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From: "Michael Will"
Date: 2 Sep 1995 21:41:37 -0700
Subject: Report on Harmonica Masterc

Just A Note....
9/2/95
Report on Harmonica Masterclass (long) 8:24 PM

The Harmonica Masterclass was great. About 35-40 harp players were jammed into the local music store (more on jamming later. . ). Dave Barrett ("Harmonica Techniques", "Chicago Blues") did a couple of hour long clinics, going over some intermediate, what else, Chicago-style blues harp techniques; improvisation ideas; and the "proper embouchure" (lipping with the harp
tilted about 45 degrees).

The hit of the morning was Joe Mass and his 2 sons, Joe Jr and JR. Joe plays chromatic incredibly well. He must be from the "old school", where they actually learn songs consisting of hundreds of distinct notes, harmony, chords, and bass. Joe Jr. plays a mean bass harp, and JR is outstanding on a 2 foot long chord harmonica. Gotta be carefull around that thing! He whips
around a 2 foot hunk of metal and wood pretty fast. I guess he's only knocked one guitar player out cold so far. . . These guys don't play traditional blues--though they did do a bluesy piece. They do older tunes, and some classical. Got the only standing O of the day!

John Chrisly did some talkin' and playin'. He grew up friends with some big-name players (that I can't remember right now) teaching him at the tender age of 11. His latest CD is coming out in about a month. John's pretty funny. He's a pure "play it by ear" guy, who plays hot and fast. He doesn't bother with special amps, mic's, or electronics. He just plays into whatever PA setup is available. He doesn't really have knowledge about what he's doing--for example, he has no idea what holes he's playing. Makes it a little tough to teach what you're doing. It was more like, "well, down here on this end you do this, then around here you do that, and up at the end I found this to sound pretty good. I didn't hear him play a "big, fat" style. Mostly he relys on speed. His speed seems to be achieved through musically-neutral embellishments. In other words, take a simple lick, and twiddle around with neighboring notes as fast as you can. Not that it doesn't sound pretty good... It seemed kinda like a lead guitarist who does a lot of "pull offs" and "trills".

Which brings me to a question I've been meaning to throw out there for a few days. How do you working pros "present" your notes. In other words, advanced technique yields single notes that are distinct, pure, and clean (when not doing other effects). I heard some tasty tongue-slap styles, where the primary note is barely outlined by a small thwack, but there were some very!
fast riffs where each note was presented individually--not muddy or smeared or missed or slurred.

Anyway, following John was Lee Oskar. What a character! His manner of speech reminds me of someone out of the Godfather movie. He talked quite a bit about music theory (and his specially tuned harps), repairing and tuning harmonicas (using his Repair Kit), and "what is the blues". The blues is not just I - -IV-V, but a "feeling" presented musically. (Of course, you can do sooo much more with his "Melody Maker" and minor-tuned harps than ordinary richter diatonic harmonics..) The Melody Maker tuning changes, if I remember, 3 notes. The 3-blow is raised a whole step (so the duplicate G on a C harp becomes an A), and the 5 and 9 draws (F's on C-harp) are raised 1/2 step. The natural F is the dominant 7 (flatted 7) in the G7 chord--on a standard diatonic there's no way (okay you overblowers...) to get the F#, which is the major 7 in a Gmaj7 chord. Also, the 3-blow A eliminates the need to bend the 3-draw to get that note.

By the way, Lee's playing exemplified the utilization of silence to surround the presence of music with importance. He's also great at sandwitching tasty chords in or between licks. His vibratos are terrific. If only he didn't come off like Jack LeLane pushing juicers.

Andy Just and Gary Smith appeared together--first performing a great duet, then giving tips, showing techniques, and fielding questions. They work together superbly, even while providing experienced answers and anicdotes. They talked a lot about mic's, amps, effects, and so on. I knew you'd ask. Both preferred the magnetic cartridge of Green Bullets and Blues Blasters to
the crystal cartridge of the JV-30's. Both used tube amps with 4 10" speakers. Gary was using one of the 50 watt Fender Bassman replicas, while Andy uses a rare 80 watt 1980 Fender Andy also uses a tube-enhanced effects box on top of his amp.

These are two great guys, and fantastic harp players. Gary goes for a thick full big style. Andy is blazingly fast and hot, and accurate. His licks are musically motivated, as opposed to John Chrisly's embellishment style.

The jam at the end of the day was great. John Chrisly took off early, but Dave Barrett, Lee Oscar, Gary Smith, and Andy Just on the same stage, supported by a well played hollow-body electric guitar and electric bass, is something special. They did some flash fast "harmonica wars", which Andy won hands down. Lee sort of took over the jam and led some great tempo changes and inter-12-bar solo trade-offs. Of course, that let him finish up! He was better by himself, I felt, than during this blues jam.

Oh yeah, the power went off for about an hour in the middle of the day. Fortunately, I had my Pignose Hog with me, which runs on rechargeable batteries, and saved the day! Well. . .helped it out in a small way.

'Twas a great gathering of happy harpers. Wish y'all coulda been there.

Mic'll %^~-