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Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 11:57:00 -0400
From: Alec Drachman
Subject: Buckeye - Part II

Hi again,

I've already talked about how much fun I had and all of the great shows.
I should mention that I am sure that Douglas Tate would have provided
one of my favorite shows, too, but we were lost in the maze at the
italian restaurant. We were told that we would get a table in 15
minutes, and it took nearly an hour just to get seated, so we missed the
first part of Friday's show. Rats. :-(

O.K., now let me tell you about what I learned. To me, this is what
really made Buckeye amazing. I learned more here than at any other
convention I've ever attended:

Douglas Tate's seminar was very helpful. I can read music a little bit,
but I never knew what some of the extra notations meant. Now I do. Very
informative.

Ron Ervin did a seminar on EZ note reading that I think will prove quite
helpful. I can read o.k. on the violin or guitar, but it takes me too
long to figure out where a note is on the harp. I simply haven't spent
enough time associating a note on the staff with a hole on the harp.
Ron's method involves replacing the big not heads on an easy play song
book with tab numbers. I've tried using melody assistant to generate tab
below the sheet music, but I don't think it is making me a faster reader
because I end up just looking at the tab. Since in Ron's method, the tab
is "inside" the note, I'm automatically looking at the note on the staff
as read the tab. I think this will help. You can check out one of Ron's
EZ play songs in each issue of AHN.

Frederick Yonnet's seminar, while not actually too informative, gave us
a sneak preview of this talented performer. He can play in many
different styles and uses overblows in the context of lightning fast
runs. It is advertised that he can play in all keys on a single
diatonic, although we didn't really see too much evidence of that. He
did struggle through a few different major scales on one harp, so I
think he is getting there. Never mind all that, though. This guy is a
tremendously exciting performer who makes great music. Check him out if
you get a chance, you won't be sorry.

Rob Paparozzi gave a great seminar on making the transition from blues
to jazz on the diatonic. He gave suggestions on songs to learn first,
showed how much of what we blues players already do will apply, and most
importantly, planted the seed in our minds that it is not that difficult
to get started. Rob also again graciously leant his services in
Filisko's teaching extravaganza.

This is where the real meat of my learning occurred. I am convinced that
the Teaching Extravaganza is the best way to learn. For those unfamiliar
with the concept, let me explain. You go to a very large room where
there are many tables, each staffed by one or two of the worlds leading
experts and waiting to teach you anything you want. It is incredible. On
the first day, I sat down with Steve Guyger and got some advice on
holding a Chromatic and mic for better amplified play.

Next, I moved on to Joe Filisko and learned how to blow bend using TB.
I've always struggled with this and Joe finally got me over the hump.
I'd been getting nowhere for more than a year, and in 5 minutes Joe
helped me squeak out my first blow bend. I worked on it all the way home
(4 hour drive) and it's really coming along. I was even able to isolate
the elusive half step bend on hole 10. My tone is still much weaker than
my usual U-block blow bends, but it's getting there. As a pleasant
aside, it turns out that his advice is helping me with puckering, too,
and I am proud to say that I can now overblow with both U-block and
pucker and even squeaked out a nasty 60B with TB on a high F harp. I
don't think it will be too long now before I will be overblowing
fluently in all 3 embouchures.

After that I moved on to Jimmy Gordon so some excellent repair advice. I
already knew most of what he taught, but I picked up a few tips. I'm
always hoping that he'll slip and let out one of Filisko's real secrets,
but alas, he's pretty careful. :-) Still, for anyone new to the repair
scene, Jimmy was super helpful.

Finally, I moved on to Roscoe for some tips on breathing patterns and
playing super fast runs. Roscoe is a great player who knows a lot more
than just speed, but I made him show me some fast stuff. Very helpful!

Wow, that was only day one and I'm out of time. I guess I'll have to
have a part III.

Next episode - "How Allen Holmes unlocked the secrets of Jazz".

See ya.

- --
Alec Drachman
Check out our CD's:
http://www.geocities.com/bluecats1999/alec.html