Re: [Harp-L] Jazz chromatic books

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

One problem with copying music played on other instruments is that a phrase may sound musical and natural on the instrument that orirgnally played it, but on harmonica may sound awkward and unmusical (or at least un-jazz). I'll address a number of ways to deal with this in the new book.

While copying solos can be valuable, by itself it will only get you so far, a little like mouthing foreign phrases out a tourist guidebook. You need to couple it with an understanding the musical and idiomatic reasons for the choices of notes and phrases. Some of this is harmonica-specific, and some of it isn't, and the book will have plenty of guideposts to suplementary resources.

Winslow

Winslow Yerxa

Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5

--- On Wed, 7/8/09, Eugene Ryan <ryan.eugene@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

From: Eugene Ryan <ryan.eugene@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Jazz chromatic books
To: "harp-l" <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wednesday, July 8, 2009, 10:37 AM

I second pretty much everything that's been said on the subject, but I'll
add this - I think a really valuable way (possibly the most valuable way?)
to learn jazz is to transcribe jazz recordings.  I mean to exactly copy (as
much as is possible on our instrument) the melodies and solos of great jazz
artists on your harmonica. You get everything - the notes, phrases, sound,
time feel of those great recordings.

We do this with blues to get the sound of it into our playing, so why not
with jazz?   Since there still aren't very many jazz harmonica player
recordings about, we also can copy other instrumentalists.  Theory helps
here too, knowing what you're playing and why.

I know I'd be a better player by now if I'd done this sooner :-)

Eugene
http://www.myspace.com/eugeneryan
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