How to Play Harmonica - Part 2-b

OR
You could memorize this chart:

To Play In:	C	G	D	A	E	F
Use this Harp:	F	C	G	D	A	B

Structural Differential? or Flying Spaghetti Monster?

I think I'm going to make me one of these this weekend. It was invented by my old mentor Korzybski. I'm surprised that there are still people out there using his ideas to clarify the human situation. I don't know that anybody has ever actually made one of these things, but Korzybski gives full instructions in his book "Science and Sanity" on how to do it. I've always wanted to build one, just so people will go - "What is that?"

It kind of reminds me of the flying spagetti monster.

I wonder if there's some deep Jungian meaning here?

Naahhhhhhhhh......

Epistemological Nightmarish Treadmill

Science, logical, and literal understanding lineinates cause and effect ideas.

You can understand things like by-laws, how-to-fix-computer-when-it-blue-screens, disarming-a-knife-attack-via-karate-move-#1, when-cells-process-energy.

The brain synapes follow a specific route.

A -> B -> C -> D

This can be taught, memorized, repeated, and printed.

Artistic, intuitive and representative understanding has no fixed path.

Therefore parables, metaphor, and abstraction is used to convey such understanding.

Brain synapes burst outward in all directions, seeking relative meanings, concepts, connections.

c
^
|
B <- A -> D
|
?

This cannot be taught, memorized, repeated, or printed.

It can only be alluded to.

Seeds can only be planted.

Fingers can only point the way.

These are ideas that are alive and can only be discovered but never captured.

How to Play Harmonica - Part 2

The only absolute law in harmonica playing is: YOU HAVE TO HAVE THE RIGHT KEY.

That's it. If you can get the right harmonica to the right key of the song that's playing then you can play the harmonica. If you don't have the exact right key, you will sound like crap - no matter what.

That's the value of the diddy in "Part 1".

Let me explain.

If you want to play songs like "Yankee Doodle" and "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" then you just ask what key the person is playing in (or look at the sheet music, or find the root chord that keeps repeating and/or ending on, or just tell the other instruments to play in the key you happen to have) and then play in THAT key. (hint: you'll being "blowing" into the harp mostly.)

So, if the song is in "C" key, then pick up a harp that has the letter "C" on it. They play in the key of "C" - you play in the key of "C".

But this only works for simple and straight forward songs. This is called playing "straight" harp.

If you wanna play blues, or rock n' roll (anything from Chuck Berry to Black Sabbath) then you have to play "cross" harp.

Cross harp.

That's where the diddy comes in.

If it's you gonna play some more,
I'll take your root (key) and count to four

This means if they play in the key of "C" then you have to find a - C, D, E, F - 1,2,3,4 - "F" harp.

(include the "c" on the count)

They play in the key of "C", you play "cross harp" with a harmonica labled as the key of "F".

Second part of diddy.

If it's me you want to jive,
Take my harp and count to five.

Sometimes you are leading the song. The other instruments want to know, "Hey, what key are you playing in? We wanna jam with ya." (If it's me you want to jive)

You look down at your harp and it has a stamp on it of "F". So you count. (First some music theory - notes go from A thru G and start over.)

So, it's - F, G, A, B, C - 1,2,3,4,5.

You tell them to play in the key of "C".

Now here's where they jam with you a little and it doesn't quite sound right still and they say, "That's too hard to play in that key" (while you're rockin' and rollin' by yourself.)

So you look down at your collection of harmonicas (harps) and you grab a harmonica marked "C"..... think through your diddy (if it's me you want to jive, take my harp and count to five - 1,2,3,4,5 - C, D, E, F, G). "Ok, then how about you guys play in the key of "G". (While you're playing in the key of "G" also, BUT you are using a "C" harmonica - because you are playing "Cross harp" instead of straight harp.

Now that you've got the right harmonica and key going - here's the next big secret:

YOU DON'T BLOW, YOU SUCK.

Yes, that right - most of what you'll be playing is INHALING notes. Suck, inhale, pull in that air to get that root note.

That's the big difference in "straight" harp and "cross" harp.

In straight harp, you blow air - push it. (At least 90% of the time.)

In cross harp, you suck the air - you pull it. (At least 90% of the time.)

If you can get this much down, you are 90% through the hard part about learning to play harmonica. The rest is fun.

Soon you'll see how all these hair-brain vocalists who really can't play a single instrument somehow can play a harmonica with their band.

(I'm talking like Mick Jagger and Robert Plant even.)

They've got the right key and they're playing "cross" harp.

More to come soon. In the meantime, get the right harp, find the right key, and just inhale a bunch (mostly on the low end - across 3 or more holes - low end is on the left) pretty much anywhere and everywhere on the whole harmonica (multiple wholes) and try to find where it matches the song and sounds kinda good. Repeat.

A Wild River

Hello Team,

....thought I'd share with you a couple of pictures from my adventure Sunday on the Blanco river.

This is a wild river without damns nor access. Once we launched we were committed to 12 river miles of rapids, waterfalls, the "narrows", and absolutely no access to civilization, phones, roads, people, etc..... till we came to the first property with road access (literally where I live).

It took us 10 hours.

I wiped out dozens of times, freaked out twice, and thought I was going to drown once.

And I was humbled throughout.

The three women that went with me (including my wife) are possibly the toughest human beings on earth. (That's a story in itself - all macho that I've had in the past is now forever gone.)

The highlight was "the narrows" itself which is a sharp 70 foot waterfall into a deep gorge. You have to drag (port) your kayaks around this gorge and then lower each kayak down a 40 foot cliff which each person also has to scale free handed and then stand on a thin ledge in the roaring current while propping each boat and the equipment before you can launch again.

Porting the "narrows" took maybe 2 hours.

Afterwards, deep in the gorge, flat on my back in a small open cavern, exhausted with only 5 more miles of rapids to go, I looked up and I said, "I AM AT THE CENTER OF THE EARTH."

And I was.

Humble again,
Mitch

How to Play the Harmonica - Part 1

I came up with a diddy this morning on the way to work. Now I can tell what harmonica to play "cross-harp" to in what key.

See it's not as simple as grabbing a harmonica in the key of "A" when the rest of the band is playing a song in the key of "A". Oh no! It's not that simple. Till now!

If it's me you want to jive,
You take my harp - and go up five.

If it's you gonna play some more,
I'll take you key - and go up four.

This diddy (a.k.a. algorythmn) is perfect to memorize to quickly translate back and forth between a harmonica player and another instrument. And that is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL if you're tring to play with others or your own guitar when you are mostly a "cross-harp" or blues harmonica player.

Two meta-points I want to make first before I explain this diddy/algorythmn (diddlygorythmn? algordiddy? well, Al Gore diddy or didn't he? ... sorry)

1. Memory - Like how Dostoevsky's clerk from "underground" figured his liver was bad but wasn't sure, that's how I feel about my memory. I can't remember sh*t. But part of the problem is, I really don't want to either. Everything I've ever committed to memory I had to forget later - because it was wrong! So why waste mental space for trivia that can be disputed, is probably wrong, and science, teachers, culture, and kids will later change?

(This is a post-modern problem if that means anything to you.)

Plus, I'm getting older. I don't go to college classes and learn stuff for tests, I hardly ever talk intelligently with humans (sure we debate work problems from cubicle to cubicle now and then - but mostly its more of a human political balancing act), I drink more, the LSD and drugs of my youth are probably catching up with my brain cells, and damnit - I just don't hardly give a shit about information I probably won't use!

All knowledge, meaning, information seems meaningless! I mean, you can "guess or google" ANYTHING in a matter of minutes! Why should I memorize it?!

Oh well... anyway... it was from embarassment of having about 10 harps on me and fiddling through each one of them to find the key to a song (by then it's half over), that I got tired of "playing it by ear" and I made up this diddygorythmn.


2. Driving Time - (I'll make this point quicker) Use your driving time! Use it to create and do something. Don't use it to consume, smoke cigarettes, listen to music, drink your coffee and space out - or chatter chatter your little mind away.) Use it to CREATE something! DO something that you can do with your time AND while driving.

I made up the above "diddygorythmn" to solve an ongoing legitimate problem that I've never faced up to or thought through that has driven me embarrassingly crazy over the years and made me look like an amateur moron many a time.

I taught myself how to play this harmonica - completely while driving to work. I taught myself. I only used the time I would normally just be driving to work. Wasted time converted into a talent.

Time may be your only truly limited resource.

You drive to work. It takes 30, 40, 50+ minutes a day. Possibley twice that going back and forth to work. You have 24 hours in a day. You live maybe 75 years. That's it. It costs you a lot more than gasoline and insurance coverage to drive to work. It costs you your life.