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From: camer~alem.SSD.intel.com (Don Cameron)
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 96 11:44:22 PDT
Subject: Lee Oskar Clinics at PDX Blues Fest

Portland just had it's annual Blues Festival. This year it was a 5 day
affair that included Lee Oskar, Junior Wells, Charlie Musselwhite,
Paul DeLay (our local hero) and many others.

Among the highlights were 2 clinics that Lee Oskar held. The first was
an hour long and held outdoors at the festival site, the second was
over 2 hours and was held at the Morrison Bridge Music store. David
Flack, who works at Morrison Bridge Music, set up both of these.

I didn't take notes, but will give you my best recollection. These are
the topics he touched on:

The Blues - "It comes from in here" (pointing to his heart). He said that
playing "Born in Chicago" is a lie if you weren't actually born there.
"At least change it to Born in LA, or Born in Tokyo, or whatever". He
thinks that blues is becoming the Bubble Gum music of the 90s.

Melody - Stressed the importance of playing melodies, especially in
the blues. Lee gave a hysterical imitation of a someone playing a
blues riff over and over.

Alternate Tunings - As could be expected he talked a lot about his
new tunings. He said that the Melody Maker was meant for playing
single note melodies rather than chords and accompaniment (I am way
oversimplifying what he said here). He talked about the advantages
of having an F# rather than an F (on what would be a C straight Harp)
demonstrating by playing Georgia On My Mind on a diatonica an Melody
Maker. He had a long discussion of flatted 7th vs dominant 7th that went
largely over my head. He also talked about his Harmonic and Natural Minor
tunings.

The most interesting thing for me was when he went over the physics
of bending notes and how you could only bend the higher of the 2 reeds
in a hole and that you could only bend it to a semi-tone above the higher
reed. This was a revelation to me (though I am sure that its in the FAQ)
as I never understood why only certain reeds were deemed "bendable".

He showed how to tune his harmonicas and plugged his repair kit. He
encouraged people to experiment with their own alternate tunings. Asked
about overblows he mentioned Levy and said that while it was a neat trick
to play all those positions he thought that using alteranate tunings
was a more practical way to go. Lee does not like the tone of overblows
so avoids them except in quick runs up and down the scale.

He mentioned that the factory tunes harps to A441+ but he sometimes goes
as high as A446 on his own harps so that when he chokes down he gets
the notes in tune. He went on to tell a story about how Russians are so
depressed they used to have A at 436.

Equipment - He uses a $700 dollar ribbon mic that looks like a Shure
ball mic but smaller. He said the name but I can't recall the make (it
had 3 letters). He used a newer transistor amp with a built in equilaizer
and showed how you could use that to eliminate feedback. He had
a bunch of effects with him, including both an analog and digital
"octave".

He basically made fun of the tubed amp/cheap mic fad (I have a tubed
amp and a small collection of vinatge mics so of course I ignored that).

Afterwards he signed harmonicas with an engraver and graciously answered
questions. I now have a signed Lee Oskar harp and a blues festival T-shirt
autographed by Lee and Charlie Musselwhite.