Perhaps Im misunderstanding but Id say you need the technique to get the tone so Id have to go with technique. You may not think so but when you were working on better tone you were experimenting with different technique to acheive that tone.
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~Ryan
"I play the harmonica. The only way I can play is if I get my car going really fast, and stick it out the window." - Stephen Wright
Pennsylvania - H.A.R.P. (Harmonica Association 'Round Philly)
Good topic,7. Just the opposite for me. I learned all kinds of riffs, techniques, and 'feels' from the beginning. I did notice the difference in tone, but it wasn't foremost to me. Nowadays,and primarily due to this forum and having a few players of note in our local club who have KILLER tone, I do try consciously to work and improve my own tone.
What should one do first? I don't think tone isn't important, but when you first start out, playing music seems first and foremost-you can work on tone later. ----------
Todd L. Greene, Professor of Meaningless Trivia
Last Edited by on Jan 13, 2011 7:58 AM
First of all, good tone and good musical technique are not mutually inconsistent concepts--it's not like it's either/or. One's tone is the foundation of one's musical and artistic expression, and, as a practical matter, it's more efficient to learn to play with with good tone from the beginning. Otherwise you will spend a whole lot more time and effort having to unlearn and correct bad habits.
Also, have you ever sat and listened to a harp player who knew how to play a particular tune, but who had lousy tone? not a very pleasant experience. A player with great tone but who may have less technical command of his note selection is more fun to listen to, IMHO--and arguably more musical.
OK, possibly showing myself up for the amateur that I am but. . .
From what I understand of getting good, rich tone it's about relaxing around the harmonica, breathing from the diaphragm, controlling your breath, relaxing/opening your mouth and throat, and genrally minimising tension as you play. All of the above, seem, from my experience, to make achieving many techniques easier.
Therefore I would say if you could get somebody to aim for good tone first, they would then be in a better position to improve technique.
While I understand the motivation behind asking the question, and I think it's a valuable motivation, I think that ultimately it's misleading. Tone is a goal. Technique is a means to achieve that and other goals (like overall musicality, speed, beauty, etc.). They're both important and are not directly one-to-one comparable.
Ultimately, if you don't have good tone, not much else matters. But you can't have good tone without good technique. Also, there are all kinds of "good tone" and it's ultimately a totally subjective proposition. I think Levy, Toots, del Junco, Gussow, Stevie Wonder, and (to me) even John Popper all have good, individualized tone. They all had to have good technique to get it.
Last Edited by on Jan 13, 2011 8:08 AM
@RyanMortos: There's the playing technique you need to get good tone. Then there's musical technique which involves knowing what to play and having sufficient facility/dexterity to actually play it. i'll call the latter "execution" just for purposes of this discussion.
I think 7Limit is comparing the ability to generate good tone with the ability to execute. while there may be a lot of attention being paid to execution and less to good tone generation there is really a gross lack of attention being paid to basic musical knowledge.
For example if a band leader turned to the harp player and said "play a 9th over this" how many harp players would know what he was talking about and how to do it? I suspect most would be ABLE to it, but wouldn't KNOW what they were being asked to do.
+1 on what HYVJ says. I took 7Limit's Q to mean more like "tone vs note choice/grasp of musical theory"...for me, no matter how noble the concept, music can't be any better than what it actually sounds like, being able to hit notes is one thing, but being able to make them sound great in their own right is what makes music great. Sometimes I'll hear someone play an instrument & if it sounds good, I'm just crying out to hear the next note, no matter how simple, or how few. Of, course it doesn't hurt to have mastery of both criteria, but very few players really seem to manage that. I can't listen to tinny tone, or a strangled cat no matter how clever the concept.
You need both. The music is the most important thing, so perhaps technique is more important than tone, since professional players of any instrument have different tone from each other.
---------- Andrew, gentleman of leisure, noodler extraordinaire.
Besides note choice there's the ABILITY to hit the note. A player may know that the right note is a 3 draw whole step bend, but may not have the ability to hit that bend on pitch, even if that player has good tone.
Or a player may want to play a mixolydian scale in 16th notes on the high register and has good tone but does not have the technical ability to execute playing that scale at that tempo.
or a player might not know what the hell a mixolydian scale is. And may not care.
Last Edited by on Jan 13, 2011 8:29 AM
You can't have good tone without good technique. If you are talking technical ability or tone, I take tone. ---------- Mike Quicksilver Custom Harmonicas Updated 1/11/11
search forum for Buddha's list of the most improtant things. I sure, that the most important thing is groove and timing. The second important thing is tone. If you play one note with perfect timing and tone you will not make music worse. Check didgeridoo and jew's harp players. Technique is important and it can help to express yourself, but not the main thing. ---------- Excuse my bad English. Click on my photo or my username for my music.
To me tone development is part of technique. There are exercises to develop tone. There exercises to play fast etc.. ---------- Emile "Diggs" D'Amico a Legend In His Own Mind How you doin'
WIth my approach to music it all comes together on its own via spending countless hours letting my soul explore the universe. I always feel the end product in my heart - the ability to play my dreams. I never took a lesson or read an instructional book and now realize that the universe guided me this way. Discovery through blind joy led me to learning from the masters of what I sought. they gave no lessons per say. They shared their soul as they had learned from the ones they learned from like Robert Johnson and that era of guys. Guys like Lightning Hopkins, Sonny Terry, Louisiana Red, Champion Jack Dupree, Lowell Fulsom, Albert Collins, and others of that vien, all appeared on my journey. You will attract exactly what you need if you believe. 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. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
Whenever I listen to a harp player,the first thing I listen for is tone. They can have all the technique in the world,but if they don't do it with good tone,it's worthless. That's not to say technique isn't important,but yes, I think some players concentrate their efforts on technique too much. The bottom line is creating something good musically. You can do it with limited technique,but you MUST have good tone.
I think your tone will improve while you work on your technque. The better you get the easier it gets and you relax. Thats the key. Relax and try to keep your lugs as open as possible while learning new things. That way you do both at the same time. They are both important!
I should have put technique/technical ability to prevent misunderstanding. To me, Tone is the sound you produce,technique takes in everything else that you do with it.
scojo says "They're both important and are not directly one-to-one comparable."
I think they are. You can be a very accomplished player and still have poor tone.
But can be a relative novice and have great tone. I think Heart2Harp is a great example of this.
I could name very experienced players,who's tone I'm not so fond of,but won't as tone is very subjective.
Harp is not like piano or guitar where basically you play a note and the instrument makes the sound.
We are part of the harp. Your mouth,throat,diaphragm,lungs and tongue all shape and amplify the tone.
Hitting a bend spot on could be called tone, but I think even that comes under the technique umbrella.
Tone is the ability to make a note,any note sound sweet,shaping it into something thats pleasing to the ear. To me this is should be number one on any players list.
This question came about from trying to learn overblows
I was having a conversation with 5F6H about using them in my playing. He said " Have you recorded yourself playing them and listened to it?"
I hadn't. So I did and I do not like the tone I produced, even though technically, I'm hitting the note.My electronic tuner shows me I can. I would have a LOT of wood shedding to do before I'd be happy with my o/b tone.
Please, this thread is not about knocking overblows, it is about all harp playing. They just brought the question to my mind.
The thing about great tone is. You don't have to play alot for it to sound great. People that play fast tend to loose that fat tone while playing fast! Its good to learn how to play both ways. A great example of that (as I see it) is anything rod piazza copies from little walter. That is quintesential blues to me! I also like Sugar Blue. They both have good tone though! I can't think of anyone that is good that doesn't have good tone. OH I know Junior Wells! I don't think he had good tone, but played some good stuff. Junior is one of those guys that kind of proves you don't have to have great tone to very successful. I personally like a deeper tone than that myself, but I do like alot of junior wells music.
...yeah, watch Rods interview with his lovely wife honey. Pay special attention @ 3:30. Paul Butterfield is a good example of squeezing the most from one note. These are what I consider to be important. Technique, Tone, Timing, and the wow factor. The 'wow factor' doesn't seem to be as important for some players I notice. And it consists of all of the above but with a flair of originality.
Last Edited by on Jan 13, 2011 7:19 PM
Chromaticblues, I totally disagree with you about Junior, his tone is incredible! DO you have Hoodoo Man Blues or It's My Life Baby?
Boris, timing is tone. Tone is how you sound. If you have good time, you sound good, if you have bad time, you sound bad.
For the same reason, technique is tone.
Now if the question is which is better, flashy technique or simple playing with beautiful tone, give me the beautiful tone. Michael Rubin Michaelrubinharmonica.com
I know: he's a guitar player. He has incredible, wild, ugly, nasty tone. Definitely not "beautiful," but incredibly bluesy. Not terribly fast, but NOBODY is thinking, "Gee, he just doesn't have much technique....Al DiMeola and Alvin Lee would leave him in the dust." In some ways, he has incredible technique, because it's entirely in the service of his tone and explosive, angular attack. In fact, he is the definition of "flashy technique," which suggests that Michael R. wouldn't like him. But I suspect that Michael likes him.
Collins's technique is the opposite of "machine gun" technique: regularized 1/16 notes or 1/32 notes. Collins is the definition of "irregular." He's all over the place, and explosively so. Then again, he knows exactly what he's doing relative to the beat, and every "mistake" works.
That's why I think of him as the limiting case. He limits the intelligibility of the tone/technique distinction. He makes you realize that--at least when blues is at issue--it's a problematic, inadequate distinction.
Last Edited by on Jan 13, 2011 8:26 PM
It sounds like someone needs to pull out and listen to some of Junior Wells' classic recordings. That man had killer tone and very nice technique that is very difficult to duplicate. I hear a lot of guys that can play in the style of Little Walter and nail it, but very few can duplicate Junior's playing style.
Additionally, the tone from a guitar comes from a player's hands.
I opened for Albert about 20 times over the years. I also sat in with his band most of those times. I got to know him well. He was a kind man that gave as much as any bluesman I have met. He knew he had his own thing that nobody could touch and flaunted it wildly, not out of ego, but out of joy. I saw the rock and blues greats onstage with him and none could touch him. Why? Because he had his own sound. Many claim to have their own sound but Albert was one of the few that did. He could cut anybody. I saw him destroy SRV many a night in Austin. Stevie would be the first to admitt it too because when you got onstage with Albert Collins, you got onstage with his sound. 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. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
Walter - I think the only guy who could come close to cutting Albert Collins was Gatemouth Brown. That cat. Could play anything! ---------- The Blues Photo Gallery
Joe: Yes Gatemouth was great. Those guys sound died with them. This is why today I find most well known players generic sounding. They tend to be conglomorates of the greats. Yes todays well known players are technically incredible but that doesn't hold my interest because they lack their own style. By style I use Albert as a great example of one having their own style. That is style you just don't hear in todays players. By style I don't mean just the music. I mean their whole presence. 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. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
Michael I mean timing is putting notes in the right place in the beat (in general it's close to groove and rhythm, not completely the same). Tone is actually overtone set in played note. Don't forget about articulation, it's another side of playing. I know some players with great tone and weak timing, groove, rhythm and articulation, they are unlistenable. While strong tone in means on fat overtones + nice timing even without good articalation, wrong note choices, articulation can be ok (not perfect), check Mick Jagger and Steven Tyler playing, they play in groove and harmonica makes music better, no matter they play the same riffs every song with weak articulation. On the other side Bob Dylan, his tone is far from perfect and most of his playing is unlistenable for me (songs per se are cool). BTW it's possible to be good player with weak timing, just play some kind of add libitum music, like some old Russian music, bunch of soul, but no beat and groove. ---------- Excuse my bad English. Click on my photo or my username for my music.
I think that the question being phrased as an "either/or" is a false duality. It excludes other elements and forces a choice as though you had to pick one.
I was tempted to just answer with, "yes."
I think it would be better to consider timing, technique, and tone as three of a number of elements that comprise musicality.
I think that the music we play has to support the song and be consistent with the genre, style, and message of the song. If the lyric is about loss and sadness, it does not serve the song to have a solo with brilliantly executed rapid fire notes played with good tone, unless the backing music and solo develop in a way that transports the listener from the lyric to the place where those rapid notes are heard as expressing the sadness of the song.
Ideally, IMHO, music should convey the musician's personal interpretation and expression of the feelings in the song. Some musicians (Albert Collins?) have a recognizable idiosyncratic way of expressing themselves musically. I don't think his tone is good or nasty, I think it is Albert Collins' tone and part of his means of expression.
I have heard skilled musicians solo accurately in the style of known greats, and I have enjoyed the performances, but they still sound like well executed copies, and not the real thing.
What I really like is when musicians solo like themselves. Then I hear something real...
And then some people just want a well performed familiar song they can dance to... ----------
Kudzurunner... thanks for spicin up the thread with some wow factor!I was dancing, and blasted my friendly neighbors for two rounds.(I got a great stereo).. Yup, it was so moving, I played it twice. I can see alot of SRV in his style, eh? That's the kind of blues that gets your soul rejoicing. You can pay tribute to the master anytime. No teeth an all!! Too bad I was just a lad, then.
It wouldn't surprise me if at least half the musicians you ask don't really know what you mean by technique.
Which makes the question "technique or tone" a bit of a silly one.
Some of you are responding "the groove is the most important thing". Well you won't have a groove if you don't have technique.
I suspect some people think technique is another name for "flashy stuff". It isn't. Technique is the method you use to play one note followed by another with minimum disruption to the notes, maximum musicality. It's having enough lubrication so you can glide over a plate. It's knowing the notes by muscle memory and not having to think about where they are. It's preparing for that killing tonic note you are about to play by thinking of it in good time, altering your embouchure in advance as necessary so you hit it spot on. It's best for Adam to add more about technique before I make an error.
If I think about card-play technique in bridge, it's all those things that replace thinking by instinct where thinking can be replaced by instinct. Then the thinking can be saved for more important things. It improves your game. Importantly, it speeds up your game. With speed comes flow, not showing off. With flow comes groove. Lack of technique hinders expression. ---------- Andrew, gentleman of leisure, noodler extraordinaire.
Last Edited by on Jan 14, 2011 2:19 AM
Michael Rubin wrote: "Boris, timing is tone. Tone is how you sound. If you have good time, you sound good, if you have bad time, you sound bad. For the same reason, technique is tone."
I disagree, tone is the sound of the note, depth, complexity, timbre, harmonic content, perhaps shape/envelope & how the note is addressed...e.g. what the note actually sounds like, more than where it is with regards to time, or what it is with regards to pitch. Obviously any note that stands out in a bad way is the "wrong" note, but often, when improvising, guys might hit a note other than what they might be aiming for & whilst not the intended note, it's not necessarily the "wrong" note.
A player can have good tone, but poor time (many, many players have a distinct "time" that they either fell into when they started playing, or naturally hear in their head & find it difficult to deviate from when traversing different musical styles, I know otherwise great players that might just struggle to play a convincing march, or sit behind the beat), just like in the example above, a player might have a few sloppy moments with regards to technique (note choice & execution of a particular note) but still sound good & have good tone.
My experience is that many players hear someone proficient, who can string together a competant solo/passage, but find it difficult to differentiate fluency (for want of a better word) from tone. I'm sure many of us have specific recordings from the same artist, that we prefer the sound of, despite in all other respects technique & fluency being very similar. I certainly have recordings of the same artist that vary from sublime to, on occasion, woeful (no names, no pack drill). Likewise, I've witnessed live performances from guys that have inspired me in the past, only to find the sound they produce at last occasion was far from consistent.
@hvyj: "scojo says 'They're both important and are not directly one-to-one comparable.' I think they are. You can be a very accomplished player and still have poor tone."
I think you misunderstood my rhetoric there, and I don't think we really disagree about the larger point. What I was saying was that, as originally posed, it's a false dichotomy. You have to have great tone, to my mind, to be a great player... but you have to have technique to achieve that great tone. "Tone" is not this phantasmical thing that one has, divorced of actual technical ability. This should be obvious.
But yes, you are correct that one can be "accomplished" and still have poor tone... but to my subjective ear, that's not what I call "great". I can appreciate the techniques for what they are, but if it's not pleasing to my ear, then I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time listening. I'll have an intellectual appreciation of the flash, and I might listen long enough to try to learn and then incorporate the technique, but that's it.
If the question is, what's more important: to have a ton of technique but no tone, or to have excellent tone but minimal technique beyond that... well, that's probably a more interesting question.
It's also a limiting one without more context, but if forced to choose, I'll take the guy/gal with the dazzling tone and relatively simple technique. Fortunately, with so many great players out there, I'm not forced to choose, and those are the players I choose to emulate (or, more accurately, I strive to reach those standards of excellence while still playing like "me").
@Michael Rubin; You really think good tone is about timing? Never related it that way. Can one be on-time with the music but still lack tone? I like my timing - but suffer with my tone. Really 'good' players seem to generate that tone from the very first note out. ---------- ~Banned in Boston!
You cant get tone without technique, technique has no use when it doesn't sound right.
Im just starting out and I've made the decision to so AND instead of OR. In my opinion a lot of people tend to project there current position onto what is the discussion at hand. The only thing I know is that whatever I do, work, life, love, blues, don't let nothing make your world smaller learn something and then decide wether its working for you, focus on both.
Especially when playing acoustic and amplified, I find, different techniques produce different tone effects in both environment.
You know, I've never understood why some well known players say things like this--that playing a lot of notes at fast tempo is categorically never as good as fewer notes played with good tone. Good tone is ALWAYS important, but I mean how fast one plays and how many notes one plays depends on the music. Sometimes playing only a few notes or playing at slow tempo sounds lame in the context of the tune being played.
Of course if you are playing the RIGHT notes in relation to the material it doesn't matter how many or how few notes you are playing if they FIT the material. And many harp players certainly do tend to overplay. And very often, less is more. But, you know, i don't think I've ever heard a harp player who is capable of playing with good tone and articulation at sax speed pontificate about how fewer notes are always better. Sometimes it's hard to separate well considered opinions from rationalizations.
More important to whom? You, or somebody else? There's alotta elements to music, and tone and technique are only two. There seem to be some really good players on here, judging by the videos, etc. Is playing music art, or is it competition? What is important is what supports your particular aims... from a musical standpoint.
I think it's wonderful that there's a very high standard of musical ability applied here, but I wonder where the joy and freedom of creativity are.
Much of traditional blues is derived from field music, and early hollers and shouts that helped people survive.
I think we need to help maintain an environment where people can play harp without worrying about whether some other guys can blow their doors off. Let's keep the soul in it.
On the other hand, I think it's great that that a bunch of people are trying to push the level of musicianship up on an instrument where slacking has been commonplace. Just be careful. It's the blues.
More important to whom? You, or somebody else? There's alotta elements to music, and tone and technique are only two. There seem to be some really good players on here, judging by the videos, etc. Is playing music art, or is it competition? What is important is what supports your particular aims... from a musical standpoint.
I think it's wonderful that there's a very high standard of musical ability applied here, but I wonder where the joy and freedom of creativity are.
Much of traditional blues is derived from field music, and early hollers and shouts that helped people survive.
I think we need to help maintain an environment where people can play harp without worrying about whether some other guys can blow their doors off. Let's keep the soul in it.
On the other hand, I think it's great that that a bunch of people are trying to push the level of musicianship up on an instrument where slacking has been commonplace. Just be careful. It's the blues.
I've played a lot of gigs over the years and I have never had someone ask me to play a ninth over this change or other...that's a good one. But I digress. To me tone and technique are like straights and flushes where musicality trumps all. Jimmy Reed vs Howlin Wolf. Hazmat Modine vs Jason Ricci. (Neil Young vs Springsteen?) I guess that's pushing it but who wouldn't prefer to listen to Little Walter, Kim Wilson or Stevie Wonder? All harmonicists are not created equal. To me the song is paramount. Honest I do vs How Many More Times? It's a conundrum. And God bless Gary Primich. Jim
@hvyj. I get where you're coming from, and I agree with much of your post. Maybe it's just down to my individual interpretation of what Gary was saying. He said he liked interesting ideas- to me that means originality, but that he didn't like players "force-feeding" a lot of notes. I think that was the crux, that he would rather listen to someone who could "take their time". His comparison was one note with feeling was worth 1000 with ~NO~ tone. It's what you try and say with the music that's important. Just my take I guess. "To me tone and technique are like straights and flushes where musicality trumps all." Amen to that!
Joe L, I remember watching this video for the first time and thinking that it all makes sense to me now. I totally agree with what Primich said, and it really isn't open to interpretation
