From: Joe and Cass Leone <leone@xxxxxxxx> Date: June 2, 2007 7:13:20 PM EDT To: Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx> Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Re: Stevie Wonder's Harmonica
On Jun 2, 2007, at 5:56 PM, Winslow Yerxa wrote:
Danny -
The dailymotion video you are commenting on is different from the Youtube video that Joe's comment addresses.
I wasn't going to say anything.
The dailymotion clip has Stevie accompanying another singer on Isn't She Lovely, played in F (instead of E) on what I'm fairly sure is a Super 64X.
That clip is with Paul McCartney.
But Joe was writing before that video link was posted. He was referring
to a video posted on Youtube of "True to your Heart" from the film
Mulan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyt6Emkv3iY
In this one Stevie is playing a completely different instrument. It has
an opaque, dark-colored comb and silver colored covers. You can hear
Stevie early in the song, then he appears with the harp at about 1:25,
first playing and then singing.
Stop the video at about 1:23 as he's putting the harp up to his mouth and you'll notice two things:
Yeah, it took ME 8 min 20 sec to get to that point (I'm on dial-up)
1) The dark color of the comb looks almost like the gray of stainless steel.
2) The covers, while they extend to the end of the comb the way a Super
64 cover does, they DO NOT taper downward toward the comb. The top
cover presents an almost flat plane parallel to the comb.
Both covers come flush to the end.
Clearly not a Hohner.
What I 'should' have said was either "Not a STOCK Hohner" or I should have put the question mark after Hohner instead of the preceding sentence. I mean, the 'guts' could be Hohner. Stevie IS an endorser. I thought it was a custom jobbie.
The tune begins in Bb, and it sounds to me like a C instrument from the
slide ornaments and legatos (By the way, listen closely to the intro
and you'll hear Stevie play the Bb reed bent down to Ab, then release
it to Bb again).
I felt it was Bb played on a C chromo.
Then at 2:27
That's 14 min 56 sec in MY time.
it changes to the key of B-natural and Stevie starts to solo again, but it's not stuff that plays gratefully in B on a C instrument. It's the sort of thing that might work in A, D, G, C, F, Bb, or even Eb, but not B. To me it sounds like C position
I thought it was C position on a Bb chromo with the slide in (= B)
- all the slide moves fit, and he plays a fluter-tongued high tonic note, something most easily done on a blow note.
The video shows him with an identical-looking instrument, but that's just what they shot for display. Either he's playing an instrument in some other key or they could have shifted the instrumental track up from B to C to record his solo, then shifted track and harmonica back down a semitone.
Slide Man Slim Heilpern and I were talking about THAT too. In fact, it was Slim's good ears that picked up on that possibility first.
This is something Stevie has done before, on Chaka
Khan's "I Feel For you" where the track was in F# and it was shifted to
allow him to play in either F or G position, I forget which now, but
you can tell from the way he uses the high D.
Yes, yes, and super yes. That solo drove me I N S A N E. I was using an F chrom (started slide IN) but some of the chips and chirps weren't working. I tried every position on every chromo I had (I only had 4 keys), and still couldn't get it.
Like I keep saying, "The kid drives me crazy" ......
smokey-joe & the Cafe s (the Lighthouse, Sanibel Island Causeway (bring $6.oo toll), Ft. Myers Fla. (bring a co-signer)
Winslow