RE: [Harp-L] How about just plain old harmonica?

["Tom McGovern" <tmcg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yours and Walter's--great posts both.  Lack of brevity acceptable and
appreciated.

Tom McGovern
Richmond,. MI

-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of David Payne
Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2008 3:37 PM
To: Harp L Harp L
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] How about just plain old harmonica?

I apologize for my total lack of brevity. Walter's post got me
thinking... a lot.

 Until around 2003, I had never actually met another good harmonica
player. I had never heard of Harp-L, never really listened to anybody
except Charlie McCoy and the old guys like Sonny Boy II, Big Walter,
Little Walter, or as the Fox says "Medium Walter." I'd been playing
since I was five and for the folks who heard me, I was the best they'd
ever heard. There was simply no one else to hear, really. I have always
run around in Bluegrass circles, that might be one reason I never saw
any harp players. Another reason is where I grew up. West Virginia's Elk
River is the most beautiful place in the world, I've seen the Danube,
Rhine, Salzach, Elbe, Seine, they've got nothing on the Elk. Yet, the
Elk doesn't have a blues scene and doesn't have a medium-sized city
anywhere on its nearly 200 mile course until the very end in Charleston.
You get the point... I grew up in the middle of nowhere for blues, but
the Mississippi Delta of Bluegrass.
I finally came across another good harp player about five years ago, he
won the Ohio State Championship a couple years later.  I'm used to
playing fast bluegrass breaks and have always been a harp tech at heart.
He hits spot on, perfect pitch bends much better than I. We enjoy
hearing each other because we do things so differently.
In the last few years, I have found the harp community on the Internet
and learned there's another whole world out there. I felt like I had to
overblow, it seemed everybody else was doing it, thus it seemed a bar
had been raised that I didn't know was there. I thought deep down if I
couldn't overblow maybe that meant I was less of a player. 
My biggest shock was my first convention, Buckeye. There I heard some
amazing harp players and not just the pros. Hanging out with Jimi Lee
was one of the coolest things I've done. Listening to Jimi Lee, and
others as good play two feet away was a bit initimadating. Rupert
Oysler, Mr. Seydel USA, is as good a player as any. After playing for 25
years, I saw where I fit in on the talent ladder. I was now officially a
small fish in a big pond. I seriously considered giving up playing while
I was there, I got over that quickly, I could never give it up, but I
was still intimidated. 
What changed my mind? I got to hang out with Charlie McCoy last year (if
you see me, ask me to show you his belt buckle. I wear it everyday. I
did not steal it, he willingly took it off his belt.). 
You'd think for guys like Charlie, stuff is easy. They make it seem SO
easy. At that time, Charlie had just released "A Celtic Bridge: From
Nashville to Dublin." He makes it sound so easy. Yet, even the great
Charlie McCoy has to work at it, in fact, he's as good as he is because
he works hard. About the Celtic album, he said, and I quote, "Irish
stuff is hard." If some stuff can be hard for even Charlie McCoy, that's
comforting. Some stuff is hard for me, too.
 I asked him about the overblow. He said he had talked to Howard Levy
about it in detail, Howard told him he needed a Golden Melody, but
Charlie is a stock Special 20 man (has been for like 30 years), doesn't
like the GM, so that's as far as it went. Charlie said he has never
overblowed and he really isn't that interested in learning how to do it.

I asked Charlie what he would say to young harp players (I actually
meant me) who think they have to master the overblow to feel like they
are legitimate players. I kept my notes from the McCoy interview, so I
can tell you exactly what he said: "I play the harmonica for Herman and
Pearl who come down and buy a ticket. I don't play for other musicians.
I make records for people who watched 'Hee-Haw.'" 
I thought that was quite profound. Charlie is who he is. He does what he
does. I suppose that makes the great McCoy a Popeye kind of player, too.
What I didn't realize at Buckeye was how learning accelerates. I had
learned what I learned in 25 years, but I learned nearly as much in the
short time following that. 
I have also come to an important conclusion, other players don't care
how well you play (provided you aren't gussing). If there is something
you can't do, it's not a hinderance, it's a benefit. If you don't know
something, that means you have something yet to learn, and, to them,
something they can teach you. Harmonica players at different levels have
so much more to talk about than two of equal talent.
One thing that I can do well is work on harps and there's still a lot
for me to learn there. I wonder sometimes if maybe some beginner is out
there watching my videos, or looking at my ehow articles on harp repair,
whatever, and thinking he has to be a tech to be legit, in much the same
way I had been looking at the overblow as this pie in the sky. I
certainly hope not, but to that guy I'd repeat what McCoy told me. 
"I have no interest in fooling around with harps to that extent. I'm
thinking about what I can do different on the harp, not what I can do to
the harp to make it different. I'm too busy playing." 

A while back, I had the pleasure of shooting the harp-tech bull with
Brad Harrison. Brad was talking literally, I mean, literally, about
harps at the MICROSCOPIC level. I talked to him for about an hour and
honestly, had a severe headache by the end of the call, because I was
thinking so hard about the things he was saying. Brad opened a whole new
world of stuff, I didn't even know existed. Talking to Brad reinforced
my belief that no matter how good you are, there is always somebody who
is a hell of a lot better than you. Only by the time I talked to Brad, I
saw that as a benefit. If someone knows more than you, that only means
there is much that person can offer you.

 I've learned how to learn from people better than I, without feeling
myself less accomplished for it. Now, I'm listening to guys and watching
and learning from folks, not to copy what they are doing, but to pull
elements from what they do and apply it to what I do. I don't want to
sound like Little Walter, I want to sound like me, only better. In the
past year, I've been studying what Igor Flach has been doing. I am just
so spellbound by the numerous sounds he incorporated into his playing.
I've not tried to copy anything he plays, but I've been analyzing what
he was doing, then later, maybe I take something from that and
incorporate it into what makes me sound like me. I was looking so
forward to meeting him, but he died. Now, all we can do is wonder how
Igor would have sounded in 20 years. He was a master at taking seemingly
unrelated sounds and fusing them into something new. If only I could
have turned him on to bluegrass, ;)

I eventually learned the overblow and don't really consider myself a
better play for having learned it. However, I realize, maybe some day,
that won't be the case.  I'm just going to, pun intended, play it by ear
and see what I develop.

Considering all this, I've decided I will just be me. I am what I am and
that's all that I am. But, a year from now, what I am then will be
something even better. 

Dave Payne 
__________________
Elk River Harmonicas
www.elkriverharmonicas.com 
_______________________________________________
Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx
http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l