Here's a video of Jason Ricci with Big Al and the Heavyweights back in 2002. What I learn from watching this is how effective pure repetition with occasional tiny inflections & variations can be when you're backing up a singer and contributing to the rhythmic drive and harmonic texture. I wish I could be this discplined! This is how it's done:
Thanks for this. I wish there were more discussion and examples of comping here. I like comping because I want to be contributing to the song throughout, not just hanging around like a spare part waiting for a solo. I like being part of the framework. Most often the advice seems to be not to play when the singer is singing, but there are good examples of songs with harp in throughout.
Plus, the repetitive nature of it is more accessible to a player like me in the early stages. You can put more energy into the dynamics rather than note choices. Creating a convincing solo is relatively difficult.
Jason is one interesting cat for sure, but I wouldn’t necessarily say he looks that different from video to video. He might change his style of clothing or appearance ,but I feel like he still looks like Jason through all the videos I’ve seen. His weight has fluctuated over the years, as has most of ours; and if you consider that some of his videos are over 10 yrs old ….well I’ll just say he has aged better than I have.
Turns out that besides being a fashionable cat he can play one heck of a harp and has been very generous with his knowledge to the harmonica learning community; which means a lot to me personally.
Also, I should mention that I love a good example of comping or playing along with the rhythm section. Like MTG said; I prefer to be able to add to the song during more than just a solo (which I'll likely botch up). Just standing there for 90%+ of a song feels strange to me, but I come from a rhythm guitar background where you play all the time.
I think harp can also contribute to the entire song, but it can be difficult to add to the song without taking over. I think this is why you often only hear really good players pulling this off effectively.
I notice how well Jason backed down and blended in after his solo. He played at the same time at the singer but he played under the vocals, not over. There is more to staying under than volume, and Jason is exhibiting it, as the thread title indicates. As was pointed out, this is quite a display of discipline. I have a hard time not adding too much when I try to comp. It reminds me of the way I spray paint, vs. the right way, I think a bit more will make it better, and then I suddenly have a big runny mess. When you see it done by a pro it looks easy, but boy is it hard to get right.
Last Edited by STME58 on Aug 07, 2015 9:02 PM
"I'm wondering though, how is it that Jason Ricci looks like a completely different person in every video I see of him?"
I find that amusing. I never find myself asking, "who's that harmonica player? It looks like..." For some reason I can't seem to connect human appearances with names. With Jason, it takes 2 notes.
But wait, that's not the topic. It has been my observation that people who want harmonica only when it's time for a harmonica solo, generally don't think of the harmonica as a musical instrument. Prejudice, or maybe bad prior experiences, but would they ask the bass or drummer to lay out until their solo? IMO, it's a party and most of the time, everybody ought to be contributing. Moderate with volume. That is what I like to listen to.
Last Edited by Thievin' Heathen on Aug 08, 2015 7:30 AM
As far as comping, keep it simple, repetition on the I chord. Bass lines are great for this. Listen to what the bass playing is doing and work around that. Keep the dynamic low. Add in small transitions or pickups as desired. Grab fills between vocals, then bring up the dynamic. Know your root, third, fifth on the chords. Definitely adds to to music and keeps from standing around for your solo or worse trying to dance (poorly) on stage to fill time.
Although it's a different sound more rock than the rhumba this is probably the best example if pure genius comping there is. Hooker and Heat Boogie Chilling https://youtu.be/3KuVOlxaiX0---------- sorry couldn't embed the code phone won't let me. I'll fix when I get to a computer.
"The only way to get better is to play a little outside your comfort zone every time you play!"
I like what Jason did with it, but the vocal level seems a bit low. (Jason sounds fine in the mix with the rest of the instruments. It definitely sounds like just the vocal level needs adjusting. Of course, that could just be the way it was recorded. If the recording device had been more centered it might have picked up more vocal.)
"how is it that Jason Ricci looks like a completely different person in every video I see of him? And I don't mean just that his style is different in each video, I mean he literally looks like a totally different person every time. Is he some kind of Chameleon person or something?"
Lately I've been listening to Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry. Although Sonny is often fairly busy during Brownie's vocals he never stomps on them. Been wondering if anyone is doing that these days.
I actually think this might be the most difficult thing to do as a harp player... you can play like a horn. but single horns rarely comp.. in contrast guitar players comp all the time and nobody much notices or complains.
when we were recording our second album, the sound engineer said listen to this.. he played a song with and without my harp part.. he said he did not notice the harp part but then when it was not there, the song did not sound nearly as good... it was sort of a quivery chord distorted electric kind of thing on a rock song... but that is what my goal is with comping.. something that nobody would notice up front, but if it is not there, the song does not sound as good
unfortunately there is not a prescription for that. it is certainly important not to be too loud in the mix
Yes it does seem to be difficult. There aren't so many examples to learn from - where the harp is playing all the time, and in a full group rather than a duo, and not just quietly or providing fills between bits of vocal in the traditional way. Examples of blistering solos are many. And tasteful fills.
My favourite examples to listen to are the tracks on Jimmy Rogers Chicago Bound album. These are my archetypes of how the harp sound can meld in, not just bolted on the side.
Different, but I really like Satan and Adam's studio version of Big Boss Man. This has a full band too, and the harp is very prominent, and playing a highly satisfying rhythm part, then soloing, back to rhythm without a pause.
I like to think of Pete Townsend, not just playing conventional rhythm, hooks, fills or lead guitar but some kind of mix of everything throughout the song.
Then there is the much-shown video of Hound Dog Taylor and LW, wild about you baby. In the YT comments some people say there's too much harp. I don't agree. Do these comments reflect a convention that vocals and harp should not be heard together?
...oh, and Forty Days and Forty Nights of course.
Last Edited by MindTheGap on Aug 12, 2015 3:43 AM
Essentially what Jason is doing is more how I had to play in a band that I gigged with many years ago that I was together with a 5 piece horn section that had two tenor saxes, a baritone sax, a baritone sax, and a trumpet, and what Jason's doing requires TONS of musical discipline plus a decent knowledge of music theory because tho the lines may be played in unison, there were plenty of times you'd play them in harmony, with one starting from the root note, one starts from the third, etc., and like what Jason is doing here is actually playing a rhythm part and this allows the band to groove more, wheras most harp players just riff non stop being more like they're do nothing but soloing constantly and then what they tend to do will detract rather than add to the tune.
I've seen plenty of bands with a single horn comp in blues. The first harp player I ever saw doing this kind of thing with horns was Pierre Beauregard during his time with the Boston area band called Powerhouse, where not only do you have to cognizant of the rhythm and dynamics of the groove (and you HAVE to have good time to pull this off), but also the rhythm and dynamics of the line, even down to the rhythm and dynamics of the individual notes.
Much of the LW stuff is heavily derived from his constant listening to big band jazz and jump blues horn players and if you take the time to work with those recordings, do NOT just listen to solos, but also the way they're comping and you'll notice that those lines are rhythm parts. Back in the early to mid 40's, many of the jump bands didn't even carry a chordal instrument of any kind and so the horns were actually playing rhythm parts and when it became too expensive to have bands larger than 6-10 pieces in the 50's, many of those horn parts were later turned into rhythm chording parts by guitar players.
One thing to remember about some of the videos you see is that if someone who isn't part of a professional video shooting company, you're gonna have one camera and it becomes extremely difficult to get all the sound balances right because the room acoustics alone dictate quite a lot that you cannot compensate for, whereas pros may have more cameras, possibly have sound fed from the PA mixer to another board to mix the sound with, and having some experience doing a broadcast from a local cable station, videos that come from a situation like that will even things out in ways that someone with just a single video camera, especially if there is only a single mic on the camera just cannot do adequately. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
