July 24, 2021

David Naiditch interview

David Naiditch interview
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Season 1 Diatonic Harmonica Chromatic Harmonica Jazz Chromatic Bluegrass Or Old Timey

David Naiditch joins me on episode 43. 

After starting out as a diatonic player, including having lessons with a touring Sonny Terry, David developed himself into possibly the sole exponent of playing Bluegrass music on the chromatic harmonica, and has recorded various albums with some of the stellar names from the Bluegrass world. 

David likes the clean, consistent tone that the chromatic brings.
He also plays Gypsy Jazz, a genre which he sees as having some similarities with Bluegrass. 
During the pandemic David recorded an album entirely remotely from the other musicians, and his delight with the results show the increasing potential of this, although it’s always nice to play along with others. 

David honed his craft live, and you might catch him jamming along at a festival in the US sometime soon. 



Links:
Website:
http://www.davidnaiditch.com/DavidNaiditch/Welcome.html

Steve Kaufman’s Bluegrass workout:
https://www.homespun.com/shop/product/steve-kaufmans-four-hour-bluegrass-workout-volume-one/


Videos:

David's YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/DNaiditch

David demos blues in 12 keys on chromatic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njLjIlYM02o

Jimmy Riddle playing chromatic on US TV show ‘Hee Haw’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO1xQ-TAF6k

Jackie Naiditch YouTube channel for house jams:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRvo2hgdJVyz8o-CQgopjTA


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
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/



Support the show

00:57 - David is based in Los Angeles

01:07 - Started playing the oboe first, then guitar and harmonica

01:40 - The Ashgrove centre in LA was where David was inspired by many great folk acts

02:53 - Took lessons from Sonny Terry when he was 14, and David formed a country blues duo as his first act

03:58 - What was Sonny Terry like as a harmonica teacher?

08:16 - Learned a lot of his craft at jam sessions, playing acoustically

08:40 - Switched from diatonic to chromatic harmonica because he preferred the consistency of tone on chromatic on style of music he played

09:32 - Woke up one day after not playing harmonica for a spell and decided to try chromatic

09:59 - Alternative tunings weren’t so common on diatonic at that stage

11:13 - Picked up chromatic 30 years after starting on diatonic

11:43 - David studied mathematics and philosophy and worked at Aerospace

12:46 - Has written two books on the Ada programming language

13:07 - Did skills in maths and computing help with music?

13:46 - David didn’t use computing resources too much to aid his music learning

14:44 - The folk music scene at the Ashgrove in LA which sparked his interest in this genre of music

15:45 - Bluegrass music, which does not usually include harmonica as an instrument

18:13 - Bluegrass music is typically played fast: and how David approached this playing on the chromatic

21:31 - Learns Bluegrass melodies, with some embellishment, and a little improvisation

21:56 - Other Bluegrass harmonica players, but they use diatonic harmonica

22:32 - David has great fluency at speed on the chromatic, and playing in the sharp keys

23:23 - Bluegrass does have elements of Blues as part of the genre

23:58 - Has also recorded lots of Gypsy Jazz songs on chromatic harmonica, and similarities to Bluegrass

25:24 - Chromatic harmonica can take place of accordion in Gypsy Jazz

25:57 - Larry Adler recorded with famous Gyspy Jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, and Max Geldray and maybe Toots Thielemans also played with Django

27:05 - David’s first album was released in 2005: Harmonica and Guitar Duets, partly made to practise using Pro Tools recording software

29:12 - High Dessert Bluegrass album in 2008

29:41 - Has recruited some of the top Bluegrass players to perform on his albums

31:15 - Used a small condenser microphone used to record chromatic harmonica

33:06 - Third album: Bluegrass Harmonica, To Boldly Go Where No Harmonica Has Gone Before

35:49 - Douce Ambiance album in 2012 is a Gypsy Jazz album, which has previous guitar player from Jason Ricci’s band

37:37 - Lady Be Good song won runner-up award for best instrumental by the International Acoustic Music Awards (IAMA)

38:16 - 2014 album Bluegrass In The Backwoods, and how David got some of top Bluegrass names performing on his albums

41:03 - Has second harmonica player on the album, Jon Kip

42:05 - Bluegrass That Swings album in 2017

42:48 - Playing with top players raises David’s game on his own playing

44:47 - Latest album: David Naiditch Plays Bluegrass and Swing Instrumentals from 2020

46:48 - No more albums planned quite yet, but likes possibility of more remote recordings

49:54 - David uses AirPlay direct to get his songs played on Bluegrass radio stations

51:12 - Recently appeared in HarmonicaUK magazine, interviewed by Tony Eyers from Australia

52:53 - 10 minute question

54:20 - Chromatics of choice

55:06 - Doesn’t play any diatonic these days

55:46 - Embouchre

56:32 - Plays almost entirely acoustically, if on stage uses vocal mic

WEBVTT

00:00:00.289 --> 00:00:02.552
David Nadich joins me on episode 43.

00:00:02.891 --> 00:00:18.545
After starting out as a diatonic player, including having lessons with the touring Sonny Terry, David develops himself into possibly the sole exponent of playing bluegrass music on the chromatic harmonica, and has recorded various albums with some of the stellar names from the bluegrass world.

00:00:18.826 --> 00:00:22.048
David likes the clean, consistent tone that the chromatic brings.

00:00:22.528 --> 00:00:27.353
He also plays gypsy jazz, a genre which he sees as having some similarities with bluegrass.

00:00:27.814 --> 00:00:38.149
During the pandemic, David recorded an album entirely remotely from the other musicians, and his delight with the results show the increasing potential of this, although it's always nice to play along with others.

00:00:38.930 --> 00:00:45.502
David horned his craft live and you might catch him jamming along at a festival in the US sometime soon.

00:00:53.570 --> 00:00:55.893
Hello, David Nadish, and welcome to the podcast.

00:00:56.094 --> 00:00:56.575
Well, thank you.

00:00:56.734 --> 00:00:57.055
Hello.

00:00:57.095 --> 00:00:59.079
So thanks so much for joining, David.

00:00:59.139 --> 00:01:02.725
So you're based in Los Angeles on the west coast of the U.S.?

00:01:02.985 --> 00:01:03.347
Yes,

00:01:03.567 --> 00:01:04.007
I've lived

00:01:04.108 --> 00:01:04.608
in the L.A.

00:01:04.728 --> 00:01:05.911
area since I was about

00:01:06.031 --> 00:01:06.772
seven years old.

00:01:07.453 --> 00:01:09.576
And so what got you started playing music?

00:01:09.757 --> 00:01:11.319
Was the harmonica your first instrument?

00:01:12.180 --> 00:01:14.686
Actually, harmonica and guitar.

00:01:15.042 --> 00:01:22.188
Just before that, at about age 13, I was playing the oboe in the junior high school band.

00:01:22.507 --> 00:01:27.632
Actually, I wanted to play clarinet, but the conductor really wanted an oboe because no one had an oboe.

00:01:27.992 --> 00:01:32.677
You know, it's a rare instrument, but I found it very difficult to play and my lungs weren't strong enough.

00:01:32.837 --> 00:01:36.881
So it was a real relief when I found, discovered the harmonica and the guitar.

00:01:37.180 --> 00:01:39.283
I like to improvise more than read music.

00:01:39.522 --> 00:01:44.968
So I got into the music by going to the Ash Grove, which was the focal point.

00:01:45.007 --> 00:01:47.150
of American folk music revival.

00:01:47.329 --> 00:01:49.433
So every weekend I took a buck.

00:01:49.753 --> 00:01:59.143
I met a lot of people out there, like my cousin, who introduced me to this kind of music, where almost all my friends turned out to be from Fairfax High School, which was near the Ash Grove.

00:01:59.263 --> 00:02:08.752
But the turning point in my music interest came when I first showed up at the Ash Grove and got to hear Doc Watson and Family with Clarence Ashley on fiddle.

00:02:12.137 --> 00:02:13.799
She's a pretty bird.

00:02:13.818 --> 00:02:22.948
She wobbles as she flies and

00:02:23.068 --> 00:02:45.693
on the second set they had reverend gary davis so here were some of the finest guitar players of all time both on that single show at the ash grove and that was a turning point in my life i didn't know such music existed i was listening to more popular music like kingston trio and new christy minstrels that kind of music and then When I heard this virtuosity, it just completely blew me away.

00:02:45.733 --> 00:02:50.037
From there, I started getting into other kinds of music that the Ashgrove featured.

00:02:50.257 --> 00:02:51.337
I saw a lot of shows.

00:02:51.358 --> 00:02:52.878
I started jamming with folks.

00:02:53.179 --> 00:02:58.243
Early on, I took lessons from Sonny Terry when I was still in junior high school, about age 14.

00:02:58.704 --> 00:03:01.105
And a guitar player friend of mine took lessons

00:03:01.186 --> 00:03:02.146
from Brownie McGee.

00:03:02.287 --> 00:03:03.348
Some great tutors there.

00:03:03.367 --> 00:03:06.730
So yeah, so picking up on that lesson from Sonny Terry.

00:03:06.751 --> 00:03:09.413
So was he based out in that area as well then?

00:03:09.633 --> 00:03:10.373
No, he wasn't.

00:03:10.413 --> 00:03:11.474
He was just on tour.

00:03:11.495 --> 00:03:18.902
So I caught him when he was at the Ash Grove doing some various music gigs and actually went to his hotel to get my first lesson.

00:03:18.983 --> 00:03:21.466
And later on, he and Brownie came to my house.

00:03:21.626 --> 00:03:26.070
So I got a little bit more lessons and really got to know those two great musicians at the time.

00:03:26.330 --> 00:03:31.937
It was really a great honor for me to be that close to one of my idols, you know, Sonny Terry.

00:03:32.157 --> 00:03:39.163
Between the guitar player and me, we were doing sort of a Sonny Terry, Brownie McGee clone group in junior high school.

00:03:39.405 --> 00:03:43.109
And we were called Joe Banana and his Bunch, later just called Joe Banana.

00:03:43.248 --> 00:03:45.670
This guy was a terrible punster, the guitar player.

00:03:45.830 --> 00:03:47.632
So that was the first group I was in.

00:03:47.673 --> 00:03:53.717
And like I said, we were mainly doing traditional country blues in the style of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee.

00:03:53.978 --> 00:03:58.562
And that was my first real effort into learning music and playing music.

00:03:58.842 --> 00:04:02.825
So you're the first person I think I've talked on here who's had any lessons with Sonny Terry.

00:04:02.885 --> 00:04:04.627
So what were those lessons like with Sonny Terry?

00:04:04.948 --> 00:04:11.353
Actually, I hate to say it, but they weren't very useful because he played harmonica from the age of, you know, really young age.

00:04:11.513 --> 00:04:12.213
It was so...

00:04:12.418 --> 00:04:13.579
second nature to him.

00:04:13.799 --> 00:04:16.521
It was like a person trying to explain how they're talking.

00:04:16.882 --> 00:04:27.290
So I had to ask him to do things like, play now without waving your hands in front of the harmonica, because I wanted to see how much the hands added, how much the harmonica added, and so on.

00:04:27.571 --> 00:04:31.173
He really had to try it, and he didn't even know until he tried it.

00:04:31.194 --> 00:04:37.038
It was so ingrained that he was not a particularly good teacher thinking about what he had to go through to

00:04:37.079 --> 00:04:37.360
learn.

00:04:37.759 --> 00:04:41.702
And the other thing about Sonny Terry is, you know, we're all harmonica players.

00:04:41.824 --> 00:04:43.946
You can't see what's going on, like on the guitar.

00:04:44.086 --> 00:04:47.610
Can't see chord shapes and how the fingers are moving and so on.

00:04:47.689 --> 00:04:48.870
It's all hidden in the mouth.

00:04:49.050 --> 00:04:56.139
So I actually had him open the mouth at one point to show how he can flip his tongue from side to side at a very high speed.

00:04:56.238 --> 00:04:58.841
He actually showed me what he was doing with his tongue.

00:04:59.002 --> 00:05:01.084
So that was kind of really interesting.

00:05:01.343 --> 00:05:05.329
He was a great teacher as far as being enthusiastic in everything.

00:05:05.608 --> 00:05:09.273
But like I said, he really couldn't explain things to a beginner.

00:05:09.872 --> 00:05:23.144
Yeah, I think I've heard that a few from some of the home monica greats that they didn't necessarily teach that well they just kind of played and then kind of you know you just have to soak up what they were playing it sounds like he had a similar approach then so how many lessons did you have with

00:05:23.185 --> 00:05:23.286
him

00:05:23.526 --> 00:05:24.846
i had about three or four

00:05:24.887 --> 00:05:35.696
from there i mostly learned from his album you know i picked it up very fast you know once i figured out how crosswalk worked i uh had the right keys and i just followed along on all of the albums

00:05:35.915 --> 00:05:36.976
so yeah and you've been playing

00:05:37.197 --> 00:05:37.278
for

00:05:37.317 --> 00:05:37.478
very

00:05:37.538 --> 00:05:48.956
long by that stage no monica no no that was really pretty much the beginning I started a little bit playing country harmonica from a mailman that delivered mail.

00:05:49.016 --> 00:05:50.117
He was a harmonica player.

00:05:50.156 --> 00:05:51.338
I forget how I found out.

00:05:51.598 --> 00:05:55.620
So I did learn a little country tunes and tongue blocking and so on.

00:05:56.062 --> 00:06:00.346
And I knew how to bend the notes pretty well by the time I met Sonny Terry.

00:06:00.586 --> 00:06:01.846
And I knew about crossbar.

00:06:02.086 --> 00:06:06.331
So all of the basics I had before starting the lessons, which was good.

00:06:06.670 --> 00:06:07.932
You remember how much you charged?

00:06:07.971 --> 00:06:10.774
Was it a reasonable rate or was it quite high?

00:06:11.194 --> 00:06:12.336
You know, there's no way I remember.

00:06:12.336 --> 00:06:16.968
But I do have the original Ashgrove flyers from that time.

00:06:16.988 --> 00:06:18.112
I kept them.

00:06:18.533 --> 00:06:21.420
And it mentions Sonny Terry, Brown and McGee as teachers.

00:06:21.901 --> 00:06:24.911
And they may have the price in there, but those are more group lessons.

00:06:25.471 --> 00:06:25.872
So I really

00:06:25.894 --> 00:06:27.377
can't remember how much he charged.

00:06:27.745 --> 00:06:29.850
And as a person, what was he like?

00:06:30.190 --> 00:06:32.014
He was very, very, very nice.

00:06:32.576 --> 00:06:33.598
Really wanted to help me.

00:06:34.038 --> 00:06:35.983
He had some great stories he would tell.

00:06:36.302 --> 00:06:37.305
Very approachable.

00:06:37.365 --> 00:06:39.810
Didn't have any big ego getting in his way.

00:06:39.829 --> 00:06:40.952
He was the nicest

00:06:40.992 --> 00:06:41.372
person.

00:06:41.434 --> 00:06:42.154
Really enjoyed it.

00:06:42.516 --> 00:06:46.043
Great to have him, I'd say, maybe just as an inspiration as much as anything.

00:06:46.223 --> 00:06:49.449
And what was the album you listened to a lot of his?

00:06:49.858 --> 00:06:50.197
Oh,

00:06:50.459 --> 00:06:52.581
any album that can get a hold of.

00:06:53.002 --> 00:06:54.725
Yeah, I had a number of albums.

00:06:54.824 --> 00:06:56.947
I remember one was from Folkway.

00:06:57.408 --> 00:07:00.151
My father actually had some Folkway albums he collected.

00:07:00.713 --> 00:07:03.937
And one of the albums was Sonny Carey just doing all solo

00:07:10.105 --> 00:07:16.254
work.

00:07:16.641 --> 00:07:21.249
Whoa, Lord, what a beautiful city.

00:07:21.769 --> 00:07:26.456
Whoa, what a beautiful city, God, no.

00:07:29.019 --> 00:07:35.028
Twelve gates to the city, hallelujah, amen.

00:07:36.612 --> 00:07:38.675
Hear

00:07:38.694 --> 00:07:39.615
me talking now.

00:07:39.675 --> 00:07:43.120
Yes, I mean it now.

00:07:43.937 --> 00:07:44.500
and then

00:07:44.560 --> 00:07:57.297
i also had a bunch of brownie mcgee sunny terry albums and i think some of them i borrowed and some i bought just whatever i can get a hold of and All of our favorite songs, I then learned and played with that guitar player.

00:07:57.697 --> 00:08:07.045
So you started off very much, you know, as you say, maybe a little country, but you started off very much as a blues player, a country blues player, maybe in the Sonny Terry style when you got started.

00:08:07.245 --> 00:08:07.565
Yes.

00:08:07.925 --> 00:08:12.529
I liked Paul Butterfield and that kind of music, but I just never got into that amplification.

00:08:12.990 --> 00:08:15.432
So I really stayed with the country blues.

00:08:15.612 --> 00:08:25.601
Plus, I liked to jam and I used to go, started going to various jam sessions at the Ash Grove and private parties and festivals like the Topanga banjo fiddle contest.

00:08:25.762 --> 00:08:30.166
And I played unamplified, totally acoustic with other acoustic musicians.

00:08:30.387 --> 00:08:36.394
And I found that especially satisfying, not having to lug around microphones and amplifiers and all that.

00:08:36.553 --> 00:08:39.496
Plus, I did a lot of backpacking where I brought my harmonica

00:08:39.756 --> 00:08:40.518
to entertain.

00:08:41.298 --> 00:08:42.900
You're now mainly a chromatic player.

00:08:42.921 --> 00:08:46.825
So how long did you play diatonic before you made the switch across to chromatic?

00:08:47.044 --> 00:08:57.196
Well, what happened is after a number of years, quite a times the music, which I already started doing on the guitar.

00:08:57.456 --> 00:08:58.937
I was fingerpicking guitar.

00:08:58.957 --> 00:09:00.399
I was doing ragtime tunes.

00:09:00.659 --> 00:09:02.400
I was doing some jazzy tunes.

00:09:02.701 --> 00:09:04.003
I was getting into bluegrass.

00:09:04.263 --> 00:09:07.527
And I did not like the way the diatonic worked for that.

00:09:07.826 --> 00:09:13.653
I like to play, especially for music like bluegrass, I like every note to have the same timbre and tone.

00:09:13.913 --> 00:09:21.741
And I found that when I played diatonic and had to bend notes to get the particular missing note, that it lost that constant timbre and tone.

00:09:21.922 --> 00:09:23.224
It sort of stuck out to me.

00:09:23.504 --> 00:09:53.875
notes that i had a bend which i didn't think fit the style plus i didn't like the bend style at all because it sounded too bluesy for things like bluegrass so at that point i woke up one day because i kind of gave up harmonica because i just didn't like the way it was working and i woke up one day and say well i should try chromatic which i only dabbled in uh and i found very difficult at first but i figured i'll really sit down and learn figure out how it works and try to incorporate the chromatic into this other genres of music besides blues and it took me a

00:09:53.895 --> 00:09:54.177
while.

00:09:54.216 --> 00:09:58.741
Yeah, but you've got some great dexterities we'll get onto shortly, but before then.

00:09:58.782 --> 00:10:04.528
So again, on the diatonics now, there are obviously alternative tunings, which probably weren't so common back then.

00:10:04.788 --> 00:10:11.956
So did you ever consider alternative tunings back on diatonic back then, or would you consider you playing a diatonic with alternative tunings now instead of chromatic?

00:10:12.255 --> 00:10:13.798
Yeah, no, I only played a

00:10:13.837 --> 00:10:16.220
standard tune, Richter, you know, harmonica.

00:10:16.541 --> 00:10:22.787
Even with the altered tunings and so on, you still have to bend to get some of those semitones and so on that are missing.

00:10:23.067 --> 00:10:28.072
You know, bend and down a semitone, just way before overblows and all that became well-known.

00:10:28.113 --> 00:10:31.176
So I just didn't like the tone that I got when I bent.

00:10:31.376 --> 00:10:37.863
It bothered me also that not just the tone changed when I had a bend, but also that I couldn't get certain notes.

00:10:37.883 --> 00:10:45.991
I played where I hear the notes, I hear what bluegrass people play, and it really frustrated me if I couldn't play that exact melody that I heard.

00:10:46.131 --> 00:10:50.437
I really wanted to nail the melody down without having to substitute any other notes.

00:10:50.716 --> 00:10:59.308
I didn't want to have to bend or do any note substitution And I found that impossible on the diatonic, where the chromatic, I was quite delighted that I had every note now.

00:10:59.649 --> 00:11:01.873
And I knew if I couldn't play it, the problem was me.

00:11:02.153 --> 00:11:03.455
It wasn't the instrument.

00:11:03.514 --> 00:11:04.336
The note was there.

00:11:04.657 --> 00:11:13.471
So I kept working on it until I got the notes I liked and, you know, modified things in ways that lend itself very well to the chromatic with certain embellishments and so on.

00:11:13.811 --> 00:11:15.774
Yeah, and I think I read that you...

00:11:16.001 --> 00:11:19.787
So you started playing the diatonic back in the 60s, but it was about in the 90s.

00:11:19.947 --> 00:11:22.811
So kind of 30 years later, you picked up the chromatic seriously.

00:11:22.850 --> 00:11:23.312
Is that right?

00:11:23.631 --> 00:11:24.072
That's right.

00:11:24.253 --> 00:11:25.114
I was in between.

00:11:25.153 --> 00:11:26.816
I did a lot of the car playing.

00:11:26.956 --> 00:11:27.437
Yeah, sure.

00:11:27.456 --> 00:11:27.576
Yeah.

00:11:27.638 --> 00:11:29.519
Which is all great learning too, of course.

00:11:39.854 --> 00:11:39.933
Yeah.

00:11:43.234 --> 00:11:46.817
So a little bit more about your life, you know, away from music.

00:11:47.037 --> 00:11:50.399
So I understand you studied mathematics at university and then philosophy?

00:11:50.821 --> 00:11:51.160
Yes,

00:11:51.360 --> 00:11:52.022
I got degrees

00:11:52.121 --> 00:11:53.082
in those two fields.

00:11:53.322 --> 00:11:55.565
And then I got into a little teaching.

00:11:55.924 --> 00:12:00.009
I set up a computer lab about 1980 when the first PCs came out.

00:12:00.229 --> 00:12:03.991
We actually set up a computer lab and I taught students how to program.

00:12:04.312 --> 00:12:08.596
And that was a very popular class because I showed them how to actually program games.

00:12:08.895 --> 00:12:12.599
And I taught all of the math classes and some of the science classes as well.

00:12:12.980 --> 00:12:18.265
And then I decided to use my math skills more and I got into the aerospace corporation.

00:12:18.307 --> 00:12:19.548
And that was the beginning.

00:12:19.607 --> 00:12:24.293
And then from then on, I just stayed in as an aerospace engineer until retiring five years ago.

00:12:24.855 --> 00:12:26.537
An interesting working life and helped you

00:12:26.596 --> 00:12:29.360
fund your addiction to music as well, no doubt.

00:12:29.780 --> 00:12:30.042
Oh, yes.

00:12:30.221 --> 00:12:33.826
It's nice where I can do what I want and not worry about how much I'm making.

00:12:34.267 --> 00:12:39.113
Great deal of freedom to be very particular about what I do and only do things that I really

00:12:39.173 --> 00:12:39.594
enjoy.

00:12:39.905 --> 00:12:40.346
Exactly.

00:12:40.366 --> 00:12:45.153
Buy some nice instruments and travel to as many gigs and music festivals as you like.

00:12:45.695 --> 00:12:46.056
Yeah.

00:12:46.375 --> 00:12:50.462
So I understand you've written two books on the Ada programming language.

00:12:51.183 --> 00:12:51.544
Yes.

00:12:51.884 --> 00:13:05.125
I became an expert in the Ada programming language, which at the time became mandated by the military and also a lot of civilian companies pushed it when you needed safety-critical software, where if something

00:13:05.166 --> 00:13:07.350
went wrong, people's lives could be at stake.

00:13:07.682 --> 00:13:12.089
Do you see any similarities of your knowledge of mathematics and programming and music?

00:13:12.830 --> 00:13:14.172
Do you think that's helped you in any way?

00:13:14.533 --> 00:13:15.533
You know, I just don't know.

00:13:15.835 --> 00:13:19.461
Some of the best mathematicians I've known had no ear for music.

00:13:19.581 --> 00:13:20.962
So I kind of undermined it.

00:13:21.283 --> 00:13:24.708
But yet I knew one math genius that was brilliant in music.

00:13:25.009 --> 00:13:26.831
So I just don't know what to make of that.

00:13:27.032 --> 00:13:28.575
I don't know how much transfer there is.

00:13:28.995 --> 00:13:32.561
Yeah, you hear a lot of people say, you know, that music is a lot like mathematics.

00:13:32.640 --> 00:13:35.645
You know, if you think of the scale numbers, for example, you know,

00:13:35.874 --> 00:13:41.301
Well, certainly the jazz folks that are really into the jazz music have a lot of theory in their head.

00:13:41.360 --> 00:13:44.806
And a lot of that's very mathematical, the way they think about some of these

00:13:44.926 --> 00:13:45.687
relationships.

00:13:46.107 --> 00:13:54.899
And what about, you know, the, you know, the cue to resources we have now to practice with, you know, programs and backing tracks, slowing down in all these multitude of programs.

00:13:54.960 --> 00:13:59.346
Is that something, you know, being knowledgeable on software that you ever got involved with or at least using?

00:13:59.618 --> 00:14:00.118
I mainly

00:14:00.219 --> 00:14:06.063
used software when YouTube started coming out, and I slowed down the videos for guitar.

00:14:06.264 --> 00:14:09.025
Because like I said, in guitar, you can see the chord structures.

00:14:09.225 --> 00:14:11.227
You can really see what the person's doing.

00:14:11.388 --> 00:14:22.357
And it sped up my learning immensely, because when I first learned guitar, it was all from just listening and figuring out from just hearing where the person was on the neck, how they were playing the chord, and so on.

00:14:22.538 --> 00:14:24.419
So it really, really helped to see it.

00:14:24.559 --> 00:14:28.403
Harmonica, I never used electronics that much.

00:14:29.583 --> 00:14:30.866
fast rate as well.

00:14:31.087 --> 00:14:36.322
I guess occasionally I slow things down on a mandolin or a fiddle to get ideas of what they're doing.

00:14:36.361 --> 00:14:39.451
But for the most part, I could learn it at whatever speed that we're playing.

00:14:39.671 --> 00:14:43.380
So just occasionally I slow things down for learning, but not too often.

00:14:43.778 --> 00:14:49.863
So getting into, as you say, you started off playing sort of blues, country blues, and then you got interested in the folk music scene.

00:14:49.903 --> 00:14:51.745
So you went to the Ash Grove in Los Angeles.

00:14:51.764 --> 00:14:51.924
Well,

00:14:51.965 --> 00:14:53.626
that was part of the folk music scene.

00:14:53.706 --> 00:15:00.471
It started off with blues harmonica, but I was listening to a lot of bluegrass, like the Kentucky Colonels with Clarence White.

00:15:00.572 --> 00:15:04.056
They were playing at the Ash Grove, and I heard other kinds of music.

00:15:04.096 --> 00:15:05.777
Jazz here kind of formed the music.

00:15:06.057 --> 00:15:07.839
I heard Ry Cooter at the Ash Grove.

00:15:07.918 --> 00:15:09.220
I got to know him a little bit.

00:15:09.500 --> 00:15:18.551
So I met a lot of people that did a lot more than just straight-ahead blues, and that really got me interested, but like I said, I didn't think the harmonica was well-suited to a lot of those genres.

00:15:18.770 --> 00:15:24.619
The diatonics, I turned more to guitar, but I was very aware of these other forms of music.

00:15:24.658 --> 00:15:27.884
I knew about Django, Reinhardt, even in junior high school.

00:15:28.264 --> 00:15:32.009
I had a record, and I figured I'd never be able to play this stuff, but I loved it.

00:15:32.322 --> 00:15:33.683
And I played it a lot.

00:15:33.923 --> 00:15:35.666
So that was a great influence on me.

00:15:36.025 --> 00:15:40.510
It was many, many, many years later that I actually attempted to play that kind of music.

00:15:41.111 --> 00:15:44.836
A lot of your albums, which we'll get into shortly, are, you know, sort of heavily bluegrass and gypsy.

00:15:44.855 --> 00:15:50.582
So starting off with bluegrass, maybe for the uninitiated, you could just explain, you know, what bluegrass is.

00:15:51.043 --> 00:15:53.346
Yeah, well, I started with groups like Dillman

00:15:53.385 --> 00:16:00.073
Rose.

00:16:06.721 --> 00:16:35.559
acoustic form of music it's dominated by string instruments which means the bass guitar fiddle they call it fiddled in bluegrass rather than violin mandolin usually very tight harmony in the singing occasionally they have a dobro oh i forgot a banjo it's very essential to bluegrass and it's played in a certain style that people like earl scruggs promoted it's a finger picking style of banjo And then, like I say, dobro was sometimes used.

00:16:36.020 --> 00:16:37.761
Harmonica was always an outlier.

00:16:38.222 --> 00:16:43.167
There were groups like Jim and Jesse had Mike Stevens play with them, but that was unusual.

00:16:43.246 --> 00:16:46.990
Harmonica really didn't play any significant role in the history of bluegrass.

00:16:47.230 --> 00:16:56.479
So one problem with bluegrass is there are a lot of traditionalists that really don't want things like drums, don't want anything like a clarinet or even a harmonica.

00:16:57.058 --> 00:17:02.082
They really think of this as very specific to these kinds of instruments played acoustically.

00:17:02.703 --> 00:17:06.909
That was a challenge when I started playing harmonica and doing bluegrass.

00:17:07.269 --> 00:17:18.020
Eventually, you know, you're hearing more and more, more and more, like, for example, Eddie Barbash, for example, now plays a lot of saxophone and bluegrass, which was really unheard of in the past.

00:17:18.361 --> 00:17:26.109
So I'm hearing more and more people adding instruments that are not really that traditional with bluegrass, like cello, like even saxophone.

00:17:26.369 --> 00:17:32.977
So more and more, I think people are allowing bluegrass to evolve into, you know, and change with the time.

00:17:33.337 --> 00:17:39.884
Also into a very progressive bluegrass, bluegrass where you can add a little jazz note, bluegrass where you can add some jazz chords.

00:17:40.285 --> 00:17:41.967
And I like instrumentals a lot.

00:17:42.146 --> 00:17:52.538
So even though it's really sort of a niche area of progressive instrumental bluegrass, which is part of the niche area of bluegrass, which is part of traditional country.

00:17:52.798 --> 00:17:55.281
So, you know, I'm in sort of a niche within a niche.

00:17:55.521 --> 00:18:04.773
But, you know, for people who are interested in playing traditional music, like, you know, Irish music or maybe old-time music, bluegrass is, like you say, similar to that in ways.

00:18:04.814 --> 00:18:06.576
A lot of it's instrumentals, isn't it?

00:18:06.596 --> 00:18:12.263
So for people who maybe aren't so familiar, there's lots of great bluegrass tunes out there as well, isn't there, in this genre?

00:18:12.344 --> 00:18:12.525
Yeah.

00:18:12.865 --> 00:18:18.692
But one thing that is definitely notable about bluegrass is that generally, not always, but it's played fast, yeah.

00:18:18.732 --> 00:18:25.402
So it's a fast style of music a lot, isn't it?

00:18:25.422 --> 00:18:25.501
Yeah.

00:18:38.561 --> 00:18:42.887
What sort of challenges has that brought to you, particularly on the chromatic harmonica playing that?

00:18:43.428 --> 00:18:47.073
I know you said, obviously, you prefer to play on the chromatic rather than the diatonic.

00:18:47.673 --> 00:18:55.182
I guess the thing that really helped me in the beginning on the chromatic was I'd show up at not a bluegrass, but a traditional country jam.

00:18:55.584 --> 00:18:59.548
And the folks there play all in unison, the same exact melody.

00:18:59.568 --> 00:19:03.134
And since they have to retune when they change keys...

00:19:03.650 --> 00:19:12.505
What they do is play all of the songs they know in a key of, let's say, D, and then all the songs in a key of G, then all the songs they know in a key of A.

00:19:12.945 --> 00:19:15.109
So it was a really good practice for me.

00:19:15.549 --> 00:19:17.513
And it tended not to be very, very fast.

00:19:17.773 --> 00:19:21.400
So that really got me comfortable with all the different keys on the C chromatic.

00:19:21.641 --> 00:19:26.990
And then in bluegrass, the challenge is certain tunes and certain keys are very hard to play fast.

00:19:27.266 --> 00:19:31.853
So I'd have to change the melody around a little bit so it lends itself better to the chromatic.

00:19:32.032 --> 00:19:34.596
That would be keys like A, keys like B.

00:19:34.676 --> 00:19:37.320
I never liked the idea of switching keys on the chromatic.

00:19:37.401 --> 00:19:41.507
I like to just carry a single C chromatic around because then I could jump.

00:19:41.547 --> 00:19:44.230
A lot of bluegrass tunes transition on keys.

00:19:44.711 --> 00:19:48.416
They go from one key to another or there's fast changes.

00:19:48.517 --> 00:19:51.461
And I like the idea of just keeping one C chromatic.

00:19:51.874 --> 00:19:55.637
And it opened up my mind to different kind of riffs and different kinds of keys.

00:19:55.837 --> 00:19:57.160
So I didn't get into a rut.

00:19:57.380 --> 00:20:02.826
I didn't want to think of just like in terms of adding one riff to another that fits a chord pattern.

00:20:03.286 --> 00:20:06.410
I really try to keep close to the melody and embellish the melody.

00:20:06.769 --> 00:20:10.835
But speed was certainly a challenge for both Gypsy Jazz as well as Bluegrass.

00:20:11.194 --> 00:20:16.580
So did you use particular practice techniques to really build up your speed on chromatic?

00:20:17.261 --> 00:20:17.781
Not really.

00:20:17.801 --> 00:20:20.986
I started quite often a tune I wanted to play.

00:20:21.377 --> 00:20:27.401
I start off slowly and gradually speed up and play as fast as I eventually could.

00:20:27.682 --> 00:20:36.588
And if there's certain note combinations that were just really difficult, I might modify just slightly in a way that's still pleasing that may be more playable.

00:20:36.848 --> 00:20:41.534
But for the most part, I did practice scales a little bit, but I wasn't that into it.

00:20:41.993 --> 00:20:49.180
I mainly just practiced by trying to play in all the keys and really develop my ear and play them slow at first and then faster.

00:20:49.480 --> 00:20:52.782
And one thing I used was Kauffman's Bluegrass Lookout.

00:20:52.942 --> 00:21:02.030
He has a DVD collections where he plays a standard melody, first slow, and then after they play it, you get to play it with just the backup.

00:21:02.311 --> 00:21:07.496
And then he gets a second version quite often that's sped up, so more normal bluegrass

00:21:07.536 --> 00:21:07.875
speed.

00:21:08.136 --> 00:21:13.181
And I found that very helpful to play the basic melodies and play them fast.

00:21:13.401 --> 00:21:17.384
And then I'd work on embellishing them and improvising around them and so on.

00:21:17.684 --> 00:21:21.288
Because bluegrass musicians do do some improvisation quite often.

00:21:21.508 --> 00:21:23.549
They don't play the exact melodies.

00:21:23.778 --> 00:21:29.890
Yeah, so you're basically learning the melodies of these tunes, and then you do some improvisation as well.

00:21:29.990 --> 00:21:31.333
It's basically how you approached it.

00:21:31.613 --> 00:21:38.847
Yeah, embellishments, improvisation, but I rarely do it to the point where you don't recognize in some form the melody.

00:21:39.248 --> 00:21:43.155
I like to improvise, but I somehow like in my head to hear the melody line.

00:21:43.256 --> 00:21:45.902
So I'm not just going by chord changes and...

00:21:46.241 --> 00:21:48.644
know what scales fit what chords and so on.

00:21:48.945 --> 00:21:55.734
I really try to get something that really nods to the melody, that really keeps referring back to the melody in some form.

00:21:56.134 --> 00:22:05.627
We talked about how you might be one of the, most possibly the only person who plays bluegrass exclusively on chromatic, because there are other players, Charlie McCoy, P.T.

00:22:05.748 --> 00:22:12.958
Gazelle, Buddy Green, they do play some bluegrass, they're not entirely bluegrass players, but they do some bluegrass tunes, but they're playing those on diatonic, aren't they?

00:22:13.089 --> 00:22:32.955
yes as far as i know with a possible exception of jimmy riddle you know that used to be on the hee haw show he played chromatic and he did do some bluegrass but mostly country with his possible exception i don't know anyone really put out bluegrass album that feature the chromatic harmonica it seems like i'm the only one yeah you're you

00:22:32.996 --> 00:22:55.892
are unique well done david and it sounds great you've got some great fluency and speed i was listening Very impressed with, you know, what you're able to do, particularly on the chromatic.

00:22:55.971 --> 00:23:04.951
I think that is more challenging with the, you know, handling the keys, you know, playing in the key of A with three shorts, you know, with the slide movements and the chromatic is quite a challenge.

00:23:04.971 --> 00:23:07.355
And as you say, the key of A is a common key in bluegrass.

00:23:07.395 --> 00:23:12.184
So again, you're able to handle those tunes in the key of A, for example.

00:23:12.546 --> 00:23:12.865
Yeah.

00:23:13.207 --> 00:23:13.287
And

00:23:13.326 --> 00:23:20.212
I've gotten pretty, there's so many tunes in the key of A that some tunes are still very difficult, but a lot of them are no longer a challenge.

00:23:20.492 --> 00:23:22.515
And I find it quite natural to play in that key.

00:23:22.875 --> 00:23:27.659
And one thing, the word blue in bluegrass does suggest correctly that there is a blues element to it, isn't it?

00:23:27.679 --> 00:23:30.000
And you often do play seventh notes, don't you?

00:23:30.020 --> 00:23:34.345
You know, that is part of the, you know, there is a bit of a blues edge to bluegrass music, isn't there, because of that?

00:23:34.684 --> 00:23:41.351
Yeah, I find it's a little more related to some of the European music, you know, like Irish music and so on.

00:23:41.651 --> 00:23:48.220
But it depends on there's some bluegrass tunes that are very bluesy, certainly, but then there are others that I find really aren't.

00:23:48.681 --> 00:23:51.705
So, you know, bluegrass is really a varied form of music.

00:23:52.105 --> 00:23:55.691
There are many different bands that have written many different kinds of instrumentals.

00:23:55.991 --> 00:23:57.534
It's kind of all over the map, I think.

00:23:58.134 --> 00:23:59.978
And then going on to gypsy jazz bands.

00:24:00.258 --> 00:24:02.380
Again, maybe for the uninitiated.

00:24:02.740 --> 00:24:09.226
One thing that's interesting is even though the genres sound really different, bluegrass and gypsy jazz, there's a lot of similarity.

00:24:09.365 --> 00:24:11.627
They both kind of have a folk root to them.

00:24:11.847 --> 00:24:16.652
Even though gypsy jazz has some very sophisticated jazz, it also has a root element.

00:24:16.912 --> 00:24:24.919
You know, the East European kind of jazz, a bit of a klezmer sound, a bit of the gypsy jazz that was going around for music and so on.

00:24:25.220 --> 00:24:26.901
So it's a roots kind of music.

00:24:26.980 --> 00:24:30.084
And the other thing is it's played traditionally, it's played acoustically.

00:24:30.223 --> 00:24:31.461
It's not amplified.

00:24:31.746 --> 00:24:35.829
Also, traditionally, they don't use percussive instruments like drums.

00:24:36.029 --> 00:24:40.232
The percussion is handled by the string instruments, just the way it is in bluegrass.

00:24:40.653 --> 00:24:46.338
The other thing about that is that they often play in the sharp keys in gypsy jazz as well as bluegrass.

00:24:46.578 --> 00:24:53.944
A lot of traditional jazz, they play in the flat keys because it's horn-dominated, and the horn players like to play in the flat keys.

00:24:54.204 --> 00:24:59.930
But in gypsy jazz, often play in the sharp keys as we do in bluegrass, but it's dominated by the guitar.

00:25:00.131 --> 00:25:10.185
Django Reinhardt was the great Thank you very much.

00:25:20.481 --> 00:25:21.262
They have a bass.

00:25:21.423 --> 00:25:22.384
They have a violin.

00:25:22.784 --> 00:25:24.285
All of that's also in bluegrass.

00:25:24.505 --> 00:25:28.068
They do add accordions sometimes, which bluegrass people rarely use.

00:25:28.368 --> 00:25:38.237
And that made the harmonica pretty natural in gypsy jazz because the harmonica is also a reed instrument that in some manner has the same tonal quality as an accordion.

00:25:38.857 --> 00:25:44.742
Another thing, as you touched on there, is gypsy jazz is kind of like a folk jazz genre, isn't it?

00:25:44.782 --> 00:25:49.366
So you get that kind of folk basis to jazz, don't you?

00:25:49.386 --> 00:25:56.773
And the chord changes aren't so complex as some of the crazy chord changes you get in some jazz music, so like you say, some similarities there.

00:25:56.953 --> 00:26:00.017
There is some history, isn't there, in the gypsy jazz.

00:26:00.076 --> 00:26:01.897
Larry Adler played with Django Reinhardt,

00:26:05.580 --> 00:26:17.872
didn't

00:26:17.892 --> 00:26:18.012
he?

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

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

00:26:19.809 --> 00:26:24.339
Yeah, he did.

00:26:24.519 --> 00:26:27.826
He recorded at least four tunes with Django Reinhardt.

00:26:28.248 --> 00:26:31.173
I think Gilderay supposedly played with Django.

00:26:31.555 --> 00:26:34.059
They never recorded together.

00:26:34.079 --> 00:26:36.726
And I think Cook Steelman might have also.

00:26:37.442 --> 00:26:37.883
Oh, really?

00:26:38.202 --> 00:26:40.968
Gypsy jazz harmonica players, I'm certainly not unique.

00:26:41.107 --> 00:26:42.790
There are some great players out there today.

00:26:43.251 --> 00:26:47.898
Yeah, and obviously a lot of people who do play jazz and harmonica do use chromatic harmonica.

00:26:47.939 --> 00:26:50.824
So maybe that's more of a natural fit with gypsy jazz.

00:26:50.844 --> 00:26:58.798
But as you say, there's probably quite a lot of similarities with bluegrass that maybe, you know, maybe there is more space for bluegrass on the chromatic and you lead in the way in that.

00:26:59.201 --> 00:27:03.125
So we're getting now to talking about some of the albums you produce.

00:27:03.266 --> 00:27:05.768
You've been coming out with albums for the last 16 years or so.

00:27:05.827 --> 00:27:10.372
Your first album was in 2005, Harmonica and Guitar Duets.

00:27:10.672 --> 00:27:12.413
Is that you playing the guitar and the harmonica?

00:27:13.074 --> 00:27:17.218
Yeah, I'm playing both guitar and harmonica, fingerpick style guitar.

00:27:17.238 --> 00:27:25.164
I mainly did that album to learn Pro Tools because I just got Pro Tools and I figured the fun way to learn it would be to actually start recording.

00:27:25.424 --> 00:27:27.145
So I had no idea what I was doing.

00:27:28.027 --> 00:27:31.810
Like each track I put on a separate reverb and stuff, which was stupid.

00:27:31.990 --> 00:27:34.272
You know, you're supposed to do that to the master track.

00:27:34.574 --> 00:27:35.994
So my computer kept bombing.

00:27:36.435 --> 00:27:38.999
I had a computer that wasn't up to the task.

00:27:39.138 --> 00:27:44.503
So I had to consolidate all of the tracks as I went along so the computer wouldn't freeze.

00:27:44.724 --> 00:27:52.573
So it was very frustrating, and it had a bit of latency when I was playing, where I had to kind of compensate for the fact that things weren't lined up perfectly.

00:27:52.593 --> 00:27:53.693
So it was really a pain.

00:27:53.913 --> 00:27:57.157
But I did it, and then I found people loved the album.

00:27:57.637 --> 00:27:59.621
I was never intending to read lease it.

00:27:59.941 --> 00:28:01.982
But a lot of folks really liked it.

00:28:02.222 --> 00:28:04.286
And so there are problems with it.

00:28:04.506 --> 00:28:09.090
But like I said, I didn't understand Pro Tools very well, but it was a real fun album to do.

00:28:09.471 --> 00:28:12.314
And that's the only album I did without professional help.

00:28:12.554 --> 00:28:15.958
I just slumped it together in my little Pro Tools studio.

00:28:16.178 --> 00:28:24.267
From then on, I went out to Apple Valley, which is about an hour and a half from me, where I have a great studio with an incredible engineer.

00:28:24.547 --> 00:28:25.828
I've been using him ever since.

00:28:25.989 --> 00:28:28.270
But that first album I did completely on my own.

00:28:28.411 --> 00:28:28.991
Great learning.

00:28:29.011 --> 00:28:33.178
You Nothing else, like you said, the process of recording is well worthwhile, isn't it?

00:28:33.198 --> 00:28:43.634
And the genres on there, I think you said earlier on, you were interested, there's some blues on there, some swing stuff from ragtime and country, and also a kind of classical piece with a tarantella, yeah?

00:28:43.874 --> 00:28:44.095
Yeah.

00:28:53.087 --> 00:28:54.430
Yeah.

00:28:57.986 --> 00:29:08.923
And I also did some diatonic on there, including a harmonic minor harmonica I used, as well as a natural minor harmonica, and then a regular tuned diatonic harmonica.

00:29:09.083 --> 00:29:11.748
So there is diatonic as well as chromatic on that album.

00:29:12.028 --> 00:29:16.134
You did another album in 2008, High Desert Bluegrass Sessions.

00:29:16.234 --> 00:29:23.045
So this is the first time you released a dedicated bluegrass album with some bluegrass classics on there, such as Red Wings.

00:29:23.842 --> 00:29:25.498
So,

00:29:41.089 --> 00:29:44.593
and you also started getting some good bluegrass players to play with you.

00:29:45.053 --> 00:29:45.294
Yes.

00:29:45.453 --> 00:29:55.321
One of the things about bluegrass and gypsy jazz, what they have in common also, is that typically there are many soloists and often not one soloist dominates every other.

00:29:55.722 --> 00:30:02.429
On both these genres, I like to give everyone the opportunity to really shine and not to hold back in any way.

00:30:02.469 --> 00:30:06.031
That started with the High Desert Bluegrass session, my second album.

00:30:06.352 --> 00:30:08.153
Pat Cloud is a bluegrass legend.

00:30:08.233 --> 00:30:10.234
He plays banjo like no one I've ever heard.

00:30:10.275 --> 00:30:11.936
He records very little.

00:30:12.116 --> 00:30:15.601
There was a real coup getting him to agree to record on this album.

00:30:15.921 --> 00:30:19.345
So I got him, and then the violinist I used was a very young player.

00:30:19.404 --> 00:30:22.929
I think he was about 14, and he was already superb.

00:30:23.128 --> 00:30:27.333
And his father is a great guitar player, and it's also his studio.

00:30:27.594 --> 00:30:29.336
So it was all done at the studio.

00:30:29.375 --> 00:30:34.760
The studio, the engineer, Eric Uglum, actually is a real master of this style of music.

00:30:34.901 --> 00:30:38.305
He knows how to record acoustic bluegrass instruments.

00:30:38.484 --> 00:30:42.490
He's done recordings with a Alison Krauss and so on.

00:30:42.710 --> 00:30:44.551
So he's a master of that genre.

00:30:44.811 --> 00:30:51.940
I could not have gotten a better person to play guitar and to mix and master everything and record everything in the studio.

00:30:51.960 --> 00:30:56.183
We started off by trying to play things together in a circle.

00:30:56.565 --> 00:31:06.976
And since we're not a band, even though the players are great, we had to take too many takes because everyone would be happy with their break, except maybe one person would mess up and we had to do everything over again.

00:31:06.996 --> 00:31:09.598
So eventually it just got too expensive.

00:31:09.778 --> 00:31:14.763
We put everyone in their isolation booth, and that really made things a lot faster and more doable.

00:31:15.044 --> 00:31:21.811
So talking about the recording process then, so what about recording of the chromatic, for example, what microphone did you use?

00:31:22.031 --> 00:31:22.732
Do you remember that?

00:31:23.413 --> 00:31:27.998
I completely left it to the discretion of Eric Guzman.

00:31:28.137 --> 00:31:48.946
Eventually, I went back there once, and I tried all of the different mics he had, from$20,000 Neumann mics, I think, all the way down to about$500 mics, and fortunately, we both seemed to hone in on the Neumann mic, the little pencil mic, KM something or other, I forget the number, but they're about$800 to$1,000 mic.

00:31:49.228 --> 00:31:54.136
And that was affordable, fortunately, and I've been using that ever since.

00:31:54.357 --> 00:31:55.118
So that's a small

00:31:55.179 --> 00:31:56.461
condenser mic then, is it?

00:31:56.834 --> 00:31:57.734
Yeah, it's a

00:31:57.875 --> 00:31:58.816
small condenser mic.

00:31:59.076 --> 00:32:05.201
Interesting that, yeah, you'd refer that over the large condenser, because I think a lot of people would record a harmonica with a large condenser mic.

00:32:05.240 --> 00:32:06.021
Yeah, so interesting.

00:32:06.301 --> 00:32:09.924
Yeah, and so I found some of those ones that worked well for vocals.

00:32:10.165 --> 00:32:17.051
The large condenser mics were so sensitive that I felt it would pick up even vibrating nostril hairs or anything.

00:32:17.172 --> 00:32:18.873
You know, they were just almost too sensitive.

00:32:19.713 --> 00:32:22.115
I had to really watch any kind of obvious noise.

00:32:22.296 --> 00:32:24.998
So this was a little more pointed to my mouth.

00:32:25.298 --> 00:32:26.799
I didn't have to worry quite so much.

00:32:26.799 --> 00:32:29.282
about making any kind of peripheral

00:32:29.303 --> 00:32:29.583
noise.

00:32:29.843 --> 00:32:31.766
And that's a particular problem with chromatics, isn't it?

00:32:31.806 --> 00:32:33.728
Because you get the slide movement, of course.

00:32:33.748 --> 00:32:35.410
So it's quite a factor.

00:32:35.750 --> 00:32:35.990
Yeah,

00:32:36.009 --> 00:32:37.912
I do play sometimes the CX-12.

00:32:37.971 --> 00:32:40.174
That is known for a noisy slide.

00:32:40.375 --> 00:32:44.159
But somehow when I record, I push the slide in without slamming it.

00:32:44.519 --> 00:32:46.761
And I am getting a quiet sound.

00:32:46.923 --> 00:32:48.443
So it's never been really an issue

00:32:48.503 --> 00:32:48.663
for

00:32:48.703 --> 00:32:48.845
me.

00:32:49.365 --> 00:32:50.866
So you don't treat the slide with

00:32:50.946 --> 00:32:53.470
any lubricant then to quiet it down?

00:32:53.589 --> 00:32:53.630
No.

00:32:53.922 --> 00:32:54.382
No.

00:32:55.182 --> 00:32:57.305
I've had some people repair my harmonicas.

00:32:57.425 --> 00:33:02.170
We add a little stomper at the end so you can push the slide and it gets a little rubber bumper.

00:33:02.210 --> 00:33:03.811
And that does make it quieter.

00:33:03.991 --> 00:33:05.733
But it's never been much of an issue for me.

00:33:06.134 --> 00:33:08.096
So then moving on to your next album.

00:33:08.135 --> 00:33:10.598
So you're getting them out quite regularly over two years or so.

00:33:10.659 --> 00:33:15.943
So you got a great title, Bluegrass Harmonica, to boldly go where no harmonica has gone before.

00:33:15.983 --> 00:33:21.710
And there's a picture of the harmonica with warp speed on the front of it, again, emphasizing that speed playing.

00:33:22.241 --> 00:33:22.845
Yeah, that was the

00:33:22.884 --> 00:33:26.140
first album that I really emphasized more of the harmonica.

00:33:26.160 --> 00:33:30.961
Although, again, I did have Pat Platt on banjo and Eric Uglub on guitar.

00:33:31.266 --> 00:33:35.973
But I didn't have as many instruments as I did on some other CDs that I did later on.

00:33:36.273 --> 00:33:38.857
So it was a little more emphasis on the harmonica.

00:33:39.057 --> 00:33:41.623
And some of the tunes were bluegrass classics.

00:33:41.762 --> 00:33:46.730
I just wanted to really play them and demonstrate what a chromatic can do on standard bluegrass instrumentals.

00:33:47.471 --> 00:33:49.736
And there's a song, Whiskey Before Breakfast, though.

00:33:49.756 --> 00:33:56.185
So you've got multi-tracked harmonica, haven't you?

00:33:56.205 --> 00:33:56.286
Yeah.

00:34:05.857 --> 00:34:07.076
Yeah, a lot of the tunes...

00:34:07.394 --> 00:34:10.936
Sometimes I add a second track of harmonica for harmony.

00:34:11.237 --> 00:34:14.119
If the harmony is playable, I think it adds a nice sound.

00:34:14.340 --> 00:34:21.525
So I'll play it with a straight line harmonica, and then I add a second track that provides some of the harmonic lines that parallel the melody.

00:34:21.827 --> 00:34:25.650
And sometimes the harmony parts are more difficult to play fast than the melody.

00:34:26.110 --> 00:34:28.251
So if it slows me down too much, I give up on it.

00:34:28.411 --> 00:34:30.974
And I let other instruments play the harmony part.

00:34:31.215 --> 00:34:49.320
Since we're in a studio, though, it takes a long time to get another instrument to know exactly the melody I'm playing and do parallel harmony so sometimes it's a little more convenient if I add it and it gives a nice sound I think having the double harmonica track on it so I've been doing that on many CDs since then too adding double harmonica lines

00:34:49.521 --> 00:34:54.269
so are you using that sometimes as a technique to get in some of the more tricky maybe fast forwards

00:34:54.594 --> 00:34:56.175
Yeah, I've understood your question.

00:34:56.215 --> 00:35:01.380
What I often do with a harmony line, I really have to know exactly what melody I'm playing.

00:35:01.519 --> 00:35:03.722
And I practice the harmony line really well.

00:35:03.942 --> 00:35:09.206
So when I get to the studio, I do multiple tapes until I get, you know, really get a nice clean sound.

00:35:09.507 --> 00:35:18.914
And sometimes like if I get the first half really well done, but the second half isn't too good, I might shift up a second half from another tape that sounds much more right on.

00:35:19.114 --> 00:35:24.380
So I will do a little cheating in the studio to save time, but generally not that much process.

00:35:24.539 --> 00:35:28.164
I I try to get things pretty much live in the studio when I play.

00:35:28.485 --> 00:35:32.590
When I improvise, I usually do multiple lines and take the one I like best.

00:35:32.849 --> 00:35:41.340
Again, sometimes combining various takes, like certain parts, like an A part I'll get from one track and the second track I'll get the B part and push that up.

00:35:41.521 --> 00:35:44.925
So I do a little bit of that kind of manipulation in the studio.

00:35:45.224 --> 00:35:49.090
But generally, I like, you know, really trying to make it more of a live sound.

00:35:49.697 --> 00:35:50.119
And

00:35:50.139 --> 00:35:56.146
then in 2012, two years later, you did a dedicated gypsy jazz album, Douce Ambiance.

00:35:56.507 --> 00:36:04.679
And yeah, mostly, as I say, your gypsy tunes on here and the Lady Be Goods on there, Nuage, another great Django tune.

00:36:05.400 --> 00:36:15.494
¶¶

00:36:21.538 --> 00:36:28.963
On this album, Gonzalo Vergara was one of the best Gypsy Jazz guitar players in the United States.

00:36:29.224 --> 00:36:31.646
He was a great player and I knew him for many years.

00:36:31.786 --> 00:36:35.190
I knew Gonzalo when he was first starting off on Gypsy Jazz.

00:36:35.289 --> 00:36:37.192
Before that, he was actually a blues player.

00:36:37.452 --> 00:36:42.536
And he was even a lead guitar player for Jason Ritchie's band, you know, the great blues harmonica player.

00:36:43.097 --> 00:36:45.179
And he himself played apparently great harmonica.

00:36:45.199 --> 00:36:45.878
I've never heard him.

00:36:46.440 --> 00:36:51.503
Anyway, he's been working on Gypsy Jazz for a while and he's just got to be an incredible player.

00:36:51.503 --> 00:36:51.884
player.

00:36:52.005 --> 00:36:57.911
So I thought of asking him if he'll do a Gypsy Jazz CD with me using his band members as backup.

00:36:58.110 --> 00:36:58.731
And he agreed.

00:36:58.891 --> 00:37:05.099
So we all went to Eric Oslund's studio and spent several days there working over all these different tunes.

00:37:05.458 --> 00:37:07.641
And he also helped out on the arrangements.

00:37:07.880 --> 00:37:10.643
A lot of those arrangements are really unique to his style.

00:37:10.824 --> 00:37:11.806
So it was a great pleasure.

00:37:11.826 --> 00:37:13.907
It was really great working with Gonzalo.

00:37:14.108 --> 00:37:18.152
It was really easy to work with and I had a really time of my life working with him.

00:37:18.373 --> 00:37:26.804
And then I added some Pat Cloud in there too because he He plays jazz banjo like very few people can do this kind of stuff on a five-string banjo the way he does.

00:37:26.923 --> 00:37:29.306
So I added him, even though it's very peculiar.

00:37:29.547 --> 00:37:35.135
If harmonica is not strange enough, adding a five-string banjo, the gypsy jazz was probably even odder.

00:37:35.295 --> 00:37:35.916
But I

00:37:35.976 --> 00:37:36.237
did it.

00:37:37.318 --> 00:37:37.418
Great.

00:37:37.438 --> 00:37:42.706
I understand Lady Be Good won the runner-up for the Best Instrumental from the International Acoustic Music Awards.

00:37:43.206 --> 00:37:51.197
Yeah.

00:37:55.137 --> 00:38:06.755
I forget, I got some sort of dreams or something.

00:38:06.956 --> 00:38:11.463
They give you free items like guitar strings without even knowing I play guitar.

00:38:11.663 --> 00:38:13.306
It was not harmonica specific.

00:38:13.762 --> 00:38:16.324
So then moving on to your next three albums.

00:38:16.664 --> 00:38:20.768
So the next one, 2014, this is where you start getting some really great bluegrass players.

00:38:20.907 --> 00:38:23.070
Stuart Duncan is a really top fiddle player.

00:38:23.389 --> 00:38:25.692
How have you managed to attract these fantastic musicians?

00:38:26.353 --> 00:38:30.036
Not saying that these are top players in the bluegrass world, aren't they?

00:38:30.396 --> 00:38:33.599
Yes, every single one of them, sometimes multiple times.

00:38:33.838 --> 00:38:37.181
The IBMA Instrumentalist of the Year Award.

00:38:37.722 --> 00:38:42.746
IBMA is the International Bluegrass Music Association, which is the biggest award in bluegrass.

00:38:42.847 --> 00:38:47.072
So Rob, I expect I think has been given more of those awards than anyone in history.

00:38:47.291 --> 00:38:50.454
And he's a dobro player, and Sierra Hall has won multiple times.

00:38:50.635 --> 00:38:55.800
Jake Workman is very young, a guitar player, and he just won, got that award last year, 2020.

00:38:56.621 --> 00:38:59.364
And they're all top, top-flight people.

00:38:59.664 --> 00:39:04.070
And most of them I became friends with because we used to host house concerts.

00:39:04.210 --> 00:39:06.793
And some of those people played at our house, and I got to know.

00:39:06.972 --> 00:39:10.516
And some I got to know by going to bluegrass festivals and jamming with them.

00:39:10.797 --> 00:39:14.681
Plus, our studio engineer, Eric Uglan, knows a almost all those people.

00:39:15.101 --> 00:39:16.623
They're not strangers to me.

00:39:16.963 --> 00:39:23.590
And I was really happy that they liked my harmonica playing enough to agree to be on my CD because I could not have gotten better players.

00:39:23.871 --> 00:39:24.452
Exactly.

00:39:24.472 --> 00:39:29.976
And like you say, because the harmonica and the chromatic harmonica isn't known as a bluegrass album, again, to get these really top players.

00:39:30.056 --> 00:39:34.161
So was it just the case of you saying, you know, you inviting them saying, you know, do you want to play on this album?

00:39:34.222 --> 00:39:35.724
And they just said yes, basically.

00:39:36.023 --> 00:39:36.284
Yeah,

00:39:36.443 --> 00:39:36.885
that was it.

00:39:37.164 --> 00:39:39.847
I told them the kind of songs I wanted to play, the tunes.

00:39:39.947 --> 00:39:41.829
I like to give a lot of freedom to people.

00:39:41.949 --> 00:40:17.248
So if there's a tune they don't like or don't want to play they don't need to but i kind of figure these are the kind of tunes what i first do actually is give the background i get the the rhythm section i get the guitar track down i get the bass track down and i do it to a click track the click track allows me to actually open up space for an extra solo or to eliminate a solo boss so it gives me more freedom and then in the studio i often allow them to play you know one or two solos whatever they want to do and i found the more freedom i give these excellent players the better the CD turns out, I like to get the least amount of direction possible.

00:40:17.467 --> 00:40:28.920
Then we just put the solos together in those sections, and it gets integrated by our engineers, so it sounds like we're all together, always just playing live, where in fact, you know, we work separately quite often on these different

00:40:28.980 --> 00:40:29.280
tracks.

00:40:29.581 --> 00:40:30.702
Yeah, so yeah, fantastic.

00:40:30.722 --> 00:40:40.152
Like you say, getting some chop drawer musicians on there obviously makes the album even more enjoyable and lots of great playing, and you know, they're taking solos as you do in Bluegrass.

00:40:40.472 --> 00:40:43.536
New Camptown Races is a great song on there.

00:40:43.536 --> 00:40:58.045
Thank you.

00:40:58.690 --> 00:41:00.871
You do put a little bit of gypsy jazz on this.

00:41:00.891 --> 00:41:03.594
Bluegrass in the Backwoods album in 2014.

00:41:03.614 --> 00:41:05.795
You had a second harmonica player on that one as well,

00:41:05.835 --> 00:41:06.577
didn't you?

00:41:06.597 --> 00:41:11.961
Yes, there's a local harmonica player, John Kipp, who is an outstanding jazz player.

00:41:12.302 --> 00:41:16.565
He's really more of a Tootsie Ullman style jazz player, which I don't do.

00:41:16.826 --> 00:41:19.108
So he really has a thorough understanding of jazz.

00:41:19.268 --> 00:41:21.769
He's been playing chromatic harmonica for about 10 years.

00:41:21.989 --> 00:41:28.536
And before that, he did a lot of studio work, playing everywhere from an oboe to a clarinet to a French horn and so on.

00:41:28.615 --> 00:41:30.157
So He's a real studio musician.

00:41:30.398 --> 00:41:33.103
I was trying to think of something we could do that would be an overlap.

00:41:33.163 --> 00:41:38.369
He's more jazzy than I am, and I'm into more hillbilly music than he is, you know, roots music.

00:41:38.530 --> 00:41:45.119
So we figured, oh, I'll try a jazzy jazz tune that I feel comfortable with and is jazzy enough that he feels comfortable with.

00:41:45.280 --> 00:41:47.103
So we tried that out, and I kind of liked it.

00:41:47.222 --> 00:41:48.425
We did Coquette together.

00:41:57.237 --> 00:41:57.277
¶¶

00:41:58.753 --> 00:42:06.121
And

00:42:06.141 --> 00:42:10.097
then in 2017, he did another album, Blue Graft Up Swings.

00:42:10.561 --> 00:42:14.344
with some of the same musicians on that you had in the previous album, yeah?

00:42:14.786 --> 00:42:20.650
Yes, again, I took my very, very favorites, and I decided to use them all the way through the album.

00:42:20.831 --> 00:42:36.224
Stuart Duncan is usually too busy to do a full album, but I realized he had a gap in his performances and recording projects, so I grabbed him when I could, and he was on every tune he wanted to be, and the same with Jake Workman and Ciara Hall and Rob I.

00:42:36.264 --> 00:42:38.666
So these, again, are all my bluegrass heroes.

00:42:38.766 --> 00:42:40.367
They're all my favorite players.

00:42:40.527 --> 00:42:43.476
And I got them all together on that CD.

00:42:43.556 --> 00:42:45.219
And it's a very consistent CD.

00:42:45.621 --> 00:42:48.288
You know, it's straight bluegrass with these finest players.

00:42:48.588 --> 00:42:51.094
And I find the better the player, the better I play.

00:42:51.396 --> 00:42:54.824
They make me sound really good, even on the backup that they do.

00:42:55.329 --> 00:43:00.695
And also, I get so inspired by their solos that if I don't play well, I sound really bad.

00:43:00.835 --> 00:43:03.998
And I really have to go up to a very high level, try to keep up with them.

00:43:04.338 --> 00:43:07.820
Yeah, there's a good lesson in there about playing with people who are better than you.

00:43:07.840 --> 00:43:11.543
And obviously, playing with people who are excellent is even better, but it pushes you on, doesn't it?

00:43:11.864 --> 00:43:12.204
Oh, yeah.

00:43:12.284 --> 00:43:18.269
If I play with mediocre players, I don't push myself in the same way because I feel, oh, I'm really holding my own.

00:43:18.409 --> 00:43:20.552
But with these people, I really have to work hard.

00:43:20.711 --> 00:43:23.715
And I try as hard as I can to make it fit the bluegrass style.

00:43:23.855 --> 00:43:27.898
You know, when they play, they have to very even tone across their solos.

00:43:27.938 --> 00:43:30.081
There's very little bending going on.

00:43:30.340 --> 00:43:32.463
You know, I try to really get the feel that they have.

00:43:32.643 --> 00:43:36.987
And I also try to get out the note combinations that they use when they embellish the melody.

00:43:37.228 --> 00:43:39.210
So I think very carefully about melody.

00:43:39.251 --> 00:43:45.998
That's probably the most important thing for me is listening to the melody lines, seeing how creative it is, how melodically it works.

00:43:46.097 --> 00:43:48.340
A melodic integrity is central to my playing.

00:43:48.561 --> 00:43:51.204
I really think very carefully about the kind of notes I play.

00:43:51.403 --> 00:44:00.773
And I do try to put a little jazzy notes in if I can still keep that bluegrass feel and so does many of the other players like uh jake lurkman you know the guitar player

00:44:01.175 --> 00:44:22.398
you do have a couple of gypsy songs all of me on this album for example and it's good to hear these bluegrass players playing on these kind of gypsy jazz tunes as well and doing a great job soloing on them too so

00:44:27.969 --> 00:44:30.492
It's a very different feel than the gypsy jazz.

00:44:30.992 --> 00:44:35.757
So it's kind of interesting to hear what the top bluegrass players will do on something like All of Me.

00:44:35.876 --> 00:44:41.862
And again, they're all sophisticated, like Jake Workman has a master's degree in jazz, if I recall.

00:44:42.061 --> 00:44:46.146
So they know how to play jazz as well as bluegrass, which really helps when they play these

00:44:46.226 --> 00:44:46.565
tunes.

00:44:47.047 --> 00:44:52.791
And then your most recent album, released in 2020, is David Nardich Plays Bluegrass and Swing Instrumentals.

00:44:52.851 --> 00:44:56.574
So again, keeping up this theme of playing bluegrass and gypsy jazz songs.

00:44:56.855 --> 00:45:01.081
An interesting song off There's this Bistro Fada, which is kind of French waltz, isn't it?

00:45:01.121 --> 00:45:04.568
And I think it was a theme to the Woody Allen's film Midnight in Paris.

00:45:04.889 --> 00:45:18.432
It's a nice one.

00:45:18.793 --> 00:45:20.315
¶¶

00:45:22.273 --> 00:45:23.875
Yeah, I really like that tune.

00:45:23.974 --> 00:45:36.907
I love the gypsy jazz waltzes and some of them are very hard to play on the chromatic because they jump around like a single run might span several octaves because of all the downstroking technique on the guitar, the down sweep.

00:45:37.166 --> 00:45:44.213
But this tune I was able to play and it was written by Stephan Remble, who's a great gypsy jazz guitarist in New York.

00:45:44.492 --> 00:45:50.257
And he wrote that for the Woody Allen film, although it's very similar to some of the other gypsy jazz style waltzes.

00:45:50.378 --> 00:45:54.623
So I realized I could play you know, and I play very close to his melody.

00:45:54.844 --> 00:46:01.693
And then I have a local guitar player who put the time into doing harmony with me and doing parallel picking and so on.

00:46:01.873 --> 00:46:03.735
So he's a great job backing that up.

00:46:04.376 --> 00:46:07.661
You've got a clarinet player on there as well, I think, and you're on the I Found Me Baby.

00:46:15.891 --> 00:46:20.157
I Found Me Baby

00:46:22.465 --> 00:46:32.336
Yeah, Rob Hart I've known for many years, and he doesn't play that much, but he's one of the real fine clarinet players.

00:46:32.757 --> 00:46:40.806
Actually, I first heard him with Gonzalo Vergara and with John Jorgensen, people like that, and he's just an outstanding woodwind player.

00:46:40.826 --> 00:46:47.333
He plays flute, he plays clarinet, he plays saxophone, and so I was really happy to get him on the CD.

00:46:47.934 --> 00:46:48.675
Yeah, so brilliant.

00:46:48.695 --> 00:46:49.496
So that's your albums.

00:46:49.675 --> 00:46:51.018
Any more albums lined up?

00:46:51.489 --> 00:46:53.373
I haven't really thought about it.

00:46:53.393 --> 00:46:58.039
I mean, that album was the most challenging because I didn't meet anyone face to face.

00:46:58.139 --> 00:47:00.202
It was during the height of the pandemic.

00:47:00.581 --> 00:47:09.193
Some people that were normally so busy, couldn't even imagine getting them on the recording, now have the time because a lot of their gigs were canceled.

00:47:09.534 --> 00:47:11.938
So I actually got people like Yoshio Stefan.

00:47:12.289 --> 00:47:15.275
who's one of the top gypsy jazz players and lived in Germany.

00:47:15.556 --> 00:47:19.623
Then I got Jason Anik, who teaches at the Berklee School of Music in Boston.

00:47:19.643 --> 00:47:24.992
He laid a track, and I got Richard Smith and Stuart Duncan, those folks from Nashville.

00:47:25.293 --> 00:47:30.202
There were actually seven different studios used in that CD, and yet it really integrated.

00:47:30.402 --> 00:47:32.485
I was really pleased the way it came out.

00:47:32.802 --> 00:47:35.288
So you didn't play face-to-face with anybody in this album?

00:47:35.307 --> 00:47:35.989
It was all remote?

00:47:36.309 --> 00:47:38.856
Yeah, it was all done remotely because of the pandemic.

00:47:38.936 --> 00:47:46.653
And I could not believe, because of the caliber of players, you know, we were actually answering each other and working around each other's solos.

00:47:46.978 --> 00:47:52.704
which sounded like we were just in the same room together, which I was really delighted it turned out so well.

00:47:52.945 --> 00:47:54.608
But no, we never met face to face.

00:47:55.007 --> 00:47:59.012
A few of the people in Nashville did, but quite often, no, everything was separate.

00:47:59.132 --> 00:48:03.978
Did they lay down their own track and then the next person came along and sort of listened to that and played on top?

00:48:04.000 --> 00:48:05.081
Or was there some interaction?

00:48:05.280 --> 00:48:06.262
Pretty much that way.

00:48:06.463 --> 00:48:11.148
And sometimes we went back and they listened to what other people did and responded more.

00:48:11.289 --> 00:48:12.670
You know, they updated their track.

00:48:12.731 --> 00:48:15.213
And I did as well when I heard what other people did.

00:48:15.938 --> 00:48:19.400
Because I like it when people respond to what other musicians are doing.

00:48:19.661 --> 00:48:25.806
Too often, musicians have their solo in mind and they'll play the same solo regardless of what others are playing.

00:48:26.027 --> 00:48:32.572
But I really like it when people address what was done previously by other players and kind of answering them in a dialogue.

00:48:32.972 --> 00:48:36.235
And I think it has some of that feel because we did do it multiple times.

00:48:36.456 --> 00:48:39.117
And we also did it to a click track, which made it easier.

00:48:39.478 --> 00:48:46.865
If someone wanted to do double solo instead of single solo, I could open up another spot for them since it was all done according to a quick track.

00:48:47.266 --> 00:48:47.927
That's interesting.

00:48:48.108 --> 00:48:54.221
I know you said the pandemic and this new, not so much new, but pushed on this idea of doing remote recording and albums like that.

00:48:54.240 --> 00:48:57.246
So yeah, you'd do that again when you're doing a remote recorded album.

00:48:57.788 --> 00:48:58.608
Oh, I really like it.

00:48:58.690 --> 00:48:59.010
I love

00:48:59.231 --> 00:49:00.532
meeting people face to face.

00:49:00.994 --> 00:49:06.679
I'm not very smart when it comes to recording, and so I really rely on the experts when I'm at the studio.

00:49:07.018 --> 00:49:11.583
So I was a little uncomfortable not using him at the studio, but it turned out okay, I thought.

00:49:11.722 --> 00:49:17.208
He does all of the mixing and mastering and really make it sound like we're all together in the same room acoustically.

00:49:17.608 --> 00:49:19.130
But I gave him the raw recording.

00:49:19.409 --> 00:49:28.177
I didn't do any processing on my harmonica track, and he does a little compression, maybe a little reverb, maybe cut out some of the highs.

00:49:28.378 --> 00:49:29.719
I don't even know what he does.

00:49:29.918 --> 00:49:30.860
So I'll leave that to him.

00:49:30.960 --> 00:49:33.784
So it all has the same quality, like we're in the same room.

00:49:34.085 --> 00:49:38.070
I did get the mic that he used in the studio, that Neumann pencil mic.

00:49:38.371 --> 00:49:41.635
And I thought it worked out very well and had a very quiet room in the house.

00:49:41.795 --> 00:49:45.360
So I did that at home and I was actually very happy the way it turned out.

00:49:45.420 --> 00:49:47.945
So I could possibly do that in a future album.

00:49:48.005 --> 00:49:48.445
I don't know.

00:49:48.585 --> 00:49:51.048
Although I do prefer being, like I said, face to face

00:49:51.148 --> 00:49:51.208
in

00:49:51.250 --> 00:49:53.994
the studio with at least some of the other musicians.

00:49:54.465 --> 00:50:02.809
But one thing I noticed you do on your website is you have this Airplay section, which is where you make your songs available for radio stations to play your songs.

00:50:02.829 --> 00:50:06.780
So it's something that I talked to recently, Matt Whatley.

00:50:07.161 --> 00:50:08.003
He did the same thing.

00:50:08.043 --> 00:50:10.130
So do you find that gets you lots of Airplay on the radio?

00:50:10.594 --> 00:50:11.094
Yes.

00:50:11.255 --> 00:50:22.423
What happens is when a lot of radio stations, especially in Bluegrass, like using that Airplay Direct, and what they do is they subscribe and they can download whatever tunes they want that are featured on that site.

00:50:22.483 --> 00:50:24.846
And there are many, many different Bluegrass albums.

00:50:24.925 --> 00:50:27.088
That way, they don't have to get physical CDs.

00:50:27.469 --> 00:50:32.092
I recently promoted my latest CD there and did get a lot of downloads.

00:50:32.112 --> 00:50:35.396
And people have been telling me they've been hearing it more and more on the radio.

00:50:35.615 --> 00:50:38.657
The Bluegrass radio stations, they've been hearing more of my music.

00:50:38.838 --> 00:50:42.384
It's a really nice way to promote your music and get it heard on radio.

00:50:42.704 --> 00:50:42.764
You

00:50:42.824 --> 00:50:44.628
have to pay something to this airplay director.

00:50:45.572 --> 00:50:53.590
You have to pay, depending on how much publicity you want, advertising, but even without advertising, just putting it on the site, people notice it.

00:50:53.791 --> 00:50:55.134
They discover it on their own.

00:50:55.458 --> 00:50:58.061
It's often used in bluegrass, the airplay direct.

00:50:58.181 --> 00:51:00.985
I don't know if jazz musicians use it as much.

00:51:01.065 --> 00:51:05.672
It seems like it's mostly a root kind of thing, and I'm not getting as many hits with gypsy jazz.

00:51:06.092 --> 00:51:11.740
Radio stations that play gypsy jazz, they're not that many, but I don't think they use them as much as the bluegrass people.

00:51:12.621 --> 00:51:18.010
You recently appeared in a Harmonica UK magazine article interviewed by Tony Ayers, so...

00:51:18.434 --> 00:51:19.597
Tony's an Australian guy.

00:51:19.617 --> 00:51:21.981
So how do you know Tony and how did that interview come about?

00:51:22.443 --> 00:51:24.027
Interestingly, Tony and I knew

00:51:24.367 --> 00:51:27.574
of each other for a long time because he played similar music.

00:51:27.896 --> 00:51:30.382
He liked playing bluegrass on diatonic.

00:51:30.521 --> 00:51:31.945
So we were aware of each other.

00:51:31.965 --> 00:51:35.414
He has a harmonica academy where he teaches harmonica.

00:51:35.746 --> 00:51:48.396
We met at SPA, which is the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica, and did a lot of jamming together, which was great fun because there's hardly anyone else that attends that know the kind of tunes that I like to play.

00:51:48.577 --> 00:51:51.440
So I got to know him pretty well from SPA, got along great.

00:51:51.659 --> 00:51:56.344
And then the strangest thing, I went to the Galax Fiddle Festival in Virginia.

00:51:56.784 --> 00:52:08.155
The last person I expected to meet there is Tony, but I kept hearing that there's another harmonica player from Australia that's really good, and that was really curious, and it just occurred to me that's got to be Tony.

00:52:08.474 --> 00:52:19.889
And sure enough, we finally met there and had a really good time wandering from campground to campground, playing a lot of bluegrass, a little old-timey, and there were some very good swing jams as well.

00:52:20.269 --> 00:52:23.092
The musicianship at that camp was just amazing.

00:52:23.253 --> 00:52:27.518
They had some of the top bluegrass players just walking around wanting to jam with everyone.

00:52:27.938 --> 00:52:32.164
They had a great time playing, and Tony and I did quite a bit of playing together at that festival.

00:52:32.545 --> 00:52:33.565
It was great fun.

00:52:33.858 --> 00:52:40.411
And then, so he then mentioned that he does these articles for the magazine and said, sure.

00:52:40.771 --> 00:52:41.432
He wrote it up.

00:52:41.934 --> 00:52:42.916
I thought it was very good.

00:52:43.056 --> 00:52:47.806
He talked about a lot of the things that no other article really mentioned because he knows bluegrass so well.

00:52:48.206 --> 00:52:49.048
Yeah, no, it's a good article.

00:52:49.068 --> 00:52:49.188
Yeah.

00:52:49.208 --> 00:52:52.235
If you can check it out, I think it's June, July edition of the 2021.

00:52:52.675 --> 00:52:53.438
So yeah.

00:52:53.889 --> 00:52:59.434
So a question I ask each time, David, is if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

00:52:59.815 --> 00:52:59.994
Well,

00:53:00.094 --> 00:53:05.119
actually, the thing that's helped my playing, I'd say, more than anything is jamming with other musicians.

00:53:05.400 --> 00:53:10.664
Even better than practicing alone, I find by jamming with other musicians, you've really got to think fast.

00:53:10.925 --> 00:53:19.932
You've got to start playing tunes you've never heard before, really feel a tonal center and what you can do with it, and try to get close to the melody lines as you can.

00:53:20.253 --> 00:53:22.175
So I find that's excellent training.

00:53:22.414 --> 00:53:29.240
And if I'm going to a bluegrass jam, I might prepare myself by practicing a little some of the bluegrass standards.

00:53:29.501 --> 00:53:33.704
If I'm going to more of a swing jam, I'll be working on some of the swing standards.

00:53:33.885 --> 00:53:41.052
But I find that by being with other musicians in informal jam sessions, that has done more to my playing than anything else I could think of.

00:53:41.311 --> 00:53:51.902
Way more than practicing scales, a lot more than even just playing to a CD, because you really have to listen carefully to what others are playing and respond right on the spot.

00:53:52.577 --> 00:54:14.846
Thank you.

00:54:18.146 --> 00:54:19.887
So yeah, just talking a little bit about gear.

00:54:19.947 --> 00:54:23.351
So talking about harmonicas and clearly you're mainly a chromatic player.

00:54:23.371 --> 00:54:27.054
I think you're playing the Seidel Saxony and the Horner CX-12.

00:54:27.373 --> 00:54:28.554
Those are my two favorites.

00:54:28.934 --> 00:54:35.221
In cold weather, for some reason, the CX-12, those wind sabers just stick like glue and don't work well.

00:54:35.280 --> 00:54:37.382
But the Saxony works much better, I find.

00:54:37.563 --> 00:54:42.606
And also, sometimes when it goes to the higher register, the Saxony has a nice sweeter sound.

00:54:42.887 --> 00:54:50.215
So I will jump between those two, depending on the condition of the harmonica and how I'm And do you

00:54:50.675 --> 00:54:52.197
play just 12 holes?

00:54:52.739 --> 00:54:54.081
Well, I can't say that.

00:54:54.260 --> 00:54:58.126
Every so often, I need the lower register, so I will go to a 16-hole.

00:54:58.568 --> 00:55:05.277
Sometimes the melodies really sound better if I jump to a lower note, and that's when I'll actually pick up a 16-hole chromatic.

00:55:05.634 --> 00:55:06.114
Yeah.

00:55:06.134 --> 00:55:08.657
And are you playing any diatonic these days?

00:55:09.277 --> 00:55:09.476
No.

00:55:10.077 --> 00:55:11.980
No, I haven't played diatonic for quite a while.

00:55:12.260 --> 00:55:18.925
I get so frustrated because I hear notes that I can't play or I feel constrained or I don't have the range I want.

00:55:19.226 --> 00:55:20.907
And again, I don't like to bend the notes.

00:55:21.086 --> 00:55:25.090
I like all the notes that have a similar timbre and tonal quality.

00:55:25.210 --> 00:55:34.579
And when I start bending certain notes and not bending others, I find it's harder to get that real uniform sound that I'm really after in music like bluegrass and gypsy jazz.

00:55:34.679 --> 00:55:37.081
So I just find it frustrating to play those.

00:55:37.481 --> 00:55:45.630
I'll play them if I'm, the diatonic I'd be happier to play with if I'm playing country blues again or something like that, which I think it lends itself beautifully to.

00:55:45.931 --> 00:55:49.134
And embouchure-wise, are you lip-pursing, tongue-blocking?

00:55:49.894 --> 00:55:51.315
Yeah, I'm mostly a tongue-blocker.

00:55:51.735 --> 00:55:52.757
I do know how to pucker.

00:55:52.777 --> 00:55:54.780
I mostly tongue-block.

00:55:55.119 --> 00:56:03.228
I do tongue-switching on some of my recordings, but sometimes I like to make these jumps that are just too hard to do without switching from one side of the tongue to the other.

00:56:03.248 --> 00:56:04.769
So I find that very useful.

00:56:05.186 --> 00:56:10.634
And occasionally I'll play octaves like on that last CD I did on I Found a New Baby.

00:56:10.873 --> 00:56:13.197
There's one little section I do all octaves playing.

00:56:13.378 --> 00:56:24.594
And I love octaves on the chromatic because if you block, you know, the three central holes and play the outer two, that you always get an octave, whether it's a blow draw, whether the slide is in or out, which makes it really nice.

00:56:24.815 --> 00:56:29.762
So once you get that mouth shape, you just move the harmonica and can play all the octave lines.

00:56:29.882 --> 00:56:31.885
So I do use tongue blocking for that as well.

00:56:32.610 --> 00:56:39.215
So when you're playing live, you're playing acoustically and maybe there's just an acoustic mic, which is being used sometimes to pick you up.

00:56:39.416 --> 00:56:46.601
Well, almost all my playing live is done in jam sessions at festivals and nothing's amplified.

00:56:46.681 --> 00:56:48.403
It's all 100% acoustic.

00:56:48.523 --> 00:56:50.806
Sometimes on stage, I just use the vocal mic.

00:56:51.045 --> 00:56:58.773
If I'm joining in with a band, let's say, I'll use whatever they use typically as a vocal mic, sometimes the violin mic.

00:56:58.893 --> 00:57:01.594
But usually I find the vocal mics work pretty well.

00:57:01.954 --> 00:57:04.860
And final Question then, any future plans coming up?

00:57:04.900 --> 00:57:07.483
You're getting out, playing now, getting back to more festivals?

00:57:08.184 --> 00:57:08.405
Yes,

00:57:08.545 --> 00:57:09.166
I'm also going to

00:57:09.266 --> 00:57:10.047
private jams.

00:57:10.168 --> 00:57:12.010
I have a lot of friends that host jams.

00:57:12.210 --> 00:57:16.737
Plus, I'll be going eventually back to our house concerts and also to our house jams.

00:57:17.039 --> 00:57:19.523
My wife hosted a lot of these on YouTube.

00:57:19.543 --> 00:57:26.554
If you go to Jackie Nadech's YouTube channel, you can hear a lot of our house jams as well as some of the house concerts.

00:57:26.849 --> 00:57:32.146
I sometimes sit in with one of the band on a few numbers for a house concert so they get to know me.

00:57:32.347 --> 00:57:40.873
But a lot of it is also just house jams where I invite some of my favorite players locally to come in and we just jam, play whatever songs we want.

00:57:41.282 --> 00:57:45.025
Sometimes bluegrass, sometimes gypsy jazz, sometimes swing tunes.

00:57:45.425 --> 00:57:48.148
And I do plan to go to some future festivals.

00:57:48.228 --> 00:57:50.889
Summergrass is coming up, which is near San Diego.

00:57:51.030 --> 00:57:55.855
There's a 48-hour jam in Carlsbad that's coming up.

00:57:56.235 --> 00:57:58.717
I think there's going to be one pretty soon in Bakersfield.

00:57:58.936 --> 00:58:01.519
There's one in Bellevue, Washington that I really enjoy.

00:58:01.559 --> 00:58:06.164
And it's a gypsy jazz festival at Whidbey Island, which I might be going to.

00:58:06.344 --> 00:58:17.438
And that's a beautiful island about an hour and a half north of Seattle, where they have superb play and a lot of jamming all over the city of Langley, and great shows and great workshops, a lot of fun.

00:58:17.938 --> 00:58:19.141
So thanks so much, David

00:58:19.181 --> 00:58:20.322
Nabitz, for joining me today.

00:58:20.684 --> 00:58:21.164
Well, thank you.

00:58:21.184 --> 00:58:22.045
I really enjoyed this.

00:58:22.347 --> 00:58:23.188
Thanks for the interview.

00:58:24.130 --> 00:58:27.034
That's episode 43, and thanks again to David.

00:58:27.434 --> 00:58:29.478
Be sure to check him out at a jam near you.

00:58:30.179 --> 00:58:33.465
Just over to David now to play us out with some Gypsy Swing.

00:58:33.485 --> 00:58:36.030
Gypsy Swing