the harmonica has been good to me. for over 3 decades the harp has afforded me so much good fortune and inumerable good times. what is curious to me is that the harp is still thought of as a toy, and the harp player is not really considered a musician by many people. that's why i started the harmonica player jokes thread. i thought some of you out there might like to share interesting anecdotes about being slagged,disrespect, or just plain ignorance reguarding our choice of instrument. here's one to start. " we have a bet. i think you are just making sounds into the microphone but my husband says you are playing a harmonica. who's right?" or how about this backhanded one? "i hate the harmonica, but i like you." LET THE GAMES BEGIN.
Last Edited by on Mar 04, 2010 8:58 PM
my brother in law came in to my kitchen when i was warming up before going to play in in a bar with some proper musicians and asked me if i was fixing a broken harmonica. as he and the kids were leaving in the car i leaned in and gave each of the kids a harmonica
sparrow, that's pretty bad. i always got sanford and son when i warbled. at least i liked the show. but then again, the rosanne guy plays better than the sanford and son guy.
was in my teens but remember as if it happened yesterday. this kinda thing 'll make you want to quit. was with my hungover nogood friends in the back of a volkswagon bug and playing my harp after trying to get sober bodysurfing. my friend mike totally flipped out. he grabbed my harp and started blowing like crazy in my ear and yelling,"HOW DO YOU LIKE IT?!!HOW DO YOU LIKE IT?!!
Ive never had anyone diss the harp...or tell me its a toy... most people who hear me, though im a novice, dont treat me any different from the guitar players...
if you hear it because we dont know music specifically, ask them what a drummer does... ---------- Kyzer's Travels
My favourite question so far is "so does the harmonica actually play musical notes, like a piano or something?". I guess they thought that the harmonica simply plays musical-sounding noise.
Last Edited by on Mar 05, 2010 2:25 AM
"Wow, no one plays the harmonica anymore around here. Are you from the south?"
Also, I like it when the piano player tells me what key harp I need. Especially when he's wrong.
One time at a jam they were playing a blues with a few chord substitutions. I leaned in to hear, the bass player says "don't worry, it won't affect you."
To me the funny thing is that everybody, including harmonica players, assume you are musically dumb if you play the harp.
I say let em think what they want, then play better than anyone they ever heard. Work it to your advantage.
"i hate the harmonica, but i like you." I heard someone say the exact thing to Jason Ricci after a show once and he laughed and said that he appreciates when someone tells him that, obviously not the only time he'd heard it. I also constantly have a couple of guitar guys telling me what key harp to play, not what key the tune is in. It drives me nuts, but I just smile and make sure it sounds right before playing into the mic!
sparrow. i'm glad i didn't punch him because the memory wouldn't be funny anymore. it'd be just another scrap. i think mike needed beer and codiene real bad so he just went postal cuz i wire stripped his nerves. i still get on peoples nerves when customizing harps. especially when i'm getting the high notes to sound with feather breath. 70- iv'e heard that hate the harp/like you thing a lot. i hate it too when other cats transpose for me as if i'm some musical cripple.
I went to guitar center and asked if I could test with the "harmonica blow tester" thing some different harps. Now they are in the bubble packs, they just put them on the shelf. The guy said I couldn't open up and test them because people like to "open them up". I pointed out all the crappy guitar players sitting down testing all the guitars and he said "that's a sure sell, and besides, they need to make sure it's comfortable before they buy. Harmonica you just put in your mouth. So are you gonna get a harmonica or not?" So I said "fuck you" walked out and decided to order some customs and buy from rockin rons. Screw guitar center.
I hear about this way of the harp is viewed. I haven't come across it yet, and its been over 3 decades, over 4,000 gigs and countless street/parking garage performances. I have gotten a lot of compliments but never jokes or the toy aspect. Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
In Belgium, when you say "I play harmonica", people never say "Ah ! like Bob Dylan", they say "Ah ! Like Toots Thielemans". I always have to explain "No, I play blues, and I don't play chromatic harp like Toots does, blah blah..."
And if they know a little more about Toots than just his name, they usually ask "Can you play "Bluesette" ?"
Another difference is, your playing can easier make impression on people having Dylan as reference harpist, than on people having Toots...
Last Edited by on Mar 05, 2010 10:31 AM
walter. you must be the exception to the rule. i've played with-not opened for- grammy winners, rock-n-roll hall of famers,opry dudes, and a couple blues notables and i get it all the time. interesting
Well I've heard all of these dissings about the instrument for decades and like it or not, the BIGGEST cause of that dissing belongs squarely on the shoulders of harmonica players because far too many of them fall into just about every negative stereotype there is and too many of them are just too damned hard headed to see it.
I know everytime I say it, it makes many players cringe, but it is the truth.
More people are far more exposed to truly god awful harp playing FAR than really good ones and there are plenty of times every pro, including big name ones get stupid remarks just like Jason got, and I can tell you I've had those too.
As long as the average player doesn't want to step up their game and learn things like theory, time, groove, and all the other stuff that people who play other instruments are both expected and required to do, this is not going to go away and I place them blame squarely on the average player, not because of them being good or bad players, but because of the things they too often NEVER take even the most cursory amount of time to learn and allow themselves too often outside of 1-4-5 changes to look like a deer in the headlights. For far too many harp players, the overall quality of their musicianship is often flat out awful.
Think about it!!!! ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Last Edited by on Mar 05, 2010 11:02 AM
I've lost count of the times I got "the look" when I say I play harp at an open stage. Of course,I try my damnedest to prove them wrong. But I can't blame them. Like BBQ Bob said. They're playing in the wrong key and you'd swear they're not aware there's a band playing with them. Wish I could reprint a "Blues Review" article by Doug McCleod entitled "Harmonica Pud". It's a crash course in how others view us harpers.
When I started playing last year, I told my lead guitar player (who was not in the same band with me at the time) I was learning harmonica. He said "you play harp too?!?!?" in an extremely enthusiastic tone of voice. I replied "no, I am trying to learn again after 40 years of failure at it. I think I may be able to do it this time." A week later he invited me into his band without hearing a single note. He knew me as a musician and my approach to music. I had played with his band for a veteran's day BBQ the year before on congas for a couple of Santana covers. The rest he took on faith. This attitude from him is instrumental to my personal progress on the harp. It is the polar opposite of what most of you guys are relaying as the public viewpoint, but i'm glad he took me in on faith. clearly he had no preconceived anti-harp sentiment. Of course he knows i believe "If it works musically, we'll use it. If it doesn't, we'll pitch it." That goes for my stuff as well as everybody else's in the band.
MP: I too have had grammy winners in my band and they never joked me about the harp. They usually said - GO MAN GO! I never have seen the harp as a toy, or any instrument that can express ones feelings. Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
I guess I'm spoiled rotten. Maybe Austin, Texas is the Shangri La of harp respect, I don't know, but I think the culture here has a very positive experience of harmonica playing. There is a lot of reed music in the Texas tradition anyway, harp and accordian.
I go to a jam with a bunch of old timers much my senior in experience. We play a lot of classic rock kind of stuff, country and a little blues. My experience is a lot like what congaron is saying.
Since we play a lot of diverse material that is not blues, I guess I'm not obligated to be Little Walter. I am all about groove, and my nature is to lay back unless I've got something to say and sometimes I'm just doing organ swells or little background phrases,playing pure rhythm, they always look at me to take a solo whenever I want, and when I miss a jam or two, they always indicated they missed me, that it's nice to have another source of solos, they like what I bring, etc.
As for the general public of non musicians, I can forgive their honest ignorance, so many people think that playing music is so beyond them, that they are just completely naive about how instruments work and what is involved. I even know a few people who say that music does nothing for them, that just blows me away, but I certainly don't judge it! It takes all kinds to make the world go. ---------- http://www.youtube.com/1shanester
We have a handful of folks at my church who will tell you "I don't see why we have music. Or I don't like music. Or even I HATE MUSIC." They will say this right to the musicians from time to time and they don't stop coming to church, but for them the first 35 minutes is just a waste of time.
How many people thought you were talking about the stringed instrument when you told them you played the harp? (If I'm not mistaken that's John "Juke" Logan on that Roseanne track. He used to have a great blues radio show here in the L.A. area.)
i have a shirt that says "harp addict". i walked into an irish bar for a meal w/ my wife. the hostess said," you're in the right place." the waiter brings a beer. tells me it's on the house because of the shirt. 'i dont drink," i tell him. "why the shirt?" "cause i love to play harp." "oh." he takes the beer. it took till 1/2 way thru the meal before we realized "harp" was a beer.
hmmm. my intention was to see self depreciating humor, rapier wit, and snappy comebacks. sparrow and MJ are the funniest guys i've run across so far. humor,like harp playing, is good for you.
Wow, MP, I reread this thing and get that this was a request for humor. Funny the mischief on these forums huh? Maybe I was harmonically insecure, oh well.
You know I think I'm funny in real life but I'm probably not.
hey nate dogg n shane, this is my first time in a chat room. i guess i don't know the rules. i hardly know shit. the girl even had to explain what refresh your browser meant. but yeah, actually most of you guys are funny cats or you wouldn't have chosen to play harp.the 'insecure' part was bait cuz we all know some joker is just itchin' to come lumbering in all full of himself and give advice and speeches and go blah blah blah and the guys who get the joke get to throw stuff at the the stage.
MP- Just for the record, this isn't a chat room. It's a forum thread. Chat rooms are real time. As soon as someone hits the enter button you'd see their post in a chat room. In a thread you won't see it until you refresh your page. :) But that's just a technicality.
I see an interesting, great looking woman making her way up out of a crowd and can tell she is fixed on my playing, I feel a little less harmonically insecure, then she comes up and says "hey that is soooo cool you play harmonica"
Feeling elated and now totally harmonically secure I say "thanks, you play harmonica?"
She says "oh God no no, but my boyfriend is so into it, he'll wish he was here"
....back to harmonically insecure in an instant, but hey more blues fodder for the next song eh?
Sometimes it goes like this...
I used to teach outdoor camping and one of the other instructors would usually mention around the fire that I play harp and ask me to get it out. One time this student skeptically said, alright play old susanna! I played a few bluesy bars of old susanna and then into some deep blues thing (in the vein of Adam's front porch blues) since the mood caught me and after I was done he actualy apologized. Saying sorry I didn't know you could actually play that thing.
