just wanted to get your input on something. I want to go out and try being a street musician on weekends this summer. My challenge is to do something interesting with only my vocals, my harp, and my foot tapping (kind of like a beginner version of Gussow's one man band project). My objective is to put myself so much out of my confort zone that I have no choice but to learn fast and come up with interesting new licks. But I won't go out there until what I can do makes at least some musical sense (I mean to people who are familiar with this type of music and not just to someone who's impressed I can make a sound from blowing AND drawing on my harmonica). I've included a embeded video of a song I've tried. Please tell me what you think I could improve, whether the licks are too much the same and wether you would pay attention to someone if they were playing this on your street corner. Thanks
You'd keep my attention bro. I enjoyed your voice and your harp playing is solid! Only improvement I'd suggest is a wooden stomp box if you could sort out how to do that ergonomically. I personally like this better than all the noise of doing it with a drum/cymbal and amp, but that's just me! Good job!
"Please tell me what you think I could improve, whether the licks are too much the same and wether you would pay attention to someone if they were playing this on your street corner. Thanks"
If you were playing this on MY street corner, I'd tell you to eff off and find your own street corner...too much like competition ! ;-)
Don't worry about licks being samey, when you're on your own, your priority is keeping good time, reinforcing the groove & keeping a solid identity/theme to the number (...just as long as you don't play the same licks through every number).
Am i ready,your joking right,being sarcastic,or do you feel like your, not sure if you can play,yea your ready to go to HELL Cause you sold your soul to the devil:-)Real Nice playing but you have to know that,if you dont you might not be ready.But how could you not know:-)Great vocals and harp. How long you been playing,please say over a year or im thowing my harps in the trash:-)
Great job! I'll be in Quebec in august (mainly Quebec city, but I'll move around, and have to go to Montreal), at the time you'll go busking. If you have any idea of where you'll be sitting, let me know, I'll be glad to spare my change.
sorry, I will have been playing for a year around this fall. But in my defense I am a graduate student with no job and a lot of time on my hands so I get to stay home a lot and practice harp while looking after my son :-)
PS: please dont throw your harps away. Send them my way so I can keep practicing on them ;-) ---------- Heart2Harp
Love your use of the wah, especially on those little rundowns. That 'HUH!' before the instrumental break aswell, very cool! Can tell you've worked hard on your singing, getting those intricate blues melodies down nicely, something I'm still in the process of doing. Tone aswell, brilliant, musicality, brilliant.
well no, maybe around 9 months. 90% of what I know is thanks to Adam Gussow's youtube videos and listening to a lot (too mush in my wife's opinion) blues harp tracks on my ipod.
he can give mica and milo a run for there money:-)I was like where was he during HpC3 then it accurred to me he hadn't even started playing at that time:-)
Last Edited by on Apr 28, 2010 10:33 AM
yea there the other 2 great players that got good within a year. there on here mica and MichaelAndrewLo in my opion there more tecnical,but they dont sing that i know of, you have a great voice,you played and sang phrasing it well,your Raw,but in a good way and tight , you made me more jealous than the other 2
Last Edited by on Apr 28, 2010 10:51 AM
Great! I'd drop a dollar in the bucket to hear that! Like somebody else said, you might want to add a stomp box--that great solid footstomp you have going in this video will be totally lost on a sidewalk. . .
99% of the people will only hear your voice and the words... they harmonica will sound good to them no matter what you play, they won't notice if you use the same licks and will only care if you stay on time.
Your voice is really nice, a great use of rapid vibrato gives a good character. Solid harp too. like others said, go get em...
Top notch effort this, and only nine months down the line! bloody hell you got a natural talent going on here and a really lovely soulfull voice well done
Another example of todays abundance of learning materials. You can learn much of what used to take 10 years in 10 months. I know I've learned as much in the last 6 months from YouTube than I learned in my 1st 15-20 years of playing.
You got a real nice voice....a lot of that is just God's gift...my voice will never be as good as yours no matter how much I would practice!
Whew !!!! Go Get Em !!! ---------- Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art. - Charlie Parker
Actually you have a serious problem with your 2 hole bend and...nah just kidding!! You sound absolutely great. Couldn't agree more with the other posters ;)
Nice work! Besides the obvious quality job of the harp and singing, I think it is the maintenance of the GROOVE that make this a great effort.
I personally think it would sound great if you dropped the harp for a verse and just sing a cappella with your foot tapping. Make cool soulful faces like you are the Crawlin' King Snake himself.
Let us know how the street thing works out, I'd like to try some busking myself. There are a few good websites on busking and even some good books and other resources, check them out. I'm a big Keith Dunn fan myself, met him at a festival some years back (I think he still owes me a D harp actually), not a lot of guys can do what he does. I believe he is still living in Holland but does get to the US. Worth a listen.
