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From: "Mike Will"
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 07:23:26 PST
Subject: Re: Choice of Instruments

A slightly different spin on this story..

My main instrument is and always has been piano.

I've played guitar for years, organ, synthesizers... but the diatonic is
the only instrument that has captured me enough to take my mind off the
piano.

Recently I've been back to playing the piano a little more, and I've
found...

that my piano playing is better than ever, thanks to the harp!

The attention to tone, and capturing the music with "the slow" approach
has translated from harp, where you can't really ignore it, to piano,
where you can, but if you do the music suffers.

Some of y'all may balk at the idea of playing with more tone on a piano,
where mechanically a key pushes a series of levers which throws a
disconnected hammer at some strings, which after striking bounces back
to rest, it's job done. You can. I won't go into it on list, but would
be happy to off list if you're interested.

Even my mediocre guitar playing has improved.. just growth as a musician
I suppose, but harp has been the catalyst.

BTW, I never have to dig through a box to find the harp key I want. I
keep mine organized in cases, according to the circle of 5ths. This is
a really good idea, extremely useful when jamming to music and trying to
find the right key and position. Changing position is just a matter of
picking the harp to the right or left.. you don't have to think about
it. If the harp you try isn't right in any position you're comfortable
with, it's easy to skip 2 or 3 to the right or left and get a harp where
none of the keys in your comfortable positions overlap. This way, I
usually find the right key within 3 or 4 trys.

And, with your harps arranged this way the circle of 5ths becomes well
ingrained, second nature, and it's easier to pick a particular key harp
than when I had them arranged in "sequential" order (C, D, E..).

This is one of my favorite not-well-known tips. Seems like a good
thread could be the sharing of favorite tips.

I just started...

Mic'l

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