shanester
189 posts
Apr 17, 2010
11:21 AM
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Alright, Hobostubs, a kindred spirit!
(That may be the REAL secret!)
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There is nowhere to go and nothing to find, only something to create.
http://www.youtube.com/1shanester
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hvyj
271 posts
Apr 17, 2010
1:22 PM
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The 4 things that I think really expanded my development as a harmonica player were:
1. figuring out and learning 5th position. This made it possible for me to handle all sorts of material I couldn't otherwise play on a diatonic,
2. figuring out and learning the common pentatonic breath patterns for 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th , 5th and 12th positions which made multiple position playing much easier to do.
3. Understanding the concept of chord extensions and the related concept of substitutions which made it possible for me to break out of playing SOS scale driven licks and really freed up my playing and made me more musical.
4. Not playing a harmonica like it's a harmonica--never have and never wanted to.
Last Edited by on Apr 17, 2010 1:27 PM
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asilve3
90 posts
Apr 17, 2010
1:43 PM
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Son of dave doesn't have anything on your checklist and he gets more attention than most harmonica players out there. Especially by non-harmonica players. Yet he has a real modern feel to his music. Whatchyou think aboot that???
Checklists are for nerds not blues guys. I only have one thing on my list and thats being awesome. Check!
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http://www.youtube.com/user/asilve3
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shanester
190 posts
Apr 17, 2010
2:04 PM
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asilve3, I dig what you're saying, for me the distinction is not in a list but more in playing and exposing oneself to music.
I love what I've heard from Son of Dave, although I don't think he sounds modern, I think he sounds primitive and gutbucket old school, which I love, but through looping and context, brings it to the modern listener.
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There is nowhere to go and nothing to find, only something to create.
http://www.youtube.com/1shanester
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shanester
191 posts
Apr 17, 2010
2:42 PM
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...and maybe that's mostly what modern music is, the old, recycled and reprocessed into contemporary sound, groove, instrumentation, context.
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There is nowhere to go and nothing to find, only something to create.
http://www.youtube.com/1shanester
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shanester
192 posts
Apr 17, 2010
2:47 PM
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I put Son of Dave in a similar realm with some of RL Burnsides stuff...
These looping pedals remind me of the sampling done in hip hop and electronic music, with a kind of anti tech backlash where you're sampling yourself.
I think you can always bank on the backlash after a tech boom, like the return to acoustic and analog recording in the nineties after the massively canned sounds of the eighties...
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There is nowhere to go and nothing to find, only something to create.
http://www.youtube.com/1shanester
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yogi
4 posts
Apr 17, 2010
3:56 PM
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Budha , everything i've heard you play i've heard
you play before. Wheres the innovation in that?
Not so much modern as living on your yesterdays.
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Buddha
1646 posts
Apr 17, 2010
4:14 PM
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oh Yogi...
have you ever heard anyone play like me? I have my own sound. THAT'S INNOVATION.
I play things nobody has played before. THAT'S INNOVATION.
My playing influences others. THAT'S INNOVATION.
Now post your innovative music or STFU
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"The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are." - Joseph Campbell
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Hobostubs Ashlock
641 posts
Apr 17, 2010
4:56 PM
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I was waiting to see what Buddha had to say on Yogi's remark.lolJust for the record Im not yogi but i just got a wiget:-))
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DevonTom
90 posts
Apr 17, 2010
5:39 PM
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krisalis, the most refreshing thing I've heard on this forum for a long time was your list. If you don't like harmonica music, why play harmonica? Or you can cover up that vile sound with a thousand digital effects and be happy. You now have the ability to conjur up the sound of a dying llama. Congratulations. Love and group hugs, DevonTom
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MichaelAndrewLo
309 posts
Apr 17, 2010
5:47 PM
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I concur DevonTom. I don't follow lists follwed by other people or necessarily what they say. I pick and choose and like to get different perspectives and opinions, which I appreciate the willingness to share. And it's bullshit that just because you ask for something you shouldn't get it or have it in the first place. Where is the logic in that?
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Hobostubs Ashlock
643 posts
Apr 17, 2010
6:55 PM
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well heres my list
1 im still trying to get better at the guitar after 18 years
2 trying to Learn to play blues harp
3learning how to play celtic irish fiddle tunes on harp
4learning how to play a bass that was gave to me about the same time i started the harp
5About the same time i bought a 8 track off my friend who just upgraded to 16 tracks trying to learn it
5 built and trying to learn to use a stomp box
6.just got a harp rack now have to start over with everything
7 trying to learn how to post wigets and build a music page
8trying to learn how not to go freakin crazy
9 all the time trying to sing with out going out of key,:-))its been a long year.
Last Edited by on Apr 17, 2010 8:26 PM
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krisalis
23 posts
Apr 18, 2010
2:25 AM
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hobostubs, i just love your attitude to music.
I believe that when I stop trying to learn new things, my brain will start shutting down for good.
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yogi
5 posts
Apr 18, 2010
2:46 AM
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budha baby
''have you ever heard anyone play like me? I have my own sound. THAT'S INNOVATION ''
Delorean made a car quite unlike anything anyone else had built... how many you see on the roads? but i guess it was innovative.
My view is only that doing something nobody else has done and the others choose not to do is, of itself, of very little value. But you are happy bro and thats good enough for me. x
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kudzurunner
1348 posts
Apr 18, 2010
1:14 PM
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@EV: "Everyone's copying someone else in terms of styles and phrasing - whether it's blues, jazz or prog rock." Well, you're right, in one sense: Little Walter was simply translating R&B sax riffs onto the harmonica. That's Richard Hunter's excellent point in his long article about LW. Then again, LW did things with the electronics--such as turning a small amp way up and then playing very lightly--that others hadn't tried.
The truth is, there is such a thing as originality, but it doesn't necessarily mean inventing much a new idiom, all by oneself, out of whole cloth. Originality, as I understand it, is more about combining and recombining things, adapting things, rephrasing things, in ways that strike listeners as distinctive. Every now and then, a Charlie Parker or John Coltrane or Sonny Terry comes along and invents a whole new language. (Sonny Terry's original language isn't the stuff most of us copy from him, but the lightning fast fills he does on slow blues--the stuff that almost nobody can copy.) But that's rare, and I see no reason why that sort of once-a-generation genius needs to be the only benchmark for originality.
And while we're at it: Sugar Blue. Who is he copying? My ears aren't good enough to hear that.
On "Girl Watcher," which can be previewed (free) and downloaded (for a buck) HERE......
http://www.amazon.com/Im-a-Girl-Watcher/dp/B0010VAUDU
...I'm doing something original. If you can point me towards another blues harmonica player, living or dead, who was playing in that particular style--swinging hard, with a balls-to-the-wall attack (rather than Buddha's somewhat lighter attack) and lots of space--in the early-to-mid 1990s, I'd love to hear it. That will mean that I'm part of a tradition. For the moment, though, I'll consider what I was doing back then to be sui generis, a one-off thing. But here's the thing: I was TRYING to copy what a sax player might do on that sort of cut, but I wasn't doing a great job. I'm gesturing towards sax-ish-ness. I can't be credited with borrowing from any particular player, although I listen to many sax guys and tried to get some of that flavor. But that's where originality sometimes lucks: in a bad translation that turns out to be....well, something new and worthy in its own right. What I'm doing on this track falls in between the cracks. The approach I've come up with couldn't be more removed from a Chicago and West Coast approach. But neither does it suffer for being what you assume it must be--something copied from someone else or some other idiom. It's not jazz, certainly; it's not blues--until partway into the solo, when I'm hammering the basic blues scale pretty hard. It's vaguely echoing R&B sax, but not in any way that you can really put your finger on. This particular solo--its length, multiple versionings, and intensity--probably owes more to Sonny Rollins, who was one of my heroes at the time--than to any other specific musician, but if I didn't acknowledge that connection, it wouldn't occur to anybody.
There's plenty of originality out there, if you know where to look.
Last Edited by on Apr 18, 2010 1:20 PM
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kudzurunner
1350 posts
Apr 19, 2010
4:37 AM
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@EV: You may just have a point. I sampled the wares on that page--"You Gotta Reap" by The Mighty Reapers--and was so impressed that I ordered the CD from one of Amazon's used dealers.
I wasn't familiar with The Mighty Reapers and their harp player, Robert Susz. I wonder how many non-Aussies here on the forum have ever heard of him. But I like what I heard on those previews, a lot, and look forward to receiving that CD. Thanks.
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Ev630
278 posts
Apr 19, 2010
5:27 AM
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Continental Robert is great. I have mentioned him off and on at places like Harp-L for years. They had a pop hit in the 80's with "Soul Kind of Feeling" as The Dynamic Hepnotics. I interviewed him for a blues society mag years ago and we discussed all sorts of stuff. His key influence is Junior Wells - I think that's easily evident from his phrasing - but he has even more of a horn player sensibility. He also throws in some Big Walter stuff. I've been listening to him live (and on TV shows etc) since the mid 80s. He's a fixture of the Sydney blues scene.
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Ev630
279 posts
Apr 19, 2010
5:28 AM
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Oh yeah - dude can sing.
BTW - I don't want you to think I'm knocking anyone or attempts to innovate. I understand that folks try and push the limits and think outside of the box. People talk about innovation, including grabbing R&B sax or jazz phrases or whatever, but they don't acknowledge EVERYONE who has done that. They think they're pioneering, but they haven't listened widely enough to know they aren't. I'll give you an example, if I say Kim Wilson, some guys (here) will say "Little Walter clone". Of course, you and I know that they would be dead wrong and demonstrating their ignorance. But how many people have listened beyond superficially to what Wilson has done in moving a jazz horn sensibility across to 3rd position harp playing? I don't think that's been acknowledged enough. We all know that George Smith pioneered that idea, but Wilson has extended the phrasing way beyond what Smith did, and without using OBs etc, and makes a lot of players look like also rans. Listen to his playing on "Got To Let You Go" on the Smokin' Joint CD, to see what I'm talking about.
Last Edited by on Apr 19, 2010 5:37 AM
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saregapadanisa
178 posts
Apr 19, 2010
6:11 AM
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Kudzu, I share your views on Sugar Blue.
But as far as originality and innovation goes, you should mention an other guy, a certain Adam Gussow.
I was not at first a fan of one man bands (Waltertore being an exeption, I love him) but, from what I've seen on Youtube, I feel that your reinvention as a one man band has liberated something.
I know it was there before, but it just make it obvious : you're definitly a unique voice in the harmonica game, certainly on par with Sugar Blue.
I'd like to apply your own question to yourself : Who are you copying ?
As you said, "My ears aren't good enough to hear that."
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waltertore
425 posts
Apr 19, 2010
11:21 AM
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thanks for the compliment saregapadanisa! I am not much of a 1 man band fan either. Most just make alot of noise to my ears-loud, distorted, fast.... Walter
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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.
" No one can control anyone, but anyone can let someone control them"
2,000 of my songs
continuous streaming - 200 most current songs
my videos
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groyster1
23 posts
Apr 19, 2010
11:53 AM
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I would like to hear what all the whole masters of blues harp would have to say about all this talk especially little walter as Im quite sure his response would be something quite pithy
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waltertore
426 posts
Apr 19, 2010
12:23 PM
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groyster1: I played, lived with, and toured, with lots of the old guys. They had no jargon like today. They really never talked about how to play anything. At best they would call the key, stomp their foot and you had to get it right. They also might say - play it funky, shuffle, swing. I venture to say many of them would say this about what you need to be a good player - "get good enough to give me a run for my money"
I was raised in this form of learning. I can't relate to all this stuff today. No knock on it, but I am of a different generation. The pre net/info age - learn by physically imersing yourself in the scene - no such thing as imersing in the net. The net is just a facade. To really learn the depth, real stuff, you got to get physcially with a great. That is how it has been done historically. Today I hear lots of real technically correct players, but they lack that main card-handed down from the elders to the youngsters. :-) Walter
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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.
" No one can control anyone, but anyone can let someone control them"
2,000 of my songs
continuous streaming - 200 most current songs
my videos
Last Edited by on Apr 19, 2010 12:27 PM
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Ryan
266 posts
Apr 19, 2010
5:06 PM
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"Delorean made a car quite unlike anything anyone else had built... how many you see on the roads?"
That's because they're all traveling in time.
I think the flux capacitor is one of the finest examples of innovative thinking.
Last Edited by on Apr 19, 2010 9:15 PM
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MichaelAndrewLo
317 posts
Apr 19, 2010
7:24 PM
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@ waltertore, I think knowledge can only be helpful, if it's used correctly and helps one to form their own opinion. Since I have been going to jams for the past year and met guys like Bobby cole and Curtis Salgado I have realized you DO have to be simply immersed in the environment to pick up the tricks of the trade (things like stage presence and simply going for it without overthinking). Nobody develops in a bubble and the internet can tend to create bubbles.
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toddlgreene
1253 posts
Apr 20, 2010
4:54 AM
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@Ryan-There's a DeLorean that can be seen around New Orleans, and I was about to challenge your statement until I relaized that he had travelled back in time to get here.
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Todd L Greene. V.P.
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waltertore
432 posts
Apr 20, 2010
9:08 AM
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MichaelAndrewLo: You are right. You can't learn those things on a screen. Also the root of the person. Their presence. This is what I am talking about. I can't put into words what it was like to be playing onstage with guys like lightning hopkins. Their energy. That is what you need to learn more than the technical end of the instrument. That is the easiest part of the journey and if one is persistent, it comes. Touching into, experiencing the greats energy live, that is the real music to be learned and it can only be passed from a master to someone who really wants it in a live situation. It comes with strings though, like you have to devote your life to the music. That means you move, structure your life, etc, around being a musician. That is what seperates guys like lightning from the 200+ youtube videos people post of them doing his songs. They both are basically playing the same thing, but one old black man sure shines over all of them......... Walter
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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.
" No one can control anyone, but anyone can let someone control them"
2,000 of my songs
continuous streaming - 200 most current songs
my videos
Last Edited by on Apr 20, 2010 9:15 AM
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barbequebob
730 posts
Apr 20, 2010
10:22 AM
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Learning from being around in the environment is also largely where I learned stuff as well. You can theorize everything to death but hands on experience is always the best as well as the cruelest teacher of them all.
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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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groyster1
24 posts
Apr 20, 2010
2:57 PM
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hello waltertore I have never heard you play but I bet you can prove to all in this forum that action speaks louder than words
god bless all the pioneers of the blues
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hvyj
288 posts
Apr 20, 2010
3:07 PM
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There's nothing like playing live, in public, with other musicians to accelerate the learning process. You learn more in 20 minutes on stage than you will learn in a month of playing in your living room.
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waltertore
433 posts
Apr 20, 2010
3:45 PM
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groyster1: I figure I have done well over 4,000 gigs around the world. Probably a few hundred were with older bluesmen. That was the best schooling I had. Being a recreational player (local open mics/jams/ocassional gigs locally) is a cool thing too. I think it is great people have an outlet to have fun playing. What puts a bug up my butt is when some of these guys try to come as bluesmen. They buy top gear, learn some licks, and call themselves authorities on the net. Walter
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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.
" No one can control anyone, but anyone can let someone control them"
2,000 of my songs
continuous streaming - 200 most current songs
my videos
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groyster1
25 posts
Apr 21, 2010
11:22 AM
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waltertore I definitely respect your opinion and I believe in old school its good the british respected all the great bluesmen back in the 60s and more or less told the americans they dont know what they are missing no matter how much I might improve I vow to always be humbled by these greats because that was another era however superior
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Diggsblues
280 posts
Apr 21, 2010
1:36 PM
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The last time I copied anyone was Slim Harpo for
Baby Scratch My Back. I don't try to copy people just
listen a lot and create a library of nuts and bolts in my brain to draw on in an organic way.
I think I do a lot of that when I compose and arrange.
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barbequebob
738 posts
Apr 22, 2010
7:18 AM
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Knowing both traditional as well as anything non traditional is important because you will increase your playing options on what you can do. The easy way out is to learn only what you like, but from experience, over the years I've found that you actually learn more from the stuff you DON'T like because often that stuff creeps in way more than you think and just doing what you like and screw everything else hurts you more than anything else as a musician.
Technical excellenace, as a musician, is not enough, because learning grooves, genres, their subgenres, and how they work is often more important than being a chops showoff because there are tons of technically great players that are musically boring and never fit in properly within context and that's not good musicianship at all and guys like that are a dime a dozen.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Last Edited by on Apr 22, 2010 10:11 AM
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congaron
839 posts
Apr 22, 2010
7:54 AM
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Last night, I jammed with a blues band with a trumpet player/singer as the front man. Later on, this other trumpet player showed up and blew everybody away...for a few minutes. Then it became painfully obvious he had only one dynamic...too loud for the room. The first guy was the more musical, hands down. The 2nd guy had the chops, but was stuck in full bore volume mode. The song he walked in on lent itself to that perfectly. Not so much the ones that followed. Then he and the 2nd keyboard player turned the blues jam into a jazz jam and it got very weird. The first trumpet player sat down and let him have it until Mark and I left. Our wives were not digging it at all with the excessive volume...and the weird minor key jazz they were doing. It sounded like sitting on one keyboard and playing the second keyboard with your elbows....with a super loud trumpet and a drummer.
The first guy really helped me with my skill set because he was so musical. I learned a ton playing next to him and with his band. The second guy drove me off the stage with an earache.
Last Edited by on Apr 22, 2010 8:18 AM
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barbequebob
742 posts
Apr 22, 2010
9:39 AM
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You got my sympathies, man. With the way jazz is now played, groove has a tendency to be more implied that actually being played, and danceability, which is very important with groove, often gets lost.
Just because you got lots of chops, doesn't necessairly mean you're all that good. If you can only play one dynamic level, you're a one trick pony that few people want to deal with and it quickly can sound very unmusical.
I've seen players with lesser chops on a technical level come across better because they are working WITH the groove and the dynamics and everything else around them and thus they are playing more like a REAL musician and that other guy was too often a run of the mill typical jam hack a pro wouldn't ever let on his bandstand.
If I had to deal with that, believe me, I wouldn't hesitate to tear that idiot an extra a** h**e in a NY minute. God, if he ever did that with some of the old school bandleaders I've ever worked with, what I'd be doing would be extremely nice by comparison.
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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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congaron
841 posts
Apr 22, 2010
9:46 AM
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It's a shame, because the number he walked up on was great. He just never came back down and what a disappointment. He's so old, nobody said a wordof anything but praise to him. Being from out of town, we graciously said our goodbyes and left. Mark and I are firm believers in leaving a crowd wanting more, versus staying until they tire of you. They really did welcome us in from far away and it was awesome for awhile.
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