Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 08:59:17 -0700 (PDT) From: Winslow Yerxa Subject: Canadian Stuff (was Harp players on MP3dotcom)
Easy Ed writes:
>leads to a fantasy of mine - imagine Winslow an >others - Mike Stevens and Natalie McMaster doin a >harp an fiddle version of some kind of Duelin Banjos - -> I bet it would be Great!!
Wow - cool fantasy, though a little scary from my point of view.
Natalie McMaster, while young, is one of those old-time Cape Breton fiddlers who can do some very fancy step dancing while playing; Ashley MacIsaac, even though he now goes for fantasy costumes and Def Leppard staging grew up doing the same thing.
Mike Stevens has been dipping into the repertoire of Canadian fiddle tunes of late, and did a CD of them awhile back using unusual positions and overblows. To be frank, I think it was recorded prematurely, before he really got the tunes under his belt - I'll bet he's absolutely amazing doing the same tunes by now.
I've been brewing up a repertoire of tunes to put on a show at a harmonica convention that would showcase Canadian traditional music via the harmonica - up to 4 harmonicas - backed by piano, guitar, step dancing, hand percussion, and maybe cello or fiddle. I think it could be really a blast, if we could get the right sort of musicians and enough rehearsal (or arrangements that are simple and easy to learn, yet distinctive - always a nice trick). Then too, it's a matter of one of the conventions wanting to feature this on a show.
On a strictly harmonica level, I had one of those "duh" moments last night in regard to Quebecois harmonica playing. This style makes heavy use of tongue lifts and slaps to accompany melody, and I'm starting to get the hang of some of it. As I was stepping our the door to visit the local taqueria last night, I pulled a harp out of my pocket and started to play some of this stuff, playing the melody note on the right and the chord on the left.
But I had the harp upside down, so the chords were above the melody in the top octave of the harp - it was perfect! So that's how Mary Bolduc got that sparkling, paper-shredding sound! Either she tongue blocked with the chords on the right and melody on the left, or she held the harp upside down. This might also help explain some of Louis Blanchette's bizarre high register licks (I already knew that he used a "backwards" tongue block in specific instances). I'll be going through my records of players like Henri Lacroix and Gabriel Labbé and listening for this!
Winslow
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