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Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 11:04:00 -0800
From: Tom Ball
Subject: Re: Bb Harps, LW, BW and Tom Ball's New book.

Just a few quick comments:
Thank you Ken M and Scott M for the very kind words regarding the new book.
Naturally any writer (or musician) appreciates positive feedback, but at
the same time I'm also prepared for a few inevitable disses to come.
After all, any of us who have the audacity to climb onto a stage and
attempt to 'entertain' people (or in this case to write an instructional
book) have to acquire the ability to deal with critical commentary, both
positive and negative... Having said that, though, thank you both and I'll
hereafter try to refrain from commenting on this topic, since there is such
an obvious conflict of interest.
_____
Regarding Bb harps, Ken also wrote:
MOST of the...licks that Tom presents and demonstrates in his new book are
done on a Bb harp.
_____
Yep, I've personally always loved the sound of a Bb played cross in F. As
somebody else wrote a few days ago, it just seems to be that perfect
in-between key; that sweet area in which both the low draw bends and the
high blow bends seem to come the smoothest, sound the richest and vibrate
with the most authority.

Additionally in this case, both Walters often played Bbs in F, as did Sonny
Terry (although ST played a bit more often in E on an A harp.) I suspect
that these choices also had a lot to do with the fact that these men sang
comfortably in those keys.

For the book/CD project, I had the choice of either playing all the licks
in the keys which they were originally recorded by LW/BW, or playing them
all in one key. For me, the choice was obvious; didn't want to put players
through the awkward (not to mention costly) process of continually changing
harps.

Earlier in this Bb thread it was speculated by some that F can be a
terrible guitar key; although superficially accurate, I would tend to
disagree for the following reasons: most professional (or near-pro-level)
electric blues guitarists are not at all reliant upon open strings, and
therefore are as theoretically comfortable in any one key as in the next.

In the case of acoustic fingerstyle guitarists, yes, true F is a nightmare;
but then most top players (from Brownie McGhee to Big Bill to my own
partner Kenny Sultan) tend to solve the problem by capoing at the first
fret and playing in E. And Rev Gary Davis often played impossibly complex
fingerstyle rags in F *without* capoing ("United States March" comes to
mind,) but then his hands were the size of small helicopters...

In any event, viva Bb and thanks once again,

Tom Ball
Santa Barbara CA