listen to everything is what I'd recommend. Make yourself into a human recording machine and listen to the world around you. You can find music in the sound of common everyday noises.
PS. Carlos Santana is proported to have said that he listened to Dionne Warwick for licks. Interesting!
have a good day.
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Last Edited by MP on Jan 28, 2014 11:09 AM
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barbequebob
2458 posts
Jan 28, 2014
11:33 AM
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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barbequebob
2459 posts
Jan 28, 2014
11:35 AM
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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KingoBad
1422 posts
Jan 28, 2014
11:35 AM
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I think being familiar and able to play like/with a sax player is the important part.
If he lays down a sexy swingin' line and you follow with some tired old blues riff, your going to be left standing like an idiot. You better be prepared to bob and weave with and/or around him.
It isn't about sounding like a sax player, it is about having the musicality to match what is being laid down and serve the song.
I am a little sore about the subject, as I watched a few vids of someone I know get their ass hung in the wind at a jam. It was painful to watch, and I couldn't believe they couldn't hear what was going on - or the snickering of the singer and sax player.
A little listening/practice homework, and some bigger ears would have helped tremendously.
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Danny
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Frank
3776 posts
Jan 28, 2014
1:46 PM
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walterharp
1305 posts
Jan 29, 2014
12:58 PM
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Well I do think that Gruenling sounds modern, much more so than the sax player in his band in the link above. He really moves his phrasing more toward an almost electric jazz trumpet at times. But he does swing, and he makes the harmonica sound like no other instrument at times (and no other player) by doing things only our instrument can do. I think at one point Adam said that he had difficulty "decoding" what Dennis does, which means to me that simply starting with jump blues saxaphone lines does not let you predict the path he will take.
FWIW here Levy sounds more like Django than anything to me here. Not modern per se, but pretty cool.
Last Edited by walterharp on Jan 29, 2014 1:00 PM
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TheoBurke
570 posts
Jan 29, 2014
1:40 PM
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It's important to listen to musicians who've mastered instruments that are not harmonicas, I think, simply because a musician who is serious about creating their own voice, their own style on their harp is better off if they have a broad swath of influences to borrow from. I am asked all the time how I developed my speed, and besides the standard answer of "practice, practice, pratice" I tell folks that I listened to A LOT OF non-harmonica virutosos , usually in blues and jazz frameworks FOR DECADES as I was learning to make my way around the harp. I was fascinated and obsessed with guitarists at first and sought to mimic their style, then I got hooked on bebop and post-bebop jazz, especially the music of Coltrane , Parker, Great Quartets era Miles Davis. Trumpet and saxophone were big influences on the way I play; the short of it is that I had some definite ideas of what I wanted to sound like and was interested in using ideas I had heardin other contexts in my own solos. I insist that I would be a less interesting harmonica if I hadn't fallen in love with what was being done on other instruments.
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Ted Burke
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheoBurke?feature=mhee
http://ted-burke.com
tburke4@san.rr.coM
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CarlA
442 posts
Jan 29, 2014
2:45 PM
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Is the rationale for harp players mimicking sax lines based on the fact that they are both "wind" instruments?
Does that mean that blues guitarists should be mimicking sitar/lyre/viola/cello lines because they are all stringed instruments?
Last Edited by CarlA on Jan 29, 2014 2:46 PM
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tmf714
2390 posts
Jan 29, 2014
3:25 PM
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"Is the rationale for harp players mimicking sax lines based on the fact that they are both "wind" instruments?"
NO-they are both reed instruments-but the harmonica is the only reed instrument that plays blow and draw notes.
The saxophone lines fit nicely into some blues music-whereas the cello/sitar/lyre/viola -well-not much.
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CarlA
443 posts
Jan 29, 2014
3:40 PM
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@tmf714
Isn't the sax technically a "woodwind" instrument?
The point is why are harmonica players expected to play like sax players(something that general audience could care less about) and no one ever expects a guitar player to sound like anything else but....a guitar player?!?
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tmf714
2391 posts
Jan 29, 2014
4:55 PM
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Technically yes-but the harmonica is a free reed wind instrument.
I don't really think people expect harp players to play like sax players-they expect it to sound like a harmonica-most people anyway.
Great guitar players can make the guitar sound like almost any instrument-sitar,violin,synth,keyboard.
Jimmy Page-
Last Edited by tmf714 on Jan 29, 2014 4:59 PM
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blingty
14 posts
Jan 30, 2014
4:16 AM
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Thanks for this thread... loads of great discussion on here.
I think it opens up a discussion about why harmonica isn't generally played at the same level as sax too. You know, the old chestnut about not having teachers, repertoire that is gradually increasing, being able to read etc as well as the physical limitations of playing fast. But I take the point made above that harmonica can do things that other instruments can't.
Maybe we just need to actually spend time playing the things that other instruments play, instead of just listening and absorbing. I think that too often we reply on licks invented mid-way through the last century (well, I do anyway) instead of playing to the harmony of the tune. Of course it's difficult to move out of the default scales built into the harmonica and those things sound good.
There are some great clips above. Dennis does sound great.
Last Edited by blingty on Jan 30, 2014 4:17 AM
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blingty
15 posts
Jan 30, 2014
8:56 AM
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I hope this doesn't derail the great discussions here, but does anyone know what gear Dennis was using on that clip? It/he sounds great... I know it's his playing but I'm coincidentally curious about the gear.
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tmf714
2392 posts
Jan 30, 2014
10:58 AM
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On the "Mississippi Saxophone" live cut,I would say a 4-10 HarpKing with an Astatic JT30 Crystal mic-Low F harp in third position-
Last Edited by tmf714 on Jan 30, 2014 10:58 AM
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MP
3081 posts
Jan 30, 2014
1:18 PM
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There are three classes of instruments that require breath. Brass, Woodwinds, and Reeds.
Adolf Sax invented the saxophone in order to bridge the gap between reed and brass instruments. For many years it wasn't regarded as an orchestra instrument until certain composers used it to great effect. Ravel for instance.
Like the harmonica, it suffered from not being seen as a 'real' instrument.
Affordable Reed Replacement
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blingty
16 posts
Jan 31, 2014
3:19 AM
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Thanks for the gear, tmf714. It's a cracking sound.
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clyde
338 posts
Jan 31, 2014
7:28 AM
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Mp
Don't forget wind midi
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