June 29, 2024

Seth Shumate interview

Seth Shumate joins me on episode 114. Seth is an Old Timey and pre-war harmonica player originally from Arkansas, now living in Tennessee. Seth has deeply researched the early history of the harmonica and has written an Old Time Harmonica Handbook which contains lots of great information, as well as techniques on how to play authentic Old Timey harmonica using various tongue blocking techniques to add percussive rhythm and to provide self-accompaniment while also playing the melody of the tun...

Seth Shumate joins me on episode 114.

Seth is an Old Timey and pre-war harmonica player originally from Arkansas, now living in Tennessee. Seth has deeply researched the early history of the harmonica and has written an Old Time Harmonica Handbook which contains lots of great information, as well as techniques on how to play authentic Old Timey harmonica using various tongue blocking techniques to add percussive rhythm and to provide self-accompaniment while also playing the melody of the tune. Seth likes to play acoustically, making use of an Edison phonograph cylinder for amplification, and accompanying himself using bones and other instruments, and he’s recently acquired the Masterharp USA tuning table company.

Seth plays with The Ozark Highballers band and releases regular videos to his YouTube channel of his playing.

Links:

Contact Seth:
seth.shumate@googlemail.com

Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/seth-shumate

Facebook group:
Harmonica Country, Bluegrass, Rock & Celtic

Videos:
YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrSFmT4zFksy1YRKGVJSfhg

Seth playing Turkey In The Straw with Edison Horn:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s9obWRYkEI

Tupelo Blues played with bones:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrSFmT4zFksy1YRKGVJSfhg

Dave Rice Old Timey album:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9g13kPvKhaMrGaHI8RdBYWvmWOHzeV75

Seth YouTube Interview and playing:
https://youtu.be/1As3CbgL9ug

Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
--------------------------------
Blue Moon Harmonicas: https://bluemoonharmonicas.com

Support the show

01:32 - Seth is originally from Arkansas, lived in Chicago and moved to Tennessee two years back, where there is a great Old Timey scene for Seth to join

02:08 - Seth mainly plays Old Timey music, and also some pre-war harmonica

02:25 - Similarities between old-timey and pre-war harmonica, which are both acoustic styles

03:20 - First song Seth learned on harmonica was the ‘Simple Gifts’ folk song

03:35 - Returned to harmonica when played in a folk/boogie/rock band, in which he played harmonica through a megaphone, and some keyboards

04:10 - Learnt some harmonica from Adam Gussow’s YouTube videos

04:25 - Friend introduced Seth to Bluegrass and Old Timey music

04:53 - How well suited the harmonica is to play traditional forms of music

05:22 - Doesn’t play the 3 hole draw bend, going up to the 6 draw using tongue switching

05:41 - Old Time music is generally played in 1st position on the diatonic with very little improvisation

06:26 - Neil plays some Old Time music due to availability of sessions near where he lives and the countries Seth has traveled to play Old Time music

07:19 - Origins of Old Time music

08:22 - Seth started learning Old Time music from the albums of people he heard playing the music

08:50 - Mark Graham and Dave Rice are two Old Timey players who influenced Seth

10:04 - Learns Old Time music by ear

10:19 - How to control breathe with fiddle tunes and pre-war blues songs

11:51 - Old Time music tunes are usually in 1st position with some songs in 2nd position

12:48 - Dr Humphrey Bate

13:54 - Great grandmother played the Quill, a reed instrument which is a precursor to the harmonica and the history of Quill playing

15:36 - Quill is a reed plant

16:59 - Seth’s pre-war harmonica playing was inspired by the Harmonica Masters album

18:11 - Freeman Stowers Medley of Blues song and barnyard imitations

19:13 - Seth has written the ‘Old Time Harmonica Booklet’

20:07 - How harmonica became an accepted instrument in Old Time music

20:44 - 1924 was a breakout year for harmonica, including Henry Whitter and the Crook brothers

21:19 - First harmonica recording by an African American is the unfortunately named ‘Dat Mouth Organ Coon’ by Pete Hampton

22:26 - First reference Seth found to a fox chase was from 1880

23:15 - Early recordings were mainly 1st position diatonic, with some chromatic and tremolo

24:01 - Techniques used for Old Time harmonica style, including rhythmical accompaniments

26:05 - Kyle Wooton was a great rhythmical harmonica player from the 1930s

26:30 - Example of Seth playing rhythm behind a fiddle player

27:15 - Example of machine gun rhythm by Bob Cranford of the Red Fox Chasers

27:42 - Playing a drone note on one harmonica with the nose and the melody on a harmonica in the mouth and some of the players who have done this (including Seth)

28:23 - Can use two draw / three blow in cross harp to also get a drone

28:47 - Seth has also written an article called ‘One In Every Pocket’, where Seth looked at newspaper archives to find the early history of the harmonica from around 1850

29:34 - First newspaper report of a harmonica concert in the US was in 1828

30:11 - First harmonica recordings are probably on home wax cylinders from the late 1800s

30:32 - Seth also writes how the first time African Americans appeared on screen, one of them was playing a harmonica

31:11 - Seth joined an Old Time duo after he saw them, learned their songs and then asked to join the band

31:51 - Also in a band called The Ozark Highballers, with a couple of albums released

32:43 - Song Gastonia Gallop is an example of an early rag song on harmonica

33:55 - Gwen Foster played ragtime with syncopated back-up, single note driven

34:59 - Approach to playing solo on harmonica in these early styles

36:03 - Seth works up his solo pieces so he plays them mostly the same each time, with some subtle differences

37:20 - Plays the harmonica on a rack with a uke banjo

37:35 - Also plays harmonica with the bones rhythm percussion instrument in one hand, piano in the other hand

38:32 - Plays the harmonica through an Edison cylinder phonograph horn replica for acoustic amplification

39:52 - DeFord Bailey also played with a metal megaphone device

40:28 - Seth may make some videos on using the Edison horn with harmonica and may sell some of them

40:56 - Changes tone of harmonica to make it sound ‘older’

42:08 - Ten minute question focused on people interested in playing Old Time music

43:18 - Good Facebook group: Bluegrass, Old Time and Country harmonica and books from Glenn Weiser

43:38 - Popularity of playing tunes on the harmonica is because it suits the instrument well, and Seth thinks it works well if you’re lazy!

44:03 - Seth uses standard tunings when he plays Old Time, moving up an octave to get the sixth note from the scale

44:42 - Hasn’t tried a Paddy Richter, although that is the tuning Neil uses for tunes

45:25 - Doesn’t play any chromatic harmonica

45:52 - Seth has taught Old Time sessions at SPAH and other harmonica festivals

46:10 - Seth Joe Filisko when he lived in Chicago

46:29 - Joe Filisko, James Conway and Andrew Larson are the three people Seth knows who can do the rapid Gwen Foster tongue trill

47:01 - Has just purchased the Masterharp USA tuning table company and is thinking of going into business using it

48:49 - Is considering making the tuning tables commercially available

49:24 - Cost of the tuning table could be around $400

50:00 - Tuning table currently only takes diatonic reed plates but considering adding chromatic

50:31 - Harmonica of choice is currently the Hohner Rocket Amp

51:14 - Positions: mainly 1st, some 2nd, sometimes 3rd

52:12 - Overblows: doesn’t use them

52:21 - Embouchre

52:46 - Amps: plays through a vocal mic, playing off it so can use hand vibrato

53:16 - Has owned a Green Bullet in the past and a Fender Blues Junior amp, but it was too loud for practising

53:40 - Doesn’t use any effects: can get reverb using hands and reverb would muddy sound when playing a lot of rhythm

54:09 - Recording

55:08 - Future plans

56:20 - Teaching plans at festivals and offers a free old time teaching lesson online

WEBVTT

00:00:00.609 --> 00:00:02.431
Seth Shumate joins me on episode 114.

00:00:03.972 --> 00:00:09.298
Seth is an old-timey and pre-war harmonica player originally from Arkansas, now living in Tennessee.

00:00:10.077 --> 00:00:28.634
Seth has deeply researched the early history of the harmonica and has written an old-time harmonica handbook which contains lots of great information as well as techniques on how to play authentic old-timey harmonica using various tongue-blocking techniques to add percussive rhythm and to provide self-accomplishment while also playing the melody of the tune.

00:00:28.673 --> 00:00:41.932
Seth likes to play acoustic making use of an Edison phonograph cylinder for amplification and accompanying himself using bones and other instruments, and he's recently acquired the Master Harp USA tuning table company.

00:00:42.552 --> 00:00:48.460
Seth plays with the Ozark Highballers band and releases regular updates to his YouTube channel of his playing.

00:00:49.537 --> 00:00:52.067
This podcast is sponsored by Seidel Harmonicas.

00:00:52.487 --> 00:01:01.841
Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Seidel Harmonicas.

00:01:25.186 --> 00:01:27.227
Hello, Seth Shoemate, and welcome to the podcast.

00:01:28.209 --> 00:01:28.649
Hi, Neil.

00:01:28.668 --> 00:01:29.129
How's it going?

00:01:29.811 --> 00:01:30.631
It's great, thanks.

00:01:30.891 --> 00:01:31.893
Great to have you on.

00:01:31.972 --> 00:01:37.697
So you're talking to us from Chicago, but you're originally from Arkansas, is that right?

00:01:38.338 --> 00:01:40.320
Actually, I've moved to Middle Tennessee.

00:01:40.361 --> 00:01:42.403
Now I live in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

00:01:42.442 --> 00:01:44.945
So what's the music scene like in Tennessee?

00:01:45.665 --> 00:01:49.349
Well, for the old-time fiddle music that I play, it's pretty much perfect.

00:01:49.430 --> 00:01:53.334
I could play several times a week with people that play similar music.

00:01:53.825 --> 00:01:55.349
Yeah, that's brilliant because I was going to make that point.

00:01:55.388 --> 00:02:00.418
Obviously, you were living in Chicago where obviously, you know, blues was the home of the blues.

00:02:00.519 --> 00:02:06.251
So as you don't play blues harmonica as such, then yeah, Tennessee is a much better place for you.

00:02:06.290 --> 00:02:07.933
That's right.

00:02:08.129 --> 00:02:13.215
So you're largely an old-timey harmonica player, yes, playing old-timey style music?

00:02:13.855 --> 00:02:14.937
Absolutely, yeah.

00:02:14.977 --> 00:02:17.479
This will be like fiddle, traditional fiddle music.

00:02:17.819 --> 00:02:24.627
But then I also dabble in the pre-war blues types of harmonica solo pieces.

00:02:24.647 --> 00:02:28.731
So there's maybe some similarities between those two styles, would you say?

00:02:28.812 --> 00:02:33.717
Maybe originated around the same time, the pre-war and the old-timey, would you say?

00:02:33.758 --> 00:02:34.078
Yeah.

00:02:34.370 --> 00:02:35.371
Yeah, absolutely.

00:02:35.411 --> 00:02:48.383
These are precursors to sort of microphoned band ensembles that would have a good sound on stage, but if you were to make them acoustic, maybe certain instrumentation wouldn't be possible.

00:02:48.424 --> 00:02:57.712
So jug band music, pre-blues, early blues, and fiddle music, some proto-jazz type things.

00:02:57.772 --> 00:03:02.497
These are the types of things I like to play that sort of lend themselves to acoustic playing.

00:03:02.849 --> 00:03:17.483
sure so when you got started did you start playing old-timey music to begin with you know and did that mean that your influences are maybe a little bit different than you know you didn't listen to all the classic blues players say from the sort of 1950s onwards did you not

00:03:18.043 --> 00:03:34.978
well i think at the beginning i was pretty open uh my first harmonica was when i was in seventh grade and the first tune i learned on there was that melody simple gifts you may have heard it in some ken burns documentaries and i think it was like the the theme song to the Quakers or something like that.

00:03:35.438 --> 00:03:47.931
But then, you know, after I kind of got a basic understanding of the harmonica at that time, I put it down and didn't return to it until I was in sort of a folk boogie rock band in college called the Damn Bullets.

00:03:48.592 --> 00:03:51.855
I've, you know, I found that the harmonica was pretty good with that music.

00:03:52.377 --> 00:03:55.479
It had a megaphone on stage, so I wouldn't play it through a microphone.

00:03:55.539 --> 00:04:01.627
I would just play it through a megaphone, and these were kind of like bar gigs where the crowd would really respond to that quite well.

00:04:02.127 --> 00:04:03.429
But I would also be playing the keyboard

00:04:03.868 --> 00:04:08.895
okay so you were kind of playing more bluesy poppy rock stuff to begin with were you with this band

00:04:09.455 --> 00:04:35.223
yeah and then and then i went to grad school so i left central arkansas and went up to fayetteville for grad school and and i was sitting in my room a lot studying and and procrastinating as one would do that's where i came across adam gusso's stuff and then i had a friend jonathan trewick that lived in the area we had been going to school together since third grade and and he introduced me to sort of a bluegrass jam.

00:04:35.824 --> 00:04:46.759
And then one day I was walking by a pizza shop, and they had an outdoor concert, and it was old-time music, and I thought that that sounded really refreshing compared to those more modern styles of music.

00:04:47.300 --> 00:04:50.704
So then I started to put some effort into learning that style.

00:04:51.386 --> 00:04:53.168
Plus, it's a lot easier to play than bluegrass.

00:04:53.889 --> 00:05:02.964
Yeah, so in playing this more traditional music, The type of music on the diatonic has become pretty popular over the last number of years.

00:05:03.887 --> 00:05:08.836
People like to play Irish fiddle tunes, old-timey, say some bluegrass.

00:05:09.197 --> 00:05:13.285
How well do you think the harmonica fits into that setting?

00:05:13.889 --> 00:05:49.201
yeah for old time music it's perfect I mean pretty much every tune the harmonica can be used for it with ease you know I avoid the three hole draw bend and I'll just shoot up an octave to keep up with the melody in those cases and if I run out of notes at the top end I'll just go back down an octave because I'm doing tongue blocking the whole time I can switch the sides of my mouth that emphasize the melody notes And so, you know, old time music, maybe there's some where I need two harmonicas for it, but pretty much every tune is just a one harmonica tune.

00:05:49.781 --> 00:05:54.067
Mostly straight harp, but some cross harp, quote unquote, modal tunes as well.

00:05:54.987 --> 00:05:57.891
Very little in the way of improvisation is needed.

00:05:58.271 --> 00:06:05.737
So you learn the melody and you've got it, you know, pretty much for the rest of your life and Whenever it comes up again, you're ready to play.

00:06:06.098 --> 00:06:15.132
And it's kind of communal playing where everyone plays the melody all at the same time, just like the string bands of the 1920s and 30s would have been doing.

00:06:27.012 --> 00:06:33.934
I mean, I play some old-timey music myself because it happens to be that Some of the sessions where I live, you know, they play old-timey music.

00:06:33.994 --> 00:06:35.576
So I think that helps, right?

00:06:35.615 --> 00:06:39.862
Like you said, you saw somebody playing it and you went and played along, you know, joined in.

00:06:39.901 --> 00:06:42.024
So that, you know, will draw people in, right?

00:06:42.064 --> 00:06:48.754
But in the UK, we've got a sort of organization called the Friends of American Old-Time Music and Dance, FALTMAT.

00:06:49.475 --> 00:06:50.795
So they have a festival over here.

00:06:50.877 --> 00:06:57.024
And so, yes, there is quite a scene, would you believe it, here in the UK of old-timey music as well.

00:06:57.125 --> 00:07:00.810
Are you aware of the popularity of old-timey music in other countries?

00:07:01.922 --> 00:07:03.043
Oh, yeah, absolutely.

00:07:03.062 --> 00:07:06.305
And that's one of the things I like about it, too, because I travel around quite a bit.

00:07:06.706 --> 00:07:07.726
So I've been to Berlin.

00:07:07.947 --> 00:07:09.908
You know, there are people that play old time music there.

00:07:10.369 --> 00:07:11.470
London, Paris.

00:07:11.911 --> 00:07:13.331
I lived in Lebanon for two years.

00:07:13.451 --> 00:07:18.096
There wasn't a group there that played, but I got a lot of practice time in there.

00:07:18.475 --> 00:07:19.737
Yeah, so it's definitely out there.

00:07:19.757 --> 00:07:31.887
And I think in many ways, you know, old timey comes from, you know, European songs or English, Irish, Scottish songs and other areas as well as a sort of, and then it was kind of Americanized, right, and turned into a sort of Americanized.

00:07:31.887 --> 00:07:33.970
form of folk music.

00:07:34.069 --> 00:07:37.934
Is that how you'd describe, is that an accurate description of old-timey music?

00:07:38.235 --> 00:07:49.105
Yeah, and I think, well, a lot of it kind of mixed with African-American music and ragtime and sort of jazz and maybe a little, there's a little bit of swing to some of the music.

00:07:49.646 --> 00:07:55.293
It's not overly swung, but certainly different fiddle players might swing the music a little bit more than others.

00:07:56.014 --> 00:08:13.209
In Missouri, where I have friends that play a lot in Arkansas, they have more of a straight straight ahead kind of in time melody that's driven more by the rhythm sections and it's more melody focused than raggy or fiddle rags or things like that.

00:08:13.569 --> 00:08:35.288
yeah so quite a lot of variety to it so we'll get into some of the great techniques that can be used on harmonica for it shortly but just before that so when you started learning it you joined in a jam so how did you start learning the music take it you didn't have too many harmonica players to listen to so were you picking up from fiddle players or elsewhere

00:08:35.328 --> 00:08:45.118
well the people that I had heard play I got in touch with them and got their CDs and one of them had some kind of hand issues.

00:08:45.177 --> 00:08:49.722
He used to be a mandolin player, so he kind of got into the harmonica a little bit before he got better.

00:08:49.743 --> 00:08:57.510
And he had come across Mark Graham, who's a Pacific Northwest old-time harmonica player, and also Dave Rice.

00:08:57.870 --> 00:09:04.118
So he had given me some of their recorded material, and I sought out the rest of it as well.

00:09:04.177 --> 00:09:07.642
So I did get to hear some styles of harmonica.

00:09:07.822 --> 00:09:21.038
I think Dave Rice and Mark Graham have really well-contrasted styles, where Mark Graham, certainly he does tongue blocking, but he emphasizes single notes and maybe more invention on the melody.

00:09:35.557 --> 00:09:46.524
And then Dave Rice's is really a kind of a classical string band harmonica player, with the rhythms being the more interesting part of the playing.

00:10:00.833 --> 00:10:04.379
So yeah, as you said, two great harmonica players to learn some techniques from.

00:10:04.659 --> 00:10:09.847
So were you learning all by ear or did you use some written scores to learn the tunes?

00:10:09.927 --> 00:10:11.791
It's largely an oral tradition.

00:10:12.832 --> 00:10:14.115
Yeah, it was all by ear.

00:10:14.495 --> 00:10:18.461
So I would just sit down with their CDs and learn the songs.

00:10:19.243 --> 00:10:23.830
And at first it was kind of hard to learn fiddle tunes because you kind of run out of breath.

00:10:24.211 --> 00:10:30.801
So maybe the first time I learned a fiddle tune from a fiddle player named Pete Howard was a tune called Sally Went a-Huntin'.

00:10:31.342 --> 00:10:35.198
I could only play it maybe once, once and a half times through.

00:10:36.097 --> 00:10:43.684
before i would run out of breath but then then i you know kind of naturally started to learn how to breathe out of my nose at the same time and i haven't run out of breath since

00:10:44.745 --> 00:11:06.443
well i think that's a good point about playing tunes isn't it as opposed to blues where there are you know you can definitely take more natural stops and rests whereas with tunes you know quite often they're pretty relentless right and you don't often get much of a break so you've got to find the places to take the gap so uh you know so how did you approach that is it as you say a case of learning to control the breathing through the through the nose and and that's of thing

00:11:06.543 --> 00:11:30.346
yeah with with straight harp it's more uh out breath but then there there's always like a g chord or something or an f chord where you're gonna have to breathe in sometimes and so then you could take take extra breath in there by opening up the nose and and doing it that way and likewise if you do the pre-war blues type stuff a lot of that's some pretty draw heavy pieces like d ford bailey's john henry is really draw heavy

00:11:33.953 --> 00:11:43.250
and

00:11:43.269 --> 00:11:51.024
so there's really only a couple spots where you can relieve the pressure and breathe out through the nose at very certain particular spots

00:11:51.764 --> 00:11:56.573
yeah so as you mentioned there all time he tends to be in first position most of the time yeah

00:11:56.865 --> 00:12:05.518
Yes, certainly there are a couple of examples of cross-harp playing, like Pete Seeger got Sonny Terry to do a couple of Creek things, and he would do cross-harp.

00:12:17.335 --> 00:12:19.857
Then there was Stovepipe No.

00:12:19.878 --> 00:12:24.985
1, I think, that would do cross-harp and some different positions when he played.

00:12:26.177 --> 00:12:34.399
And D4 Bailey, when he played things that were more like fiddle tunes, it would be straight harp, or Ain't Gonna Rain No More, pop tunes type things, it would be straight harp.

00:12:35.480 --> 00:12:47.991
Herman Crick was pretty much straight harp, and then when he would play something like a hymn, like Swing Low, Sweet Chariot or something, he would play that cross harp because it would give a little bit more emotion to it.

00:12:48.011 --> 00:12:49.513
And then Dr.

00:12:49.552 --> 00:12:53.056
Humphrey Bate, I think all of his recordings were straight harp.

00:13:09.692 --> 00:13:11.033
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00:13:52.833 --> 00:14:03.562
So a really interesting thing is that your great-grandmother played the quills, which is a reed instrument, which has got maybe like a precursor to the harmonica.

00:14:03.783 --> 00:14:10.649
So is this something that you heard, or at least you were aware that she played these quills, and did that turn you on a little bit to the harmonica?

00:14:11.309 --> 00:14:15.192
Yeah, she was still around and kicking when I was a kid, and she would play them.

00:14:15.374 --> 00:14:22.799
And then she also had harmonicas, and she played the harmonicas to kind of church hymn songs, but straight harp style.

00:14:22.799 --> 00:14:25.445
Her quills were a set of two.

00:14:25.465 --> 00:14:29.192
I think I've counted maybe six people total.

00:14:29.874 --> 00:14:34.543
One of them is debatable whether it was quills or not that were recorded playing the quills.

00:14:34.663 --> 00:14:40.094
And her great uncle, who was born maybe in the 1860s or so, played them.

00:14:40.114 --> 00:14:43.321
I don't know where he got them from, you know, because...

00:14:44.001 --> 00:14:55.312
The historical record points to the African-American community as a place where the quills was really used, sort of like at Saturday night dances and things, there would be a quills player.

00:14:55.371 --> 00:15:01.037
And so the WPA back in the 1930s went around and interviewed former enslaved people.

00:15:01.076 --> 00:15:05.961
And one of the things they would talk on is like, what did you do for recreation?

00:15:06.260 --> 00:15:08.123
And several of them talked about the quills.

00:15:08.222 --> 00:15:13.427
And one of them in particular said that he could blow the quills harder than anybody.

00:15:13.967 --> 00:15:24.097
that the fiddle player would put his fiddle down when he blew the quills for the dances, and that all the ladies in the crowd would just pay attention to him when he was playing the quills.

00:15:24.558 --> 00:15:25.720
So it was kind of a funny story.

00:15:26.221 --> 00:15:35.929
So it used to be a lot more popular, but then I think in the 1870s or so, German manufacturing became a little bit more streamlined, and the harmonica took over around that time.

00:15:36.630 --> 00:15:42.937
Was the quill, was it a plant, or was it something man-made, like a reed instrument man-made, or...?

00:15:43.714 --> 00:15:47.317
Yeah, so it's just like you go to a cane break near a river.

00:15:47.356 --> 00:15:49.458
It's something that looks like bamboo.

00:15:50.220 --> 00:15:57.666
You take one of the knuckles, and you cut it off right below that, and then you cut off the top end so that it's open and it's hollow inside.

00:15:57.706 --> 00:16:02.009
You'll just put it on your bottom lip and kind of blow in a downward direction.

00:16:02.049 --> 00:16:07.514
It'll make a sound, and you can put a little water in there to tighten it up a little bit to make it louder.

00:16:08.495 --> 00:16:09.976
And so my great-grandma would play.

00:16:10.476 --> 00:16:37.375
She had two quills and her uncle as well just played with two quills and then they would holler the notes in between the quills notes because the quills like a harmonica but even more so is kind of a limited instrument where you only have a certain number of notes that you can access.

00:16:37.895 --> 00:16:46.048
So if you want to make it more interesting, you would hoop and holler between that, which could be a precursor to those Foxchase type of harmonica tunes.

00:16:46.570 --> 00:16:48.753
Definitely, yeah, there's the big similarity there, isn't there?

00:16:48.773 --> 00:16:50.836
But it's only on the blow, I take it, these...

00:16:51.357 --> 00:16:51.717
That's right.

00:16:52.298 --> 00:16:56.947
Yeah, and did they have what sort of different length ones to get different notes, so they were actually tuned to musical notes?

00:16:57.748 --> 00:16:58.789
Yeah, uh-huh, that's right.

00:16:59.361 --> 00:17:03.325
So what about where your pre-war harmonica playing came in?

00:17:03.384 --> 00:17:07.169
Did you do that before you started playing old-timey stuff, you know, together?

00:17:08.069 --> 00:17:08.690
How did that come in?

00:17:09.611 --> 00:17:20.500
Well, so right before I got into old-time stuff, I had done a little bit of, you know, dabbled into playing bluegrass-type melodies, which bluegrass came from old-time music directly.

00:17:20.539 --> 00:17:27.226
And then also, like I said, looking at videos on the Internet and buying CD compilations.

00:17:27.906 --> 00:17:30.790
And so I was familiar with the cross-harp position.

00:17:31.592 --> 00:17:41.127
Really what happened was I was at a Hastings music store, and this is one of these places where they sell those flashy discs that you used to put in cars and listen to music.

00:17:42.190 --> 00:17:46.297
And I found the Harmonica Masters CD, and that just blew my mind.

00:17:47.009 --> 00:17:51.713
So that had pre-war blues type things from D.

00:17:51.733 --> 00:18:02.462
Ford Bailey and also Gwen Foster's otherworldly harmonica playing and other string band type music and really early jazz type music as well.

00:18:02.884 --> 00:18:04.325
But all harmonica focused.

00:18:04.965 --> 00:18:06.086
So yeah, that sort of turned you on.

00:18:06.126 --> 00:18:08.969
You started learning some of that pre-war stuff off there.

00:18:09.048 --> 00:18:10.790
Any particular piece grab you off that album?

00:18:11.451 --> 00:18:15.994
The one I've been working on a little bit lately is Freeman Stower's Medley of Blues.

00:18:16.976 --> 00:18:35.855
So this is kind of three blues melodies that he had tied together.

00:18:35.895 --> 00:18:37.738
He's a pretty interesting character.

00:18:37.758 --> 00:18:41.041
He was sponsored by Purina.

00:18:41.082 --> 00:18:43.704
His stage name was Checkerboard Sam.

00:18:44.746 --> 00:18:47.388
You know, after he had recorded these pieces in the 20s.

00:18:48.150 --> 00:18:55.885
Purina would have him go around and do barnyard imitations, and I think he had a 78 that had barnyard imitations called Sunrise on the Farm or something like that.

00:18:56.567 --> 00:18:57.528
He moved up to the St.

00:18:57.568 --> 00:19:13.063
Louis area and would play on Purina's radio station doing animal imitations vocally, but he was also an amazing harmonica player, so that medley of the blues is probably one of my favorite things to play right now from the cross-harp styles.

00:19:13.804 --> 00:19:21.570
With your interest in old-timey and pre-war, you've written a mini-booklet, would you call it, called an old-timey handbook.

00:19:21.990 --> 00:19:27.075
It talks about the history of old-timey music and then talks through some of the players and some of the techniques.

00:19:27.115 --> 00:19:30.498
So is this available, this handbook, for people to read?

00:19:30.538 --> 00:19:35.984
It's definitely an interesting reading and a great insight out to play some of the techniques in old-time music.

00:19:36.726 --> 00:19:37.847
Yeah, I'll just send it to anyone

00:19:37.867 --> 00:19:39.589
that is interested.

00:19:39.911 --> 00:19:53.189
I actually originally made it because Joe Felisco had me out to do his teach-in at the SPA conference, and so I thought I would take it seriously and put something together and put my thoughts together about what is old-time harmonica.

00:19:53.922 --> 00:20:21.885
yeah no it's really interesting and we'll run through some of the content of that briefly and then people obviously can contact you directly by your website and they can get hold of you yeah so you talk about the history of old time music we've touched on that a little bit but it's interesting as how the harmonica became a kind of accepted instrument in old time you know you'd usually have the sort of fiddle banjo guitar and then the harmonica was that it was quite a you know common to see harmonica players in old timey bands then was it in the 1930s

00:20:22.787 --> 00:20:25.209
yeah absolutely You know, take a look at R.

00:20:25.950 --> 00:20:29.534
Crumb's drawings of these early string bands.

00:20:29.913 --> 00:20:36.441
You know, quite a few of them either had harmonicas in those drawings or they had harmonicas on some of their recordings.

00:20:37.082 --> 00:20:39.324
You know, anybody from the Scale Lickers to Dr.

00:20:39.384 --> 00:20:41.247
Humphrey Bate and his Possum Hunters.

00:20:41.846 --> 00:20:43.909
You know, really the stars of early country music.

00:20:43.929 --> 00:20:49.575
1924 was kind of a breakout year for the guitar slash harmonica in Iraq.

00:20:50.215 --> 00:20:53.539
Singer-songwriter types like Vernon Dalhart...

00:20:53.839 --> 00:20:56.787
Ernest Thompson, Ernest Stoneman, and Henry Witter.

00:20:57.347 --> 00:21:01.196
Those are some of the earliest kind of country music examples.

00:21:01.637 --> 00:21:03.702
You know, kind of always had a harmonica with them.

00:21:04.183 --> 00:21:11.060
And then on the Grand Ole Opry on day one, they had four harmonica players, two of which were Herman Crook and his brother Matthew.

00:21:12.289 --> 00:21:18.617
Yeah, so some great history there, and you picked out some of the interesting firsts in harmonica recordings.

00:21:18.698 --> 00:21:27.808
So the first commercial harmonica recording by an African-American is the somewhat unfortunately named Dat Mouth Organ Coon by Pete Hampton.

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.000
.

00:22:01.442 --> 00:22:04.987
fascinating to hear that and i think that's a uh first position one isn't it

00:22:06.229 --> 00:22:32.866
uh yeah but he does he does bend some notes in there so a lot of people would say that henry widder was the first person to bend a note but i think uh it's pretty clear that pete hampton was bending notes in there too but he was also playing you know a fiddle tune a fox chase kind of a train kind of sounding song and all of these things definitely existed you know my first reference to a that I found for kind of a fox chase, and it was actually kind of a prisoner escape chase.

00:22:34.208 --> 00:22:37.030
It was from 1880 in Memphis.

00:22:37.250 --> 00:22:43.276
Some guy that was in the jail there was playing it for people, and a journalist passed by and kind of wrote about it.

00:22:44.096 --> 00:22:51.384
Great, but I think I read in this handbook of yours that Henry Whitter did record the first fox chase, at least, you know, to be recorded.

00:22:51.403 --> 00:22:52.144
Is that right?

00:22:52.585 --> 00:22:57.349
Yeah, it was, you know, sort of a dedicated solo piece that was a fox chase.

00:23:12.417 --> 00:23:14.223
Yeah, so there's this great history in here.

00:23:14.605 --> 00:23:24.497
And back then in these early songs, certainly the old time, it's mainly diatonic harmonica being used, yeah, sometimes a little tremolo, but it's mainly diatonic in first position, as we mentioned earlier.

00:23:25.057 --> 00:23:46.592
yeah for you know for the first 1920s and 30s i guess it was you know there were those uh harmonica bands they would use the more extravagant harmonicas like chromatics and whatnot but really for the more simple kind of old-time music i think pretty much ernest thompson was the one that used the the tremolo along with his guitar playing and singing.

00:23:47.432 --> 00:23:52.597
Most of the other ones, almost all of them were diatonic harmonicas, Richter tuned.

00:23:53.417 --> 00:23:53.618
Great.

00:23:53.638 --> 00:24:01.505
So as well as the, you know, the history of old time, you know, lots of the players and you mentioned some of the more modern players like Mark Graham and Dave Rice.

00:24:01.945 --> 00:24:20.804
You go into how you get this, you know, kind of combination of playing rhythm and playing melody notes together by doing octaves and double stops and, you So you've got sort of diagrams of how to do that, which is great because that's a really unique approach to this style of harmonica playing, isn't it?

00:24:20.943 --> 00:24:24.988
That you get this kind of rhythmical accompaniment while you're playing a melody.

00:24:25.048 --> 00:24:26.229
So, you know, you go in.

00:24:26.269 --> 00:24:29.051
So tell us about some of those approaches to play that style.

00:24:29.373 --> 00:24:36.820
Yeah, so, you know, when I'm playing, I'm playing with a banjo player, a guitar player, and then sort of I'm in the register of the fiddle player.

00:24:37.401 --> 00:24:41.184
But the fiddle is like a 90 decibel instrument and the harmonica is around 80.

00:24:41.826 --> 00:24:53.818
So if I were just playing the melody note It would be hard to distinguish from what the fiddle player is doing, unless I were playing non-melody notes, if I were trying to accompany it in a different way, which sometimes I'll do.

00:24:54.159 --> 00:25:00.445
But if I really want to kind of drive this fiddle breakdown, what I'll do is have like 16th note rhythms.

00:25:00.905 --> 00:25:08.334
It's similar to sawing on the fiddle, but the harmonica is kind of a nasty sounding device, you know, with overtones and whatnot.

00:25:08.513 --> 00:25:11.837
And it's kind of a percussive instrument in that way as well.

00:25:11.877 --> 00:25:48.897
And then when you breathe in, you're not even playing the the right chord it's it's a you know a minor chord oftentimes or if you breathe in on the six and seven draw that's the the tones of the of the amber alert when a kid goes missing in in the u.s if you would just breathe in on those two go bop bop bop then you'll figure out where they got those tones from if you're kind of doing that in a rhythmic pattern and i call this the out in out out pattern then you can behind the melody of the fiddle you can create a bass layer in tech of a really machine gun kind of rhythm that you can do for the entire fiddle tune.

00:25:49.057 --> 00:25:55.944
Obviously, fiddle tunes, they have melodies for a reason, and those melodies have certain characteristics, so sometimes it's good to back off of it.

00:25:56.326 --> 00:26:04.493
But if you want to really kind of create a texture along with the fiddle, which is a louder instrument, then these are some of the patterns that I like to use.

00:26:04.694 --> 00:26:15.906
And then there's a great rhythmic harmonica player from the early 1930s, Kyle Wooten, who has some more kind of advanced ideas where you won't start on the melody note.

00:26:15.987 --> 00:26:21.972
You'll breathe in and then do this out, out, out, out, kind of 16th note machine gun rhythm.

00:26:22.453 --> 00:26:26.218
And that kind of syncopates the melody around whatever the fiddle player would be doing.

00:26:26.558 --> 00:26:29.481
So there are different ways to dance around the melody.

00:26:30.102 --> 00:26:30.762
It was interesting.

00:26:31.104 --> 00:26:34.567
I was checking out on your videos where you're playing with a fiddle player.

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.000
.

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.000
.

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.000
.

00:26:43.170 --> 00:26:48.413
Thank you.

00:26:51.394 --> 00:26:57.538
You're able to play behind the fiddle player, you're putting bits of melody in, but it works really effectively with just the harmonica and the fiddle, I think, like that.

00:26:57.618 --> 00:27:01.102
And that's an approach you're trying to get, yeah, so you're kind of accompanying the fiddle player.

00:27:01.563 --> 00:27:08.449
Yeah, and it's hard to hear sometimes, but most of the time I'm playing even all the melody notes as well.

00:27:08.808 --> 00:27:09.108
Yeah.

00:27:09.128 --> 00:27:15.335
But since the fiddle player's playing the melody notes and it's louder in general, the texture is what comes out more than anything.

00:27:15.855 --> 00:27:21.259
And a good example of this from history is the Red Fox Chasers, Mississippi Sawyer.

00:27:21.359 --> 00:27:28.176
which is a really simple tune but he he does do that machine gun type rhythm and that that harmonica player's name was bob cranford

00:27:43.009 --> 00:27:51.145
Another really interesting thing to pick out from this old-timey handbook is you talk about how people would play a drone on the harmonica using their nose.

00:27:51.686 --> 00:28:00.304
So they would be playing two harmonicas, and one of them they'd be playing just a single note, a drone note with their nose right, and then playing sort of melodically with their mouth.

00:28:00.443 --> 00:28:02.709
Is that something you've ever attempted yourself?

00:28:03.190 --> 00:28:03.230
No.

00:28:03.490 --> 00:28:03.990
Actually, I

00:28:04.070 --> 00:28:09.795
did do that, and then later I found out that Noah Lewis would play through his nose and mouth.

00:28:09.855 --> 00:28:19.703
And actually, Pete Hampton, the guy that recorded in 1903, at the very end of the thing, he plays the harmonica through his nose and whistles at the same time.

00:28:19.804 --> 00:28:22.926
So the nose can be a very useful little thing.

00:28:22.967 --> 00:28:29.432
But if you play cross-harp, you can drone away on the 2-3 combination while you're playing Amazing Grace or something.

00:28:29.853 --> 00:28:30.093
Yeah,

00:28:30.133 --> 00:28:33.455
but certainly something visually interesting for the audience to play.

00:28:33.455 --> 00:28:38.579
play your harmonica through your nose at the same time so yeah I've never I've seen it done but I've never actually tried it yes and maybe

00:28:39.060 --> 00:28:45.686
yeah there's definitely some shock factor there and yeah you know I tell them I have a dedicated nose harmonica but I don't think they believe me

00:28:46.346 --> 00:29:06.830
yeah as well as the the old timey handbook you've written an article called one in every pocket and this is where you look in to the history of the harmonica and some notable players and again some of the some of the early stuff but really going back to sort of like the mid 1800s and you know really looking at the early days of harmonicas of players of many of which you know we've probably never heard of right yeah

00:29:06.871 --> 00:29:33.405
definitely never heard of and never heard even no recordings yeah yeah I really dug around in the harmonica archives I guess newspapers.com have digitized hundreds of millions of pages of newspapers so you can really select by category by state by date and so I went through decade by decade just seeing what was going on in the world of harmonica going through thousands and thousands and thousands of these these early articles and

00:29:34.210 --> 00:29:35.651
This is in the US, right?

00:29:35.891 --> 00:29:41.675
So when did the harmonica first come to the US and when did you start seeing players playing it?

00:29:42.217 --> 00:29:46.401
The first reference to a concert that I saw in America was in 1828.

00:29:47.141 --> 00:29:50.183
So this is just a few years after its supposed invention.

00:29:50.644 --> 00:29:54.928
And it was a pair of harmonica players that gave a concert in New York City, I think.

00:29:55.428 --> 00:29:56.249
And they were from Munich.

00:29:56.789 --> 00:29:57.049
Right.

00:29:57.130 --> 00:29:59.991
And like you say, obviously we've got no recordings of these guys.

00:30:00.011 --> 00:30:02.354
So that's probably why we don't know these people, right?

00:30:02.394 --> 00:30:11.344
Because we tend to hear the first recordings, I'm not aware of those, but these people who played it for quite a long time before we were getting recordings.

00:30:11.443 --> 00:30:13.025
I mean, when was the first recording?

00:30:13.046 --> 00:30:17.009
We're talking the early 1920s a lot of the time on recordings, aren't we?

00:30:17.190 --> 00:30:25.338
Yeah, there are probably examples of amateur players that do those home wax cylinder recordings from the late 1800s.

00:30:25.798 --> 00:30:28.122
These aren't like showpiece type of recordings.

00:30:28.362 --> 00:30:31.986
So the best recording was that first Pete Hampton thing, so far as I know.

00:30:32.321 --> 00:30:43.791
And then another really interesting fact in this paper is that the first harmonica appeared in the moving pictures, as they call it, in the passing show in 1894.

00:30:44.512 --> 00:30:46.974
And this was being played by African-Americans.

00:30:47.055 --> 00:30:50.176
And so I think there's three African-Americans dancing and one of them is playing the harmonica.

00:30:50.518 --> 00:30:55.221
So the first time we saw an African-American on screen, they were playing the harmonica, right?

00:30:55.642 --> 00:30:58.044
Yeah, I think that's historically accurate.

00:30:58.325 --> 00:30:59.365
Done some amazing research.

00:30:59.384 --> 00:31:20.544
And again, people can get all of these articles via you and the contact you obviously via your website right so let's get on to talking about some of the recordings that you've done on the band so I understand you joined your first band after you saw a duo playing and you went away learned some of their music and then you said you were ready to join them is that right?

00:31:21.203 --> 00:31:38.048
Yeah and since he had played the harmonica I think he was more open to the idea of having a harmonica player join and these people are pretty well versed in the history of old time music so they knew that Unlike, you know, bluegrass music that explicitly does not include harmonica, they let me play with them.

00:31:38.567 --> 00:31:40.711
Yeah, so this is your first old-timey band.

00:31:40.731 --> 00:31:42.875
Yeah, obviously you've been in the band you mentioned earlier on in it.

00:31:43.296 --> 00:31:45.019
Yeah, and that was called Shout

00:31:45.298 --> 00:31:45.720
Lulu.

00:31:46.080 --> 00:31:50.888
That was the band name with Paul McGowan, Sky McGowan and Pete Howard on the fiddle.

00:31:51.490 --> 00:31:53.853
Are you still in the band called the Ozark Highballers?

00:31:54.402 --> 00:31:55.963
Oh yeah, for sure.

00:31:56.545 --> 00:31:57.205
Where are you based?

00:31:57.266 --> 00:31:58.567
Are you obviously in Tennessee now?

00:31:58.607 --> 00:31:59.628
Are you spread out?

00:32:00.230 --> 00:32:02.692
Yeah, they all live in Northwest Arkansas still.

00:32:02.712 --> 00:32:09.801
Roy and Aviva have had a couple of kids and Clark still lives in Fayetteville and teaches banjo.

00:32:10.242 --> 00:32:16.451
And so we'll just take a select couple of gigs a year and we also meet up and play music for fun.

00:32:16.932 --> 00:32:21.096
But yeah, you've got a couple of albums out, haven't you, with those guys?

00:32:21.498 --> 00:32:21.758
Yep.

00:32:21.857 --> 00:32:41.885
there's a song called Gastonia Gallop, which is a very sort of jug band style, pre-war style harmonica playing.

00:32:43.521 --> 00:32:46.644
Yeah, this was originally by a guy named Dave McCarn.

00:32:47.144 --> 00:32:49.467
It's kind of in the Piedmont area.

00:32:49.487 --> 00:33:01.458
He knew Wyn Foster, and they both were around these kind of ragtime-type chordal change tunes, and then ragtime and harmonica go quite well together.

00:33:01.798 --> 00:33:02.598
They would come up with their...

00:33:02.778 --> 00:33:08.743
Like a fiddle player would come up with a rag, the harmonica players would also have their rags that they would play.

00:33:09.304 --> 00:33:13.488
And then there's a song called Fort River Deer, and I think you're playing...

00:33:13.488 --> 00:33:14.950
unison with a fiddle on this one.

00:33:29.768 --> 00:33:33.732
So is that an approach you'll take quite a lot with a band, that you're playing unison with a fiddle?

00:33:34.815 --> 00:33:35.476
Yeah, mostly.

00:33:35.516 --> 00:33:39.601
Until someone starts singing, then I might play more single note...

00:33:40.642 --> 00:33:44.451
Sweet things, because a lot of the music from this time period were sentimental numbers.

00:33:45.153 --> 00:33:49.585
So these are all time tunes, so you're playing mostly the melody, yeah?

00:33:50.487 --> 00:33:50.688
Yes.

00:33:51.309 --> 00:33:54.257
You're not soloing, but you're doing maybe fills of the melody as well?

00:33:55.554 --> 00:34:13.726
You know, you don't have to play this way, but the way Gwen Foster played, this more ragtime, kind of syncopated backup, more single-note driven with a lot of amazing techniques, tongue trills and raspberry blowing and bending all at the same time.

00:34:17.313 --> 00:34:17.534
piano plays

00:34:25.442 --> 00:34:27.188
I think that's a really effective way to play.

00:34:27.288 --> 00:34:34.309
He played with a fiddle player in the Blue Ridge Mountain Entertainers, and that all seemed to work out pretty well.

00:34:34.411 --> 00:34:37.621
So there's more than one way to skin a cat, that's for sure.

00:34:39.297 --> 00:34:47.309
The characteristics of this sort of style is that quite often they were playing solo or they were just playing in a small ensemble, maybe like in a duo.

00:34:47.590 --> 00:34:48.891
But often solo, right?

00:34:48.952 --> 00:34:53.117
So they were having to put in more effects and rhythm and tricks.

00:34:53.458 --> 00:34:57.784
So it's very much a different style than maybe the blues diatonic harmonica we're used to.

00:34:57.884 --> 00:34:59.085
Yeah, that's right.

00:34:59.987 --> 00:35:03.731
And you do quite a few solo recordings yourself.

00:35:03.791 --> 00:35:06.956
You've got, you know, there's a song, Crippled Creek, for example.

00:35:07.016 --> 00:35:07.838
Crippled Creek.

00:35:22.146 --> 00:35:25.713
So when you're playing a solo song like that, how are you approaching that?

00:35:26.081 --> 00:35:31.630
Yeah, so there I might not have such a machine gun type rhythm going on all the time.

00:35:31.710 --> 00:35:39.862
I will have rhythm going on all the time, but I may not emphasize that rhythm as much as the melody so that the melody can stick out a little bit more.

00:35:39.902 --> 00:35:42.126
And then I'll also dance around the melody.

00:35:42.166 --> 00:35:44.630
It all comes out as kind of a seamless thing.

00:35:44.949 --> 00:35:54.784
It may be hard for people to follow along if they're trying to learn the melody of Cripple Creek, kind of like trying to learn the melody of a fiddle tune from a banjo player who's playing...

00:35:55.585 --> 00:35:57.867
you know, 15 different notes at the same time.

00:35:57.887 --> 00:36:02.492
It is its own thing, maybe more like the banjo in that way than the fiddle.

00:36:02.811 --> 00:36:11.500
So when you're putting a solo song together like that, say on an old-timey melody, are you working that out beforehand?

00:36:11.579 --> 00:36:13.862
Is it coming out quite off the cuff?

00:36:14.242 --> 00:36:15.903
These things take some time to develop.

00:36:16.364 --> 00:36:22.568
You know, I'll add timing and articulation and different rhythmic ideas.

00:36:22.588 --> 00:36:25.371
And, you know, as I'll revisit a tune that I...

00:36:25.552 --> 00:36:36.452
learned a long time ago I'll start to incorporate these and sort of take the basic skeleton of the melody and build up a real sculpture around it so that it's own standalone kind of piece.

00:36:36.934 --> 00:36:45.289
So do you tend to play these songs the same every time or is it quite well it's not improvised right but is the technique you're applying kind of improvised?

00:36:46.242 --> 00:36:46.943
No, there

00:36:46.983 --> 00:36:49.905
will be things that I've probably worked out before.

00:36:49.945 --> 00:37:04.617
I probably won't play it the same exact way twice, but then I'll have this little bag of tricks that I'll reach into and bring out just to vary it up a little bit, because playing the exact same thing over and over again is a little boring.

00:37:04.637 --> 00:37:10.123
I think if you look at the good fiddle players like Ed Haley, there was a lot of variation in there.

00:37:10.143 --> 00:37:16.969
Even though it all kind of sounds like a fiddle tune, he did make it more interesting by adding some variation.

00:37:17.268 --> 00:37:19.811
And Mark Graham is really good at that on the harmonica.

00:37:19.851 --> 00:37:28.521
And then there's a recording of you playing Barlow Knife with a uke banjo, so you're playing harmonica on a rack when you're playing this, right?

00:37:28.561 --> 00:37:32.965
So is that something you do quite a bit where you are playing a second instrument with harmonica on a rack?

00:37:33.485 --> 00:37:34.447
Yeah, definitely.

00:37:34.487 --> 00:37:51.076
And I've recently taken up the bones too, so now I can play sort of left hand piano, the bones in the right hand as the percussion, and then the harmonica in the That took a little bit of time to piece together, but it kind of feels natural now.

00:37:51.489 --> 00:37:53.090
Yeah, that definitely is multitasking.

00:37:53.190 --> 00:37:56.755
So great, so you're still playing quite a bit of piano, are you?

00:37:57.235 --> 00:37:58.295
Yeah, I've got one downstairs.

00:37:58.396 --> 00:38:00.398
I'll play it every day.

00:38:00.418 --> 00:38:06.222
Great, and is that mainly for chords, for backing, or are you playing more piano without a harmonica?

00:38:06.483 --> 00:38:14.309
Well, sometimes I'll play a full fiddle tune and just put the harmonica down and play the melody and the chords with the right and left hand.

00:38:15.190 --> 00:38:21.215
But when I'm playing the harmonica, I'll just basically do oom-pah kind of style, back up with some transitions between the chords.

00:38:21.456 --> 00:38:24.313
so

00:38:30.306 --> 00:38:32.409
Yeah,

00:38:32.429 --> 00:38:37.195
and there's a video you mentioned earlier on about playing when you're in your first band through a megaphone.

00:38:37.896 --> 00:38:48.849
I imagine you weren't getting the greatest amplified tone from that, but there's videos of you playing with one of these kind of resonator devices, like a kind of horn thing.

00:38:50.391 --> 00:38:51.693
Yeah, is that something you're still using?

00:38:52.333 --> 00:38:52.414
Yeah.

00:39:04.226 --> 00:39:09.277
Yeah, whenever I play acoustic, I like to use that, unless I want to use my hands for a wah-wah kind of effect.

00:39:09.938 --> 00:39:16.271
Although I do have a small sink plunger that I can use with that horn to create a wah-wah.

00:39:16.612 --> 00:39:24.670
But yeah, that was an Edison cylinder phonograph horn replica that I chopped down.

00:39:24.898 --> 00:39:45.436
crimped and chamfered to uh so the harmonica just slides into it and has enough tension to hold it in place quite well and then good impedance matching to it almost doubles the volume of the harmonica in the direction so it's really great for playing on the street or in a in a square dance where there's no no amplification which is what i prefer anyway

00:39:45.956 --> 00:39:48.918
yeah great so is this it's something you still use regularly is it

00:39:49.219 --> 00:39:55.784
yeah i just developed it in the harmonica megaphone.

00:39:56.346 --> 00:39:57.586
I don't know who has that now.

00:39:57.827 --> 00:39:59.708
Maybe a Country Music Hall of Fame or something.

00:40:00.130 --> 00:40:01.010
Yeah, no, it's a great idea.

00:40:01.130 --> 00:40:07.137
I've sort of seen these type of things before with harmonicas, but I don't think they're widely used either.

00:40:07.177 --> 00:40:11.141
But it's a good idea, as you say, to play it unamplified and get some more volume.

00:40:11.201 --> 00:40:13.264
It's surprising that we don't maybe see more of them.

00:40:13.684 --> 00:40:16.786
When I first tried it, I didn't know really how well it would work.

00:40:17.467 --> 00:40:27.398
I thought maybe I'd get 20% boost or something, but it really is almost double the intensity and the duration of play so it's it's quite effective

00:40:28.139 --> 00:40:35.849
yeah it's interesting yeah we may be interesting to I don't know if you've made any videos about that about what you've done with it but it might be interesting for people who want to try something similar

00:40:36.188 --> 00:40:48.103
yeah I'm thinking about doing a whole batch of them and just handing them out to my friends maybe selling some of them since Pete Farmer and Seidel came up with these these nice gecko racks Yeah.

00:40:48.684 --> 00:40:53.815
You can still play with this megaphone and the magnet's strong enough to hold the harmonica still.

00:40:54.577 --> 00:40:55.980
Right, yeah, that's a good idea.

00:40:56.239 --> 00:40:58.304
And does it change the tone of the harmonica much?

00:40:58.684 --> 00:40:59.286
Yeah, I think it does.

00:40:59.347 --> 00:41:00.489
I think it makes it sound older.

00:41:00.961 --> 00:41:12.942
Yeah, so a little bit like Roley Platt's Hot War, but obviously that's more for a war effect, right, and a kind of trumpet mute type effect, where this is about amplifying the sound, yeah, so you're not really doing it to do hand effects with it now.

00:41:14.204 --> 00:41:18.851
Yeah, that's right, which for film music is mostly what I'd be worried about.

00:41:34.018 --> 00:41:35.498
Hey, what's happening, y'all?

00:41:35.518 --> 00:41:42.344
Jason Ritchie from Blue Moon Harmonicas, and I'm here to tell you that Blue Moon Harmonicas are the way.

00:41:42.806 --> 00:41:45.847
You can customize them yourself, or you can get Tom to do them.

00:41:46.148 --> 00:41:47.849
The website is a rabbit hole.

00:41:47.909 --> 00:42:09.170
We're talking about custom combs, custom cover plates, throwbacks, refurbished pre-wars, double reed plates, anything you can imagine, aluminum, ABS, plastic, phenolic resin, wood, any kind of comb you want, any A question I ask

00:42:09.210 --> 00:42:11.014
each time, Seth, is the 10-minute question.

00:42:11.034 --> 00:42:13.938
If you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend that 10 minutes doing?

00:42:13.998 --> 00:42:19.385
So maybe answer this for people who are interested in getting started playing all-time style.

00:42:19.425 --> 00:42:21.509
What would you say they should focus on to begin with?

00:42:22.530 --> 00:42:24.952
Yeah, so I went to the John C.

00:42:24.992 --> 00:42:29.735
Campbell Folk School and taught a harmonica class to complete beginners.

00:42:29.775 --> 00:42:32.838
So what we did was we started with just single note playing.

00:42:33.458 --> 00:42:40.425
So making this huge pucker with your lips and jutting your jaw out forward to get a good tone, then switch to tongue blocking.

00:42:41.005 --> 00:42:46.630
You know, these things probably take about 10 solid hours of practice to kind of get somewhat comfortable with.

00:42:46.971 --> 00:42:48.833
So that's what I'd work on first.

00:42:48.932 --> 00:43:02.425
But if someone's already got those basics down, then sort of taken some apps to slow down fiddle music and learn the melodies and then figure out how to get rhythms and start to dance around those melodies.

00:43:03.005 --> 00:43:17.898
And then, like you said, there seems to have been an uptick in interest in this type of harmonica playing where Dave Rice and Mark Graham were, and Bob Bovey were kind of the people out there doing this kind of fiddle music for a long time, for a couple of decades.

00:43:18.498 --> 00:43:32.318
There's a good Facebook group, Bluegrass Old Time and country harmonica Facebook group that Glenn Weiser put together, and he's done a lot of good books that have source material for the melodies and talk about techniques as well.

00:43:32.918 --> 00:43:36.001
But that group, when I first joined, I think I had 600 people.

00:43:36.061 --> 00:43:37.543
Now it's up to 3,000.

00:43:37.603 --> 00:43:45.989
Again, that upsurge in popularity of playing tunes on the harmonica, I think because it just fits so well on the harmonica, it does work so well.

00:43:46.431 --> 00:43:47.431
For me, this is like,

00:43:47.711 --> 00:43:47.751

Seth Shumate interview

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