in the lee sankey video posted in germany the liner notes said he was playing first position-I was so impressed with his performance I did not notice-jimmy reed played a lot of first position but his playing pretty much stuck with the melody-who out there plays blues in first position?
Last Edited by on Jan 23, 2011 11:48 AM
I saw in the notes that willie was playing a G harp-that is the key that makes his type of playing most effective-you just dont hear that style much these days
Given that without overblows you really need to play in the upper octave, I would imagine 1st position blues on most keys above Bb would be too shrill unless you were a Pipistrelle bat.
I play 1st position ALL the time and love it. I use a ton of overblows to do it, though.
EDITED TO CLARIFY: I don't literally mean that I play it all the time and nothing else... I play positions 1-5 and 12 pretty regularly. I just meant that I play it a lot.
Last Edited by on Jan 25, 2011 3:18 PM
AV8R: first, thanks so much for the kind words. Where did you see me and where are you located?
Basically, I am switching positions... from 2nd to 1st, 3rd to 4th or whatever. Even though OB/ODs allow you to play chromatically, the different positions give you much more flexibility in terms of using scales, bends on particular notes and in other areas.
If you're careful and smooth about it, you can switch harps in the middle of a song and change the flavor of your soloing. You have to be careful, though, to not make the change too abrupt. The different positions can sound VERY different.
Wow, suddenly Youtube is running really slow. Scojo, what definition is that video uploaded in? I clicked on another video on Youtube and it loaded and played your video is only about 10% loaded.
"Given that without overblows you really need to play in the upper octave,"
Have to disagree here. The middle octave can be a little challenging but there are plenty of notes to use in the first octave in first position without OB. Listen to the second verse in the Little Willie clip - at 0:30 - that's him, same harp, first position, first octave, no OB's. ---------- /Greg
Nacoran: I am honestly not sure what resolution it is (uploaded it a while ago), but I was having similar problems.
Greg is right, and there's also a lot of cool stuff to be done in the bottom octave. "Highway 28" on the first Better Days album presents a great example of Paul Butterfield playing 1st position in the bottom octave (killer tune, too). Also, Hoochie Coochie Man by Muddy Waters (which I believe is Little Walter).
Last Edited by on Jan 26, 2011 7:30 AM
