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From: Norman Kraft
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 12:09:49 -0700
Subject: RE: Going Nowhere

At 02:23 PM 4/12/99 -0400, Valleau, Adam wrote:

>Richard responded:
>
>> One way out of a rut is to take a solo by someone else that you like and
>> learn it by heart, either by listening to the record or by reading a
>> transcription.
>
>I agree with this particular approach a lot. I'm trying to do this now with
>a couple of Richard's tunes, but I'm a long way from transposing anything to
>other keys, yet! Once I have the tune down pat, I will then move on to
>using different keys of diatonics, or maybe even trying them on a chromatic.

That's not only a method to get out of a rut, but that's pretty much the
method I used to learn the harp. I could never learn riffs and other tricks
out of context, and had a lot of trouble with "blanking" whenever I
ventured to improvise. It was mastering the parts of other harp players
that worked for me: it gave me the motivation to learn the part, and those
parts became an encyclopedia of harp nibble and bits that I drew on when
improvising.

Took me a while to figure that out, though, since just about everyone I
talked to had a different approach to learning and teaching the blues harp.
Most had a method similar to that found in the books and tapes on the
market now, and others had the frustrating idea that one is teaching harp
when one simply looks at the student and says "now improvise!". :-)

To each their own, but this method is great for beginning harp, getting out
of ruts, or anytime I want to improve my skills. After all, there is no
shortage of songs out there that'll be above your head at any given time.
Nothing like a bit of head scratching over a particular harp part to make
one seek out a new technique or bit of music theory.

Norm.


- --------------------------------------------------------------
Norman Kraft, LST, MTOM, L.Ac. Blues_Ha~bm.net
Acupuncture & Chinese Herbal Medicine

"We live forwards, but we understand backwards." William James
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