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From: "Meaghers"
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1998 08:34:26 -0400
Subject: My return to harp Ithaca

"I no longer fear death.... for I have worked for the Lowell Spinners."
-Jeff Chen, Concessions Intern

Ah, yes. Ahem.

I am (almost) back from my long, hot summer in the crackhouse of Northern
Massachusetts commonly referred to as Lowell. My internment, ahem,
internship with the Lowell Spinners (Class A Affiliate of the Boston Red
Sox) is grinding to a halt, with just 6 more games and 8 more working days
to go. What is there to say of my summer? I suppose I could go on and on
about the tasks of a so-called "media relations" intern- making fried dough,
serving as photocopy monkey, pouring beer, running around in a big green
goofy alligator suit as mascot; and, of course, the nadir of the summer, the
day when I looked up at my fellow interns to realize that we had been
assigned the task of cleaning the parking lot at UMASS-Lowell. I could
mention my $0.95 hourly wage or my 105-hour weeks, my prisonlike dorm room
and cantankerous boss, but for brevity's sake, I will not. Hey- at least
I'm not swinging a pick at Reliable Fence like last year.

As I said, I have a week more to go. I have been unable to stay on the list
even in digest form due to my long hours- after a game, I just crash in the
dorm room rather than drive home after midnight just to drive back the next
morning. I assume I have missed a great deal of harp knowledge and expect
to be filled in. After a few days of rest and recovery, I'll unsubscribe
again, for I will be driving across America to see what there is to see on
my way back to school. The general route goes like this: Boston to DC to
Chicago (via Cleveland) to Austin, TX through AZ and NM up through Vegas to
San Francisco. It's a twisted route but one that will allow me a total of
four days in Chicago and Austin, blues meccas only slightly larger than the
one in which I currently reside, Reading, MA.

I will arrive in San Francisco on the 19th, just in time for the San
Francisco blues festival. I hope to maybe catch Mark Hummel in Chicago or
Charlie Musselwhite in Cookeville, TN (both are stretches, but I might
convince my Iranian punk-fan driving mate to make the stops) and hopefully,
games at Wrigley, Comiskey, and the Astrodome. If I can convince my rider to
drive all night from Chicago, I may even get to see Mark McGwire in Houston
when he'll have, oh, 59 or 60 home runs. Excellent.

Now, for some harp content.

I had a lesson with Adam Gussow of Satan & Adam on July 5th. I drove down
to New York to meet him, and even though I got horrendously lost and ended
up in Astoria, he was gracious enough to reschedule and give me an almost
double-length lesson for only slightly more than his $35 fee. It is well
worth it and I recommend getting a lesson from him to anyone within 5 hours
of New York city. I taped the lesson and it has been very useful.
Furthermore, Adam is one of the nicest guys around, very helpful, an
outstanding harpist, brilliantly innovative, and a great teacher too- a rare
combination. Within 15 minutes he was able to evaluate me as a player so
that he would know what to concentrate on- which some teachers have a hard
time doing.

My lesson with Adam inspired me to work on my overblowing, which, as it
turns out, is not nearly as hard as I once thought it to be. It's
definitely hard, but I now realize that you don't have to be a virtuoso to
do it, as I once thought. I still have a hard time fitting them into a
musical context, but hey, practice, practice, practice....

I also picked up the chromatic a bit more, and worked on Duke Ellington's
Caravon, which I heard on one of Gary Primrich's albums. I'm pretty sure he
plays it in 4th position on the chro (I guess that's A, Bon, but I don't
really know), or at least, that's what I do. Anyone else play this tune and
do it differently, or have any tips on it? And while I'm at it, does anyone
know where on the web I can find tab or sheet music for some more Duke
tunes? I get the feeling that Mood Indigo is just screaming to be played on
the harp....

I've been able to play a little bit each night as I clean out the press box
and count hot dogs. One of the cleaning service guys says it reminds him of
when he was in prison in South Carolina, which, I suppose is a good thing
(uh, for my playing, not for him). It's kind of cool, actually- the sound
of the harp erily wafting over a dark, empty stadium as a half-dozen
cleaners scuttle around on the benches, getting it ready for the next game.


And that has been my summer.

- -ev

A.N.T.Y.