June 19, 2020

Howard Levy interview

Howard Levy interview
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Season 1 Diatonic Harmonica Jazz Diatonic Overblow Player

Howard Levy is known to be the pioneer of overblows on the diatonic harmonica, but his music shouldn’t be defined merely by the use of this technical tool. Starting out as a piano player, he first started using overblows to enable him to play the music that  he wanted to play. And they have allowed Howard to take the instrument to soaring new heights across a diverse range of genres. And make no mistake, he has rhythm, feel, a great bluesy tone when he needs it, and most of all, blistering chops. 

Select the Chapter Markers tab above to select different sections of the podcast (website version only).

Howard's website:
https://www.levyland.com/

Keys of harps on some albums shown here:
http://www.levyland.com/harpshop/

Discography:
https://www.levyland.com/discography/
https://www.levyland.com/discography/complete-discography/

Trio Globo website:
trioglobo.com

Teaching:

New Directions for Harmonica:
https://www.homespun.com/instructors/howard-levy/

ArtistWorks:
https://artistworks.com/harmonica-lessons-howard-levy

Out of the Box DVD:
http://www.levyland.com/product/out-of-the-box-dvd/

Effect pedals:
https://www.lonewolfblues.com/boogieman.html

YouTube:

Lonesome Pine Special with Bella Fleck and the Flecktones:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGJqxXHiXko

Amazing Grace:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmL4RM7IA7A


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

01:31 - Moved to Chicago

01:40 - Started playing harmonica age 18

01:51 - Learnt piano first

03:13 - Exposure to blues got Howard interested in harmonica

05:15 - How Howard discovered and developed overblows

11:01 - How to get an overblow

14:18 - Getting the right pitch with overblows

16:11 - Playing multiple keys on one diatonic, and switching between diatonics

20:11 - Howard shows keys of harmonica used on website

20:41 - How to set-up harmonicas for overblows and the harmonica’s Joe uses

25:52 - Value of learning different instruments

27:12 - Bella Fleck and the Flecktones

28:38 - Playing using a cup

31:03 - Trio Globo band

32:22 - Playing piano and harmonica simultaneously

32:53 - Hohner flex rack

33:17 - Acoustic Express and Jethro Burns

34:46 - Classical concerto for diatonic harmonica

37:36 - Session work including with Dolly Parton and Donald Fagen

38:32 - Ultrasound inside Howard’s mouth on New Directions in Harmonica Tuition DVD

40:30 - Teaching on Artistworks

42:44 - Out of the Box Tuition DVD

43:34 - Chromatic harmonica

46:11 - Howard's opinion on alternate tunings

46:38 - 10 minute question

47:10 - Harmonica of choice

47:52 - Favourite key of diatonic

48:57 - Alternate tunings for Howard

50:17 - Embouchre

51:04 - Amps and mics

55:21 - Future plans

WEBVTT

00:00:00.353 --> 00:00:04.259
Hey everybody and welcome to episode 14 of the Happy Hour Harmonica podcast.

00:00:04.660 --> 00:00:07.605
Please remember to subscribe and check out the Spotify playlist.

00:00:08.346 --> 00:00:11.349
And another word of thanks to my sponsor, the Lone Wolf Blues Company.

00:00:11.730 --> 00:00:15.557
Makers of effects, pedals, microphones and more, designed for harmonica.

00:00:16.036 --> 00:00:19.382
Remember, when you want control over your tone, you want Lone Wolf.

00:00:20.463 --> 00:00:21.725
Howard Levy joins me today.

00:00:22.082 --> 00:00:29.754
Howard is known to be the pioneer of overblows and the diatonic harmonica but his music shouldn't be defined merely by the use of this technical tool.

00:00:30.315 --> 00:00:48.521
Starting out as a piano player he first started using overblows to enable him to play the music that he wanted to play and they have allowed Howard to take the instrument to soaring new heights across a diverse range of genres and make no mistake he has rhythm, feel, a great bluesy tone when he needs it and most of all blistering chops.

00:00:54.402 --> 00:00:57.804
So

00:01:20.388 --> 00:01:22.709
hello, Howard Levy, and welcome to the podcast.

00:01:23.138 --> 00:01:24.500
Hey Neil, thanks for having me.

00:01:25.081 --> 00:01:29.105
You were born in the New York area to begin with and now you live in Chicago, is that right?

00:01:29.525 --> 00:01:30.167
That's correct.

00:01:31.067 --> 00:01:33.370
And so what sort of age did you move to Chicago?

00:01:33.391 --> 00:01:33.411
I

00:01:34.231 --> 00:01:40.079
came to Chicago to go to college at Northwestern University, which is in a town just north of the city.

00:01:40.801 --> 00:01:43.304
You started playing the harmonica at age 18, yeah?

00:01:44.185 --> 00:01:50.674
Yes, I had my first breakthrough on the harmonica in student orientation week and that's when I bent my first note.

00:01:51.361 --> 00:01:53.986
Before this, as a youngster, you had piano lessons.

00:01:54.307 --> 00:01:55.629
That was your first instrument.

00:01:56.049 --> 00:01:56.290
Yes.

00:01:56.751 --> 00:01:59.855
I started playing piano when I was about eight and a half years old.

00:01:59.876 --> 00:02:02.280
I started improvising right away.

00:02:02.320 --> 00:02:05.465
The teacher came to the house and showed me some of the basics.

00:02:05.546 --> 00:02:09.432
And after about two or three weeks, I just started improvising.

00:02:10.895 --> 00:02:11.175
Yeah.

00:02:11.295 --> 00:02:14.441
And your parents were musical, too.

00:02:14.480 --> 00:02:17.246
Your father, I believe, was an opera singer, professional for some time.

00:02:17.633 --> 00:02:18.094
Yes.

00:02:18.657 --> 00:02:21.004
So I grew up around a lot of classical music.

00:02:21.987 --> 00:02:23.051
My mom played cello.

00:02:23.573 --> 00:02:27.264
So they were very into music and culture.

00:02:27.425 --> 00:02:29.913
And so I was raised around a lot of that.

00:02:31.138 --> 00:02:38.187
So you had those early piano lessons, and did you learn other instruments at a young age as well before you picked up the harmonica?

00:02:38.668 --> 00:02:38.889
No.

00:02:39.389 --> 00:02:45.516
I went to the Manhattan School of Music on Saturdays for piano and theory lessons from age 9 to 12.

00:02:46.138 --> 00:03:00.377
You know, I had a great classical piano teacher, but after that, I started getting interested in pop music and started listening to rock and roll and copied things that I heard on the radio because I always was improvising and writing my own tunes.

00:03:01.153 --> 00:03:04.079
And so it was just a matter of what I was interested in.

00:03:04.118 --> 00:03:08.506
Gradually, I got interested in blues and jazz.

00:03:09.568 --> 00:03:12.894
I started writing jazz tunes when I was about 17.

00:03:13.955 --> 00:03:17.640
From playing blues, that's when I got exposed to the harmonica.

00:03:18.370 --> 00:03:28.040
The drummer in our band taught himself how to play harmonica really well just by imitating records that he had of all these Chicago blues guys, which I had never heard before.

00:03:28.681 --> 00:03:30.984
I had no idea that this music even existed.

00:03:31.544 --> 00:03:37.850
So we all went to some clubs in the village, and we would hang out and go and listen to jazz and blues.

00:03:37.931 --> 00:03:44.838
And I heard a fantastic double bill one night with James Cotton and his band and Paul Butterfield and his great band.

00:03:45.719 --> 00:03:47.442
And that just blew my mind.

00:03:48.193 --> 00:04:00.914
After that is when I started getting the notion of, gee, maybe I could play some harmonica because the drummer learned how to play and you could put it in your pocket and you can bend notes, all the stuff you can't do with a piano.

00:04:01.256 --> 00:04:09.469
And so I went to Manny's Music on West 48th Street and plunked down my$2.25 for, I think, a blues harp and the key of G.

00:04:10.210 --> 00:04:13.493
And I had absolutely no success trying to bend notes on it.

00:04:13.593 --> 00:04:14.975
And my friend couldn't show me how.

00:04:15.015 --> 00:04:17.658
He said, well, it's just a feel.

00:04:17.778 --> 00:04:19.141
You just do it by feel.

00:04:19.221 --> 00:04:20.161
I went, thanks a lot.

00:04:21.944 --> 00:04:38.906
So as I said, it wasn't until I came to Chicago and somehow just walking down this path on the campus, that's when I started being able to bend notes and very quickly started playing all these blues licks that I had heard other harmonica players play.

00:04:39.298 --> 00:04:41.240
And it was really exciting.

00:04:41.261 --> 00:04:43.043
It was like the first day of the rest of my life.

00:04:43.785 --> 00:04:46.689
A lot of people see you, is it coming from as a piano player?

00:04:46.728 --> 00:04:55.603
It sounds like from that, what you just said there, your harmonica playing was almost a release from the more kind of rigid, they can't bend notes on the piano.

00:04:55.682 --> 00:04:57.925
It's maybe more reading on the piano.

00:04:57.966 --> 00:05:03.033
So did you see the harmonica as a bit of a release rather than an extension of the piano?

00:05:03.329 --> 00:05:05.132
Oh, in the beginning, definitely.

00:05:05.452 --> 00:05:07.615
I had no idea I could express myself like that.

00:05:07.855 --> 00:05:08.838
It was so personal.

00:05:09.257 --> 00:05:12.202
And using the breath, I felt like a different person.

00:05:12.783 --> 00:05:19.072
After a while, I said, well, why don't I start practicing my scales on this instrument, you know, like a piano player would do?

00:05:19.112 --> 00:05:26.603
Because I was already writing some pretty advanced jazz tunes when I was 18 and, you know, learning about modes.

00:05:26.702 --> 00:05:28.406
And so I...

00:05:28.706 --> 00:05:32.071
started trying to play scales and different keys on the G harp.

00:05:32.571 --> 00:05:36.516
And I became frustrated at the fact that the instrument didn't have all the notes on it.

00:05:36.896 --> 00:05:38.600
That's what led to everything else.

00:05:39.641 --> 00:05:42.644
At first, I learned how to bend all the draw notes.

00:05:42.925 --> 00:05:51.778
And then I figured out how to bend the blow notes on the top of the instrument, which was interesting because the guys that I listened to mostly didn't play on the top of the harmonica.

00:05:52.298 --> 00:06:00.468
But I just figured out that, well, since you can bend a higher note on a hole down to just above a lower note, On the top, the higher notes were the blows.

00:06:00.509 --> 00:06:02.209
So why don't I try that?

00:06:02.250 --> 00:06:04.533
And so I did.

00:06:04.572 --> 00:06:08.757
And this is all within a few months of starting to play.

00:06:08.797 --> 00:06:14.824
And then trying to play the scales and arpeggios and stuff without having all the notes.

00:06:15.584 --> 00:06:18.887
It was like playing a broken piano with notes missing.

00:06:19.249 --> 00:06:20.069
Very frustrating.

00:06:20.589 --> 00:06:27.637
So I thought, you can bend down the higher notes, which are on the bottom are the draws and on the top are the blows.

00:06:28.225 --> 00:06:32.331
maybe some of these missing notes are hiding in this instrument somewhere.

00:06:33.232 --> 00:06:36.396
I just couldn't believe that it didn't have all the notes on it.

00:06:37.177 --> 00:06:42.923
I mean, it was just like my 18-year-old brain refused to accept the fact that all the notes weren't there.

00:06:43.584 --> 00:06:51.353
So I thought, well, what if I try to do a blow bend on a note that doesn't bend down, like the sixth hole on a G harp?

00:06:52.035 --> 00:06:53.896
And so the sixth hole draw, obviously...

00:06:55.841 --> 00:06:56.802
It bends down to an E flat.

00:06:57.324 --> 00:06:58.685
The note that's missing is the F.

00:07:00.749 --> 00:07:05.175
You know, there's this gap there where the F is on this keyboard.

00:07:05.915 --> 00:07:13.567
And so if you bend down the six, try to blow bend the six down, that F pops out.

00:07:14.026 --> 00:07:18.494
And so when that happened, at first I couldn't separate the F out from the D.

00:07:18.533 --> 00:07:19.776
It was just this funky sound.

00:07:19.815 --> 00:07:21.677
I thought, wow, that's a cool sound for the blues.

00:07:22.478 --> 00:07:24.000
And then I realized that's the F.

00:07:24.769 --> 00:07:30.298
So now I could play on the four-chord.

00:07:33.963 --> 00:07:37.408
You know, the standard blues lick or any guitar lick.

00:07:40.192 --> 00:07:41.673
You know, starting on the minor third.

00:07:42.254 --> 00:07:49.906
I mean, all the things that you just want to be able to play instead of playing notes that are sort of right because they're just the notes that are there.

00:07:49.946 --> 00:07:52.790
And then I thought, well, if I found that one...

00:07:53.122 --> 00:07:58.971
on that hole, then maybe every place else on the instrument where these notes are missing, maybe I can do the same thing.

00:07:59.071 --> 00:08:00.033
And of course, it's true.

00:08:00.072 --> 00:08:01.254
Fourth hole.

00:08:04.459 --> 00:08:04.920
Fifth hole.

00:08:05.161 --> 00:08:10.327
So now you have a complete chromatic scale on the second octave of the instrument.

00:08:10.990 --> 00:08:13.754
And then it took me a while to find the first hole overblow.

00:08:13.774 --> 00:08:17.480
And then I found the overdraws on the top of the harmonica.

00:08:17.660 --> 00:08:25.422
It's all within, like, month or two, November or December of 69, January of 70, something like that.

00:08:26.302 --> 00:08:30.189
You discovered this all yourself and you weren't aware of anybody else doing overblows?

00:08:30.608 --> 00:08:31.610
Oh, no, of course not.

00:08:31.690 --> 00:08:33.633
I was 18 years old.

00:08:34.193 --> 00:08:39.000
The recordings where there are people doing it, there's one guy who squeaked one out in 1931.

00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:45.168
And then Will Scarlett was experimenting with them in a little earlier than when I found them.

00:08:45.669 --> 00:08:57.466
And I guess Toots Thielman apparently played one or two of them on albums where he played like one tune on a diatonic harmonica and he did a sixth-hole overblow right around the same time, or maybe the 70s.

00:08:58.227 --> 00:09:02.134
What was surprising to me was I couldn't believe that nobody else had ever found it.

00:09:02.153 --> 00:09:10.385
The answer is that, yeah, there were some people that had found it before me, but it never became a part of the harmonica mainstream.

00:09:10.881 --> 00:09:13.785
you know, of blues playing or jazz playing.

00:09:13.846 --> 00:09:17.291
I mean, nobody ever really tried to play jazz on a diatonic.

00:09:18.331 --> 00:09:32.191
I just took it as my personal mission to try to make this instrument that I love so much sound believable as a chromatic instrument for playing whatever style of music, classical music.

00:09:40.001 --> 00:09:40.221
piano plays

00:09:53.121 --> 00:09:57.128
music from different cultures around the world and blues and jazz.

00:09:57.227 --> 00:10:00.091
And it was my mission, you know.

00:10:00.131 --> 00:10:04.698
Would you credit yourself with inventing overblows on the Titanic harmonica?

00:10:05.078 --> 00:10:05.519
Inventing?

00:10:05.580 --> 00:10:05.740
No.

00:10:06.400 --> 00:10:08.845
How could you invent something that's already there?

00:10:09.326 --> 00:10:14.232
I mean, people try to put words into my mouth or describe what I do.

00:10:14.552 --> 00:10:15.875
It's just exactly what I said.

00:10:15.914 --> 00:10:16.976
I discovered them.

00:10:17.076 --> 00:10:17.837
I didn't invent them.

00:10:18.529 --> 00:10:28.102
So in his excellent book by Kim Field in Harmonica's Harps and Heavy Breeders, he describes you as maybe the most radical single technical innovator in the history of the instrument.

00:10:28.543 --> 00:10:32.009
So how do you like your label as the kind of king of overblows?

00:10:32.089 --> 00:10:34.652
Is that something you like to be labeled as?

00:10:35.432 --> 00:10:40.620
If anyone thinks anything good about me, whatever they say, I'm happy to hear it.

00:10:41.642 --> 00:10:44.306
The fact that I've had a career as a musician...

00:10:44.833 --> 00:10:47.657
speaks to the fact that I play things that people enjoy hearing.

00:10:47.857 --> 00:10:51.240
The important thing is to sound good when you're doing it.

00:10:51.302 --> 00:10:55.846
It's not about having a technique that you use as some sort of gimmick or something.

00:10:56.067 --> 00:11:00.131
To me, this enables me to play more musically.

00:11:01.693 --> 00:11:07.941
So overblows, to some people, diatonic players, they're quite mystical things.

00:11:08.041 --> 00:11:12.285
So maybe you could just describe how you get an overblow.

00:11:12.961 --> 00:11:18.827
Being able to control the blow bands up on the top of the harp is sort of the bridge of being able to play overblows.

00:11:19.128 --> 00:11:25.634
And by the way, the name overblow, it's something I regret because I didn't know what to call it.

00:11:25.735 --> 00:11:29.418
So I asked a saxophone player friend of mine, what is it when I'm doing this?

00:11:29.879 --> 00:11:34.865
And he said, it sounds like I was overblowing a harmonic of the fundamental pitch of the note.

00:11:35.426 --> 00:11:39.490
And since I didn't know anything about wind instruments, I went, okay, I'll call it overblowing.

00:11:39.778 --> 00:11:40.980
That's not at all what it is.

00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:41.019
A

00:11:41.460 --> 00:11:44.124
saxophone player invented the term overblows for harmonica.

00:11:44.804 --> 00:11:46.908
Yeah, I mean, it's his fault.

00:11:47.328 --> 00:11:48.931
It makes people think you have to blow harder.

00:11:49.172 --> 00:11:50.173
Yes, that's not true.

00:11:50.393 --> 00:11:51.835
The same thing with bending.

00:11:52.375 --> 00:11:54.899
It's all about the position of the inside of your mouth.

00:11:55.059 --> 00:12:00.427
It's the resonance of your mouth cavity having to do with your tongue and your throat.

00:12:00.788 --> 00:12:01.349
You can bend

00:12:01.469 --> 00:12:02.551
notes

00:12:03.272 --> 00:12:03.832
at a whisper.

00:12:08.577 --> 00:12:10.321
It's the mouth position.

00:12:10.921 --> 00:12:17.291
To prepare to be able to get that kind of control, you have to be able to smoothly bend the eighth hole blow.

00:12:24.260 --> 00:12:26.323
And let back pressure build up in your cheeks.

00:12:27.306 --> 00:12:35.317
Instead of biting down hard on it and making it, hearing that little break, which is a cool sound if you want to get that sound.

00:12:35.937 --> 00:12:41.828
Instead of biting down on the instrument, have a relaxed embouchure in terms of not biting down.

00:12:41.849 --> 00:12:48.360
It always has to be firm from side to side, but the top and bottom have to be loose.

00:12:48.380 --> 00:12:51.147
I have my lips quite a ways over the instrument.

00:12:51.346 --> 00:12:54.994
When I'm holding the harp, I always make sure to leave lots of room for my lips.

00:12:55.033 --> 00:12:57.658
I don't want my fingers too close to my lips.

00:12:58.220 --> 00:12:59.221
I want to get a good seal.

00:13:04.258 --> 00:13:07.020
And of course, it's nice to be able to do that on 9 and 10 too.

00:13:07.500 --> 00:13:08.702
Then you try it on 6.

00:13:11.865 --> 00:13:13.628
And that magic note just pops out.

00:13:14.268 --> 00:13:17.130
And so it's a sort of a gentle pressure.

00:13:17.150 --> 00:13:28.663
And the way that bends work, you're bending down the pitch of the higher note, but the sound of a bend transfers to the lower pitch reed, which bends up.

00:13:29.464 --> 00:13:42.168
And so after you've bent a note down, to its lowest point, whether it's a blow or a draw, it's actually the other reed that you don't think you're playing that's making the sound, which is, I didn't even know this until I'd been playing for 15 years.

00:13:42.668 --> 00:13:46.053
I had no idea how I was doing this stuff mechanically until other people told me.

00:13:46.916 --> 00:13:56.690
And so with the overblows, it's this weird thing where the blow reed freaks out, just like freezes and creates what's called a closing reed.

00:13:56.909 --> 00:13:59.014
The blow reed becomes the closing reed.

00:13:59.394 --> 00:14:08.807
And the draw reed is what actually bends up because they're physically changing their shapes and getting shorter and vibrating at higher speed.

00:14:09.269 --> 00:14:18.082
When you hear that G on the A harp on the sixth hole, it's actually the F sharp reed bending up to G.

00:14:18.744 --> 00:14:19.745
And there's no limit.

00:14:19.865 --> 00:14:21.687
It's not in tune inherently.

00:14:21.807 --> 00:14:23.410
It's just like it's a little higher.

00:14:26.134 --> 00:14:30.179
It's up to you to tune it with the resonance of the inside of your mouth.

00:14:30.900 --> 00:14:39.652
And this is what's tricky about playing these notes is you have to kind of sing the pitch of the note in your mind to know where it's going to come out.

00:14:39.731 --> 00:14:40.533
Is it going to be in tune?

00:14:40.592 --> 00:14:41.533
Is it going to be a G?

00:14:41.553 --> 00:14:42.654
Is it going to be a G sharp?

00:14:43.115 --> 00:14:43.976
Where do you want it to be?

00:14:44.017 --> 00:14:49.604
Same

00:14:49.644 --> 00:14:51.125
thing with the fifth hole

00:14:51.164 --> 00:14:51.466
draw.

00:14:52.193 --> 00:14:55.777
I think that's an important point, isn't it, about the pitch you're getting with the overblows.

00:14:55.797 --> 00:14:57.619
Because it's the same with bending.

00:14:57.698 --> 00:15:00.260
Obviously, you don't always hit the correct pitch.

00:15:00.321 --> 00:15:04.144
But in blues, that doesn't necessarily matter that much if you're not bang on pitch.

00:15:04.404 --> 00:15:09.168
But if you're playing melodies, you know, more melodic playing, then that pitch is very important.

00:15:09.188 --> 00:15:13.653
What puts a lot of people off maybe overblows is that they don't always sound that great.

00:15:13.712 --> 00:15:15.995
Now, we've talked about overblows quite a lot on this podcast.

00:15:16.034 --> 00:15:20.097
And people have the view that obviously in the right hands, like your hands, they do sound great.

00:15:20.138 --> 00:15:24.023
So, you know, it's a very important pointer Isn't it about hitting the right pitch, though?

00:15:24.563 --> 00:15:28.291
Yeah, that's what Joe Felisco described my playing as bending in tune.

00:15:28.912 --> 00:15:35.024
And I really appreciated that because, yeah, I mean, I can play in whatever key on the harmonica.

00:15:35.283 --> 00:15:37.687
And that's another interesting subject.

00:15:38.009 --> 00:15:40.474
Right now I'm playing in B flat on the A harp.

00:15:42.397 --> 00:15:42.878
B flat.

00:15:45.666 --> 00:15:47.148
That's where the piano comes in.

00:15:47.648 --> 00:15:53.134
In order to play in tune and play all of these things, I'm visualizing a piano keyboard.

00:15:53.455 --> 00:16:03.826
I started doing that probably about two years into my playing when I realized that I was seeing more than shapes and colors, which is what I was seeing at first, and that I was actually seeing the piano keyboard.

00:16:03.926 --> 00:16:05.126
And that kind of blew my mind.

00:16:05.648 --> 00:16:11.134
That is what enabled me to be able to play the way I play, is that mental visualization.

00:16:11.714 --> 00:16:19.187
It's something you often practice with other instruments is you will practice playing the same song in different keys, which is what you're doing on diatonic harmonica there.

00:16:19.427 --> 00:16:23.876
But on diatonic harmonica, it's a bit of a different trick because you're changing key all the time.

00:16:23.937 --> 00:16:25.899
So usually you just swap harmonicas, yeah.

00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:30.769
But it must be hard to get your head around switching keys and then also doing that.

00:16:30.850 --> 00:16:32.613
So how do you visualize that?

00:16:33.173 --> 00:16:35.298
I practice transposing things on piano.

00:16:35.490 --> 00:16:41.635
So, for example, I would take a jazz standard and play it in all 12 keys.

00:16:42.136 --> 00:16:51.245
And as a jazz pianist, which is how I also make my living and have made my living for many years, accompanying singers, they say, let's do all the things you are in A minor.

00:16:51.525 --> 00:16:52.287
And I go, okay, sure.

00:16:52.907 --> 00:16:55.870
I practice playing tunes in all different keys.

00:16:56.691 --> 00:17:03.597
And I even practice classical music, transpose things like Bach inventions into all 12 keys on piano.

00:17:04.034 --> 00:17:12.565
Then once I've done that on a piano, then when I start doing it on harmonica, it gets a lot easier because I visualize the harmonica as a piano.

00:17:13.586 --> 00:17:18.712
What makes you, you know, the decision to choose a particular diatonic harmonic, how do you make that decision?

00:17:19.013 --> 00:17:26.344
If you're able to play almost, you know, every key of diatonic in every key, you know, what makes you choose a particular key of diatonic?

00:17:27.105 --> 00:17:29.688
Part of it is the tonality of the tune.

00:17:29.728 --> 00:17:31.109
Like, does it fit?

00:17:31.394 --> 00:17:34.679
closely with one of the naturally occurring positions on the harmonica.

00:17:35.200 --> 00:17:36.542
Part of it is the timbre.

00:17:37.423 --> 00:17:39.847
I'd usually prefer to play on a lower key harp.

00:17:40.528 --> 00:17:43.755
And part of it is just sort of mysterious.

00:17:43.875 --> 00:17:47.279
There's this one tune called To Me You Are a Song.

00:18:05.698 --> 00:18:13.249
that is in the key of C major, then it's in F sharp major, and then it's in E flat.

00:18:13.710 --> 00:18:17.295
So I had to figure out, God, I really want to play this on harmonica.

00:18:17.315 --> 00:18:21.842
And I stumbled upon the fact that it fits really well on an A flat harmonica.

00:18:22.142 --> 00:18:24.925
But it was hard to play in C major on the A flat.

00:18:25.386 --> 00:18:27.509
But I practice so much.

00:18:28.171 --> 00:18:32.798
And I discovered that that was the most believable key to play it in.

00:18:33.506 --> 00:18:40.994
You know, from being thrust into many different situations where people say, wow, that Howard Levy, he can play anything on a diatonic harmonica.

00:18:41.415 --> 00:18:45.800
And I get to rehearsal and I discover, God, how am I going to play this?

00:18:46.402 --> 00:18:54.612
And so that's when I look around and say, excuse me, guys, I need a little time to figure out what key harmonica I'm going to play this on.

00:18:55.373 --> 00:19:00.719
Obviously, you know, you know your scales and your modes, partly from playing the piano, but also practicing it on the harmonica.

00:19:00.960 --> 00:19:02.642
So would you say you played...

00:19:03.105 --> 00:19:07.771
certain positions on the harmonica more regularly, or do you just literally think in scales?

00:19:08.913 --> 00:19:11.717
I just try to play whatever sounds best.

00:19:11.977 --> 00:19:16.363
And then if I'm on tour, sometimes I'll pick a different harmonica some nights.

00:19:17.124 --> 00:19:19.487
Tonight, maybe I'll play it on the low F harp tonight.

00:19:20.008 --> 00:19:23.071
Maybe I'll play it on the C harp tomorrow or the B flat harp.

00:19:23.833 --> 00:19:31.122
It depends on my mood and also who I'm playing with and what their solo sounded like if I'm following them.

00:19:32.130 --> 00:19:37.118
Some people make a thing of saying, I'm only going to use one harmonica and play in every key on it.

00:19:37.980 --> 00:19:38.541
That's cool.

00:19:38.701 --> 00:19:40.585
I mean, if you can do that, that's amazing.

00:19:41.165 --> 00:19:43.951
But if it doesn't sound good, it's not amazing.

00:19:44.311 --> 00:19:53.409
Maybe people who are encouraged by hearing me play and the kind of innovations that I've made will be more like, I want to do everything on a C-harp.

00:19:53.848 --> 00:19:54.770
And that's cool.

00:19:54.790 --> 00:19:56.413
I still started playing.

00:19:56.801 --> 00:20:01.429
thinking about positions, first position, second position, third position, fourth position, that kind of thing.

00:20:01.489 --> 00:20:03.711
So what's the best key harp for this tune?

00:20:03.951 --> 00:20:07.717
I started out thinking like that instead of let me play everything on one.

00:20:08.157 --> 00:20:10.340
So I'm sort of halfway between those things.

00:20:11.803 --> 00:20:16.890
A lot of people maybe put off your music because they think, well, I just can't play that stuff.

00:20:16.910 --> 00:20:18.291
I can't play all those overblows.

00:20:18.692 --> 00:20:25.182
I did see on your website, it's got a great resource where you're showing which key of harmonica you're playing on different songs, which will really help.

00:20:25.314 --> 00:20:28.839
Okay, well, if I try, I can just use the same harmonica and try and work it out.

00:20:29.361 --> 00:20:30.122
Yeah, I did that.

00:20:30.462 --> 00:20:38.055
And by the way, we're revamping my website and pretty soon you'll be able to buy all the CDs there and everything.

00:20:39.518 --> 00:20:44.125
But the important thing for people to understand is that the harmonica is not inflexible.

00:20:44.727 --> 00:20:57.676
That if you have trouble getting an overblow, you can open the harmonica up and adjust the reed clearances, the distances from the reed plate, because the instruments don't come, harmonicas from the factory, designed to do this most of the time.

00:20:58.077 --> 00:21:00.021
So every harmonica is different.

00:21:00.577 --> 00:21:10.771
certain models are easier to get overblows on than others because they tend to make them with lower reed clearances, like the Golden Melody tends to be easier to overblow on.

00:21:11.271 --> 00:21:18.541
And also, I find that harmonicas with closed reed cover plates tend to be a little easier for whatever reason.

00:21:19.222 --> 00:21:26.532
I actually, for years, was playing Golden Melodies mostly, partially because they're tuned to the tempered scale, which I only found out later.

00:21:27.874 --> 00:21:33.240
but partially because they seemed easier for me to play the way I play on them.

00:21:34.262 --> 00:21:39.790
And then in the early 90s, I met Joe Felisco, and he started customizing harmonicas for me.

00:21:40.050 --> 00:21:41.573
In the beginning, it was Golden Melodies.

00:21:42.134 --> 00:21:51.747
And then later, it became Marine Bands with Special 20 reed cover plates because I told them I liked the closed reed cover plates for a mellower sound.

00:21:52.407 --> 00:21:56.673
When they're open on the end, they tend to let a lot of the bright upper harmonics come out.

00:21:57.026 --> 00:22:04.537
So that's mostly what I'm playing these days are these marine bands with rock maple plywood combs that are dyed black.

00:22:04.617 --> 00:22:06.760
So some people think they're ebony or something.

00:22:06.800 --> 00:22:10.586
They're not with special 20 reed cover plates.

00:22:10.727 --> 00:22:11.888
That's mostly what I'm playing.

00:22:12.789 --> 00:22:16.875
As you say, golden melodies are sort of associated with overblows for the reasons you've just given.

00:22:17.477 --> 00:22:25.848
For people who may be interested who haven't tried it, there is some setup involved, isn't there, just to get the– to get the reeds offset correctly.

00:22:26.951 --> 00:22:31.417
So early on, is that something you had to do yourself when you were trying to get the overblows initially?

00:22:31.897 --> 00:22:35.763
Yeah, I think that you should learn how the harmonica works.

00:22:36.525 --> 00:22:38.508
In the beginning, they were all put together with nails.

00:22:38.769 --> 00:22:41.813
So if I took one apart, I could never get it back together again.

00:22:41.873 --> 00:22:44.036
So I was very discouraged by that.

00:22:44.096 --> 00:22:45.317
And I just never messed with it.

00:22:45.398 --> 00:22:47.060
And I thought, well, this one works better.

00:22:47.101 --> 00:22:48.403
That one doesn't work as well.

00:22:49.064 --> 00:22:54.332
And I played for the first 10 or 15 years without adjusting anything.

00:22:54.412 --> 00:23:02.884
So, you know, that includes quite a bit of recording where I was using overblows and, you know, playing jazz and all sorts of stuff, but it was sort of treacherous.

00:23:02.964 --> 00:23:05.147
I was never sure like, God, is this one going to work?

00:23:05.208 --> 00:23:05.990
Is that one going to work?

00:23:06.049 --> 00:23:20.728
And I was just too partially intimidated because of the nailing together of the Coming from the orientation of being a pianist, I just didn't assume that I knew what I was doing opening up a harmonica.

00:23:21.449 --> 00:23:24.852
And it's actually not that complicated to adjust the reed clearances.

00:23:24.932 --> 00:23:28.875
It's extremely helpful to know how to do it.

00:23:29.195 --> 00:23:32.680
And it can save people a lot of frustration and a lot of time.

00:23:32.720 --> 00:23:34.961
And also, your harps will last longer.

00:23:35.481 --> 00:23:40.967
Because the more you force things on a harmonica, the more metal fatigue happens with the reeds.

00:23:41.768 --> 00:23:43.549
And they start going out of tune.

00:23:43.938 --> 00:23:47.088
and eventually so far out of tune that you can't use them.

00:23:47.470 --> 00:23:49.616
I do tune my own harmonicas, by the way.

00:23:50.298 --> 00:23:52.266
I tune them, and I also know how to replace reeds.

00:23:52.507 --> 00:23:54.513
I learned this from Joe.

00:23:54.882 --> 00:24:03.932
Especially for a musician who's going on the road playing custom harmonicas, you can't just toss it in the trash and go to a musical instrument store and buy another one.

00:24:04.133 --> 00:24:17.288
Another thing that maybe puts people off a little bit is that if you set a diatonic up for overblows, that often means you can't play it quite so hard as you might do if you want to play it for blues.

00:24:17.328 --> 00:24:17.829
So do you...

00:24:18.498 --> 00:24:27.532
Do you use the same harmonicas to play when you play blues, using the same overblows, or do you use ones which are more friendly to doing more traditional second position type playing?

00:24:27.992 --> 00:24:35.846
That's a really great question, and it's a complicated question, because it gets into tuning of the reeds as well as the responsiveness.

00:24:36.166 --> 00:24:39.111
But you heard me talk before about being able to play soft.

00:24:39.771 --> 00:24:43.077
A lot of the greatest blues players in the past, they didn't play really hard.

00:24:43.362 --> 00:24:45.144
A lot of it has to do with dynamics.

00:24:45.743 --> 00:24:51.690
I think the most important thing is to learn how to play your instrument relaxed, not to blow too hard on it.

00:24:51.730 --> 00:24:55.374
I'm not to think that blowing hard is like better.

00:24:55.733 --> 00:25:05.643
It's blowing powerfully and supporting the airstream from your diaphragm and having a good tone and amplifying yourself sufficiently so that you can be heard.

00:25:05.682 --> 00:25:07.204
That's one part of the answer.

00:25:07.265 --> 00:25:11.009
And the other part is, yes, some of my harps are set up closer.

00:25:11.028 --> 00:25:12.309
Some of them are a little further.

00:25:12.769 --> 00:25:20.269
and especially in keys that I use a lot from the album that I did with Chris Sebold called Art Plus Adrenaline, Fade to Black.

00:25:41.857 --> 00:25:50.535
And I discovered that it worked way better on an old golden melody that I had in C than on any of Joe's harps, for whatever reason.

00:25:51.938 --> 00:25:54.142
You came from being a piano player originally.

00:25:54.163 --> 00:25:55.184
You picked up the harmonica.

00:25:55.244 --> 00:25:58.371
And now you're interested in playing quite a few different instruments as well.

00:25:58.391 --> 00:26:01.557
I think you play some guitar, some mandolin, some flute, some drums.

00:26:02.433 --> 00:26:12.449
You know, what's your view on, you know, how does that help your harmonica playing and, you know, whether people should invest that time to go and learn other instruments on top of, you know, trying to find the time to learn the harmonica?

00:26:13.912 --> 00:26:16.035
I would just say that everyone has their personal path.

00:26:16.134 --> 00:26:24.347
And mine, after I learned how to play the harmonica, I just thought, what would it be like if I tried playing some other instruments whose sounds I love?

00:26:24.968 --> 00:26:25.950
John Coltrane is amazing.

00:26:26.178 --> 00:26:27.861
basically my favorite musician.

00:26:28.181 --> 00:26:31.526
And I thought, what would it be like if I learned how to play the saxophone?

00:26:31.766 --> 00:26:33.409
A friend of mine lent me a sax.

00:26:34.029 --> 00:26:36.212
I figured out basically how to play.

00:26:36.993 --> 00:26:39.999
Then I really fell in love with the sound of the instrument.

00:26:40.980 --> 00:26:47.509
So it was a very enlightening thing for me, as well as a soul satisfying thing to play the tenor sax.

00:26:47.569 --> 00:26:49.373
It's just an amazing sound.

00:26:49.413 --> 00:26:51.015
Your whole body vibrates with it.

00:26:51.355 --> 00:26:54.961
And then it enabled me to understand John Coltrane much better.

00:26:55.746 --> 00:26:58.332
trying to play the instrument that he played.

00:26:58.813 --> 00:27:03.363
It made me understand from the inside out some of the things that he was doing.

00:27:03.383 --> 00:27:06.390
That was a really big deal in my life.

00:27:06.730 --> 00:27:11.642
And also it taught me a lot about breathing and supporting my embouchure from my diaphragm.

00:27:12.609 --> 00:27:44.397
so moving on to your music now you've had a wide range you play with a lot of different people different styles but you're probably best known uh at least initially playing playing with bella fleck and the fleck tones i think you've made you made four albums in the early 90s and another one later in 2010 so that's right yeah well bella flex known as being quite a um you know sort of an unorthodox radical banjo player and you're the same with harmonica as we talked about what you've done with harmonica so how did that come about you know and maybe about the bell flick and the flick tones?

00:27:44.877 --> 00:27:48.701
Well, we met at a festival in Winnipeg, Canada.

00:27:49.382 --> 00:27:56.008
We started jamming at an after party and we ended up playing until seven in the morning, just all sorts of wild stuff.

00:27:56.448 --> 00:28:01.452
Then he was asked to play a TV show in Louisville called the Lonesome Pine Special.

00:28:01.893 --> 00:28:04.055
And you can actually see this on YouTube.

00:28:04.816 --> 00:28:08.077
So he called me and he said, hey, Howard, I want to put together a band.

00:28:08.818 --> 00:28:10.180
And so we played the TV show.

00:28:10.220 --> 00:28:11.922
The audience went crazy.

00:28:12.226 --> 00:28:17.740
Then he booked a few more gigs, and by the second one, we all thought, this is really something.

00:28:18.101 --> 00:28:25.540
And so he put up his own money, and we recorded the first album, and Warner Brothers picked it up, and it went on from there.

00:28:26.433 --> 00:28:33.266
Well, it's great stuff, and it's really interesting for people who haven't checked it out to really listen to how the harmonica can fit into that sort of music.

00:28:33.726 --> 00:28:43.221
I mean, some reason before I was stuck, like the Flight of the Cosmic Hippo, the album and the song off there, I think you're playing harmonica in a cup on there, aren't you?

00:28:43.663 --> 00:28:47.388
Yeah, I read that some of the old Vaudeville guys used to do that, so I thought...

00:28:48.034 --> 00:28:49.016
Why don't I try that?

00:28:49.135 --> 00:28:51.760
You know, to sound like a plunger mute trombone.

00:28:52.281 --> 00:28:53.263
It's just a great sound.

00:28:53.605 --> 00:28:56.390
I actually have used that on a bunch of other things.

00:28:56.631 --> 00:29:04.145
One of my favorite recordings that I've done on my own where I use that is on my Alone and Together CD.

00:29:04.405 --> 00:29:05.969
It's Every Time We Say Goodbye.

00:29:25.698 --> 00:29:38.237
There I used the cup more like a harmon mute, more like the sound that Miles Davis would get on a trumpet.

00:29:38.517 --> 00:29:41.280
Because a lot of times I imagine that I'm playing a different instrument.

00:29:41.701 --> 00:29:49.753
You know, for the tone color that I'm getting, you know, I'll imagine that it's an alto sax or a violin or a trombone, you know.

00:29:50.594 --> 00:29:57.423
And then with Bella Fleck, you got back together with them and created the album Rocket Science in 2011.

00:29:57.843 --> 00:30:02.869
And which song, Life in Eleven, won a Grammy for Best Composition?

00:30:16.258 --> 00:30:20.325
The funny story about that tune, though, the ending, we worked really hard on it.

00:30:20.684 --> 00:30:22.749
It's in a Bulgarian 11-8 rhythm.

00:30:23.068 --> 00:30:27.797
For those of you who don't know, I am very comfortable playing Bulgarian and Macedonian music.

00:30:27.936 --> 00:30:34.748
That's another thing I learned how to do by forming a band to play that music in Chicago in the early 80s called the Balkan Rhythm Band.

00:30:34.929 --> 00:30:38.013
And so I had showed this 11 to Bela years before it.

00:30:38.337 --> 00:30:39.019
He worked on it.

00:30:39.318 --> 00:30:44.825
So by the time we got together in 2010 to work on this album, he was totally comfortable playing at 11.

00:30:45.125 --> 00:30:47.709
So we're in the studio and we're working, working on it.

00:30:47.788 --> 00:30:49.170
And OK, we're ready to record.

00:30:49.190 --> 00:30:50.070
I said, just a minute.

00:30:50.392 --> 00:30:51.153
How are we going to end it?

00:30:52.473 --> 00:30:54.636
So I made up the ending like on the spot.

00:30:54.656 --> 00:30:55.877
I said, OK, here's the ending.

00:30:56.077 --> 00:30:56.479
Bang.

00:30:56.699 --> 00:31:00.963
You know, I really love that rhythm of 11.

00:31:01.243 --> 00:31:02.685
And I'm very proud of that tune.

00:31:03.298 --> 00:31:08.384
Looking through, again, you play with lots of different bands, different genres.

00:31:08.444 --> 00:31:13.391
So Trio Globo, reading as a contemporary acoustic jazz.

00:31:13.751 --> 00:31:14.532
What about those guys?

00:31:15.233 --> 00:31:16.355
We put out three albums.

00:31:16.635 --> 00:31:18.657
This is one of the greatest groups I've ever played in.

00:31:18.878 --> 00:31:22.864
Glenn Velez is a percussive genius, virtuoso frame drum player.

00:31:23.565 --> 00:31:29.333
Eugene Friesen, the cellist, he came out of a classical background, but always improvised and composed.

00:31:29.813 --> 00:31:33.018
It's just an indescribable thing to play with these guys.

00:31:33.826 --> 00:31:36.329
There's a tune written by Eugene called In the Village.

00:31:51.074 --> 00:31:58.105
Where I basically improvised my entire part, just looking at a chord chart.

00:31:58.753 --> 00:32:03.165
And it was so coherent that I play it pretty much the same way live.

00:32:03.205 --> 00:32:05.913
I had to memorize my pianos, my piano part.

00:32:06.375 --> 00:32:08.480
I played simultaneous piano and harmonica.

00:32:08.641 --> 00:32:11.710
You could look at trioglobo.com and see harmonica.

00:32:11.874 --> 00:32:23.471
Some of our recording process, which was filmed live in the studio, two tunes, one called Promenade and another one called Steering by the Stars, which was the title track of our last album.

00:32:23.751 --> 00:32:29.579
You can see me playing simultaneous piano and harmonica, which I do a lot in that band.

00:32:29.779 --> 00:32:34.807
And that's the Flecktones was the first group that I started doing that in a lot because that was the sound of the band.

00:32:35.208 --> 00:32:38.854
So I had to be able to play live what I had done in the studio.

00:32:39.170 --> 00:32:45.640
So I tried to tailor the things in the studio to be things that I actually could do live that didn't sound like overdubs.

00:32:46.161 --> 00:32:48.344
And the piano is really my main instrument.

00:32:48.644 --> 00:32:49.865
It's the one I think on.

00:32:50.026 --> 00:32:52.088
I write most of my stuff on piano.

00:32:52.810 --> 00:32:54.613
You never use a harmonica rack, though.

00:32:54.633 --> 00:32:56.336
Do you always play one-hand piano?

00:32:57.196 --> 00:33:02.565
I actually helped design the Hohner Flex rack, which I'm very proud of.

00:33:02.846 --> 00:33:06.671
But I never felt organically comfortable with the rack.

00:33:07.192 --> 00:33:08.294
You can't surround it.

00:33:08.577 --> 00:33:14.002
with your embouchure the same way as when you're holding with your hand when you make those little minute adjustments with the angle.

00:33:14.604 --> 00:33:17.026
I kind of gave up on the idea of playing with the rack.

00:33:17.626 --> 00:33:19.228
Obviously, you're known for playing jazz.

00:33:19.568 --> 00:33:22.852
Another band you played some jazz with is Acoustic Express.

00:33:23.632 --> 00:33:25.994
Yeah, I'm very, very proud of that.

00:33:26.454 --> 00:33:34.363
If I had to recommend any CD to anybody who just wants to hear my harmonica playing, I would say that one because I don't play any piano on there at all.

00:33:34.762 --> 00:33:35.403
Time Capsules.

00:33:51.970 --> 00:33:53.332
There's a lot of styles.

00:33:53.413 --> 00:34:00.184
There's like Middle Eastern and Bulgarian and Jelly Roll Morton and Robert Johnson and the Beatles.

00:34:00.965 --> 00:34:07.517
It came out of my desire to have a swing quartet, kind of like Django and Stefan.

00:34:07.938 --> 00:34:14.248
And I had had a band like that in the mid-1980s with the great mandolin player Jethro Burns.

00:34:14.945 --> 00:34:20.358
Recently, I found a cassette recording of our first concert, and it's fantastic.

00:34:20.438 --> 00:34:23.503
And so I remastered it and put it out as a CD.

00:34:23.585 --> 00:34:38.347
And so Acoustic Express was kind of my yearning to have an acoustic band where the harmonica could be heard acoustically in balance with the other instruments, where I didn't have to rely on the PA to rehearse, you know.

00:34:39.548 --> 00:34:40.269
I truly loved it.

00:34:40.329 --> 00:34:45.418
I felt very relaxed playing without drums and without having to compete volume-wise.

00:34:46.579 --> 00:34:53.490
One thing I've got to mention is in 2011, you released a classical CD, Concerto for Diatonico Armonico in Orchestra.

00:34:53.610 --> 00:34:56.956
So the first concerto composed for the Diatonico Armonico.

00:35:25.570 --> 00:35:29.052
Well, that's a fascinating journey.

00:35:29.072 --> 00:35:36.920
I was asked to play one of the chromatic harmonica concertos by a orchestra in the Chicago area.

00:35:36.981 --> 00:35:45.228
And I told them that I don't play the chromatic harmonica, but if they were interested, I would write a concerto for myself for the diatonic.

00:35:45.469 --> 00:35:47.210
And they said, we'll get back to you.

00:35:47.291 --> 00:35:48.652
And I thought I'd never hear from them.

00:35:49.052 --> 00:35:54.777
And they called me back a few months later and said, we're very interested in having you compose a concerto.

00:35:55.233 --> 00:35:56.195
And I went, really?

00:35:56.235 --> 00:35:59.900
And so I thought, how do I write a concerto?

00:35:59.960 --> 00:36:04.106
My God, I'm not really a classical composer for an orchestra.

00:36:04.146 --> 00:36:05.568
I've never had any training in this.

00:36:06.309 --> 00:36:14.719
But I had written a chamber suite five years earlier in 1995, which is one of the other pieces that ended up on my classical CD.

00:36:15.079 --> 00:36:19.326
And so I worked on it for six months and the concerto was the result.

00:36:19.681 --> 00:36:22.606
I left room for improvisation in all three movements.

00:36:23.268 --> 00:36:24.889
It's very, very classical sounding.

00:36:24.949 --> 00:36:26.452
People are very surprised by that.

00:36:26.492 --> 00:36:36.648
And I've performed this piece probably 35 or 40 times all over the world, in the United States and all over Europe and Asia.

00:36:37.148 --> 00:36:52.012
The recording that's on the CD was made in Prague with the Czech National Symphony, led by Paul Freeman, who also conducted the Chicago Sinfonietta, So I played it with him in Chicago, and he persuaded me to come to Prague and record

00:36:52.413 --> 00:36:52.612
it.

00:36:52.634 --> 00:36:54.235
Would you be interested in doing something like that again?

00:36:54.275 --> 00:36:55.197
Well, yeah.

00:36:55.338 --> 00:37:02.650
Actually, I have the whole outline for another one, and also a piano concerto as well.

00:37:03.170 --> 00:37:04.813
So it's just very...

00:37:05.282 --> 00:37:08.027
time-consuming to write all that orchestration.

00:37:08.306 --> 00:37:12.173
It's kind of intimidating because I don't really have the computer chops.

00:37:12.974 --> 00:37:17.543
So I wrote the concerto just with pencil and paper and had to give it to a copyist.

00:37:19.106 --> 00:37:26.338
That's another project that I'm working on is playing classical music but improvising over the chord changes like a jazz musician.

00:37:26.498 --> 00:37:36.949
I'm working right now on music of Debussy, Ravel, Brahms, and various other composers playing the composition, but also improvising on

00:37:36.969 --> 00:37:37.009
it.

00:37:37.028 --> 00:37:39.492
You've also done lots and lots of session work.

00:37:39.512 --> 00:37:41.534
Any particular ones of those you want to pick out?

00:37:42.054 --> 00:37:42.434
I don't know.

00:37:42.474 --> 00:37:43.695
There's about 500 of them.

00:37:44.936 --> 00:37:52.766
I had fantastic times playing on things that are incredibly obscure and things that are really well-known.

00:37:53.250 --> 00:38:04.626
I'd say two of my standout adventures, just in terms of the personalities of the people and the music, were recording with Dolly Parton and Donald Fagan from Steely Dan.

00:38:05.128 --> 00:38:07.630
And they both led to live performances with them.

00:38:07.771 --> 00:38:10.755
In Dolly's case, she flew me out to L.A.

00:38:10.795 --> 00:38:12.458
to play with her on The Tonight Show.

00:38:13.199 --> 00:38:18.887
And with Donald, I've sat in with his band and also with Steely Dan probably like four times.

00:38:18.927 --> 00:38:22.974
With Dolly, it was just totally unexpected and unexpected.

00:38:23.137 --> 00:38:25.309
joyful experience meeting her.

00:38:25.349 --> 00:38:27.380
She cooked me breakfast for Pete's sake, you know.

00:38:29.411 --> 00:38:29.793
Oh, lunch.

00:38:29.833 --> 00:38:31.101
It was lunch, yeah.

00:38:31.969 --> 00:38:34.112
Moving on to your teaching, you've done a lot of teaching.

00:38:34.431 --> 00:38:42.179
I think probably the first time I became aware of you is that I saw the DVD, New Directions in Harmonica, which is still available on Homespun.

00:38:42.199 --> 00:38:42.498
Yeah.

00:38:43.500 --> 00:38:49.405
The incredible thing I always remember about that is when you did this ultrasound filming of the inside of your mouth and throat.

00:38:50.505 --> 00:38:52.588
So that's kind of amazing.

00:38:52.608 --> 00:38:56.110
I can still see the inside of your mouth now, Howard, from that video.

00:38:56.530 --> 00:38:57.172
I'm sorry.

00:38:59.253 --> 00:39:00.614
Yeah, that was an adventure.

00:39:00.655 --> 00:39:05.201
That was done at the University of Pittsburgh Hospital with Dr.

00:39:05.280 --> 00:39:10.909
Henry Bonson, who was somebody who signed up for one of my classes at Augusta.

00:39:11.329 --> 00:39:16.538
He had been the chief of thoracic surgery and had done over 120 heart transplant operations.

00:39:16.637 --> 00:39:18.099
So he was a medical luminary.

00:39:18.621 --> 00:39:43.809
When he started hearing about all the stuff I was doing, sitting there in the class and not being able to play any overblows at all, he was really curious about physically how all this stuff worked and so he had me come to the hospital and they they hooked me up to all sorts of devices and one of them was this ultrasound where they could see the inside of my mouth i could see as well as while i was playing it and it blew my mind

00:39:43.829 --> 00:39:50.039
yeah so do you think that helped at all understand how you're playing you know did it help you playing at all or

00:39:50.960 --> 00:40:02.152
i would say it was enlightening yeah i i had no idea what how sophisticated the tongue muscle is it And then later they did some tests on me just to prove that bending has to do with resonance.

00:40:02.793 --> 00:40:04.759
And they did it with water displacement.

00:40:04.998 --> 00:40:07.143
And this was several years later.

00:40:07.164 --> 00:40:11.773
They were wearing their white robes and injecting water into my mouth after I played a note.

00:40:11.994 --> 00:40:14.298
It was like a scene out of a Mel Brooks movie.

00:40:14.559 --> 00:40:15.442
It was so funny.

00:40:15.873 --> 00:40:21.141
So I cooperated and we did the full three octave chromatic scale.

00:40:21.641 --> 00:40:30.012
And they proved with a human being instead of a laboratory apparatus that indeed it has to do with resonance, the size of the cavity of the mouth.

00:40:30.813 --> 00:40:32.617
So now you do lots of teaching.

00:40:32.657 --> 00:40:36.442
You've got lots and lots of material available on ArtistWorks, which is an excellent site.

00:40:36.706 --> 00:40:40.471
Tons of videos on there covering all sorts of styles and going up the levels.

00:40:40.530 --> 00:40:42.934
A big basic intermediate, advanced, and virtual.

00:40:42.954 --> 00:40:44.657
So even as you call it on the...

00:40:45.097 --> 00:40:46.119
Tell us about ArtistWorks.

00:40:46.719 --> 00:40:50.204
Well, the great thing about ArtistWorks is that it's incredibly affordable.

00:40:51.206 --> 00:40:56.353
One three-month subscription is less than the cost of one one-hour private lesson.

00:40:57.094 --> 00:41:17.135
And you get unlimited access to all the pre-recorded lessons, interviews that I've done with people, films of performances, and the interactive video exchange, which if you're a member of the school, you can send me a video of something you're working on and I will send a video response trying to help you play it better.

00:41:17.175 --> 00:41:21.684
And the two videos are not just for the person who sent it.

00:41:21.704 --> 00:41:27.717
They're displayed on the website as a kind of a mini masterclass that everyone there can learn from.

00:41:28.034 --> 00:41:33.780
These are actually, I think, better than the lessons, than the pre-recorded lessons because they're interactive.

00:41:34.322 --> 00:41:36.425
It's a very multidimensional platform.

00:41:36.945 --> 00:41:38.427
Everybody gets their own homepage.

00:41:38.507 --> 00:41:41.251
You can post your own videos, your own tracks.

00:41:41.670 --> 00:41:43.893
You can communicate with your fellow students.

00:41:43.974 --> 00:41:46.958
There's people from all over the world who are members.

00:41:48.079 --> 00:41:49.360
I'm extremely proud of it.

00:41:49.481 --> 00:41:59.713
And especially in this time with the pandemic shutting down schools and possibility for human interaction, the school assumes even more importance.

00:42:00.675 --> 00:42:03.760
So again, you've been on there since I think 2009, so lots of videos.

00:42:03.900 --> 00:42:05.922
Do you know how many videos you've got on there?

00:42:06.123 --> 00:42:06.764
I have no idea.

00:42:06.784 --> 00:42:07.485
There's thousands.

00:42:08.065 --> 00:42:16.637
Thousands of video exchanges and many hundreds of pre-recorded lessons about technique and also dealing with specific tunes.

00:42:17.297 --> 00:42:25.670
My school is one of the maybe two that are there where the lessons are divided up by level and also by style.

00:42:25.889 --> 00:42:31.918
classical, jazz, blues, Irish folk country, world

00:42:31.958 --> 00:42:32.380
music.

00:42:33.181 --> 00:42:35.043
Like you say, the pricing plans are good.

00:42:35.103 --> 00:42:37.327
You can kind of sign up for just a few months.

00:42:37.387 --> 00:42:39.951
So you don't have to be a big outlay initially, see if it's for you.

00:42:40.592 --> 00:42:42.735
It's a really good model that they put together there.

00:42:42.815 --> 00:42:44.036
So yeah, for sure, I'll put a link.

00:42:44.898 --> 00:42:52.389
But in between ArtistWorks and New Directions, I also put out another one called Out of the Box Volume 1.

00:42:53.090 --> 00:42:59.056
Well, that was just a desire that I had to play tunes in all 12 keys on one harmonica.

00:42:59.717 --> 00:43:02.621
I decided to do it on a C harp for ease of teaching.

00:43:03.420 --> 00:43:14.914
And I had tunes in all 12 keys, some major, some minor, in all different styles, blues, Indian music, jazz, swing, klezmer, all different stuff.

00:43:15.474 --> 00:43:16.516
So it's a performance.

00:43:16.715 --> 00:43:21.822
And then there's also explanations of how the tunes work and how I wrote them.

00:43:22.114 --> 00:43:27.905
And then there's PDFs, each one, and also backing tracks for about half of them.

00:43:28.545 --> 00:43:29.286
Great, yeah.

00:43:29.306 --> 00:43:36.094
So moving on from your teaching then, first of all, I've talked to you already, but do you play any chromatic harmonica?

00:43:36.114 --> 00:43:41.541
I know you don't really play it much, but I believe you have played it in the past and even played it in a musical in Chicago.

00:43:41.581 --> 00:43:47.427
Yes, I taught myself how to play chromatic in the mid-1970s, I'd say.

00:43:48.048 --> 00:43:52.193
I was really trying to learn how to play music, to read music, rather, on harmonica.

00:43:52.233 --> 00:43:55.617
Somehow reading music on diatonic back then was...

00:43:55.938 --> 00:43:56.840
Very challenging.

00:43:56.860 --> 00:43:58.181
And I thought, well, here's this instrument.

00:43:58.802 --> 00:43:59.885
All the notes are just there.

00:44:00.525 --> 00:44:03.851
So I started practicing Bach and other classical stuff on it.

00:44:04.353 --> 00:44:11.786
And then I did get a gig playing for Shenandoah, one of the two musicals, Broadway musicals with a full harmonica part.

00:44:12.327 --> 00:44:14.311
And that was all on chromatic.

00:44:15.333 --> 00:44:19.760
A little known fact, and I might actually offer this as a download on my new website.

00:44:20.257 --> 00:44:26.565
I never really played chromatic in public and I never played jazz on it because I wasn't attracted to the sound for jazz.

00:44:27.047 --> 00:44:28.309
You know, I played saxophone.

00:44:28.349 --> 00:44:37.161
I mean, if I wanted an instrument with a bunch of keys on it and separate notes, I had one that I loved and the chromatic never appealed to me as a jazz instrument.

00:44:37.740 --> 00:44:41.626
And so an orchestra asked me to play a concerto in 1988.

00:44:42.907 --> 00:44:50.177
And even though I hadn't played chromatic in probably like eight years at that point, I took it on as a personal challenge and performed it.

00:44:50.530 --> 00:44:56.740
the Arthur Benjamin Concerto with a very good community orchestra in Chicago.

00:44:57.601 --> 00:45:00.746
And I recorded it on cassette, which I had totally forgot about.

00:45:01.208 --> 00:45:03.030
I made a really nice recording of it.

00:45:03.632 --> 00:45:04.634
And it's not terrible.

00:45:04.873 --> 00:45:14.286
But at the end of the performance, I put the harp back in the case and I said, you know, for me to be really great on this instrument, It would just take way too much time.

00:45:14.706 --> 00:45:17.793
I was starting to really like playing it as a classical instrument.

00:45:18.213 --> 00:45:22.340
There are so many other people who can really play chromatic great.

00:45:23.021 --> 00:45:23.822
Why should I do that?

00:45:23.842 --> 00:45:27.329
My mission in life is to make the most out of the diatonic.

00:45:27.931 --> 00:45:29.673
And I appreciate great chromatic play.

00:45:30.561 --> 00:45:31.302
Yeah, it's interesting.

00:45:31.523 --> 00:45:39.237
Chromatic is probably much more similar to a piano than a diatonic, but I guess it's the difference of the diatonic that you like, isn't it, as you talked about earlier on?

00:45:39.257 --> 00:45:45.106
It's the soulfulness of the diatonic against the more somewhat mechanical way that the chromatic plays and sounds.

00:45:45.588 --> 00:45:51.378
Yeah, I mean, it didn't draw me to it, especially since my initial...

00:45:52.161 --> 00:45:56.306
Attraction to the harmonica was the bluesiness of it, and it still is.

00:45:57.367 --> 00:46:00.050
And the fact that these reeds are alive, they're interacting.

00:46:00.369 --> 00:46:04.554
On the chromatic, the reeds are separated from each other with the windsaber valves.

00:46:04.994 --> 00:46:10.800
And of course, you can do things with half valves, and you can even do that, obviously, on diatonic.

00:46:11.079 --> 00:46:14.744
And that's another subject, alternate tuning harmonicas, half valves.

00:46:15.063 --> 00:46:16.965
Hey, man, if it sounds good, it is good.

00:46:17.545 --> 00:46:21.329
Whatever tuning harmonica you want to play, if you sound good on it, that's great.

00:46:21.666 --> 00:46:23.789
If you don't sound good on it, that's not great.

00:46:24.371 --> 00:46:32.123
So I don't discourage anyone from playing whatever kind of harmonica they feel like playing, as long as they sound good doing it.

00:46:32.304 --> 00:46:34.829
And it's not like they're not trying to prove some sort of point.

00:46:35.068 --> 00:46:37.733
If it sounds musical and good, cool.

00:46:38.273 --> 00:46:44.121
The question I ask each time, if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

00:46:44.681 --> 00:47:06.445
Well, I have these things that I call rhythmic breathing rudiments, where I transfer drum rudiments to the harmonica, paradiddles, roughs, all sorts of things like that, which I do, and certain arpeggios, playing melodies in certain keys, expanding the pitches of the overblows, stuff that I warm up with before I play my concerto.

00:47:08.034 --> 00:47:10.536
So we're moving to the last section now.

00:47:11.016 --> 00:47:14.079
So first question, again, you've already talked about a little bit.

00:47:14.139 --> 00:47:22.708
So what harmonica you play, you've already said, so you started out on golden melodies, but now you've moved to Joe Felisco custom marine bands with special 20 plates.

00:47:22.849 --> 00:47:25.070
Are they your diatonics of choice now?

00:47:25.911 --> 00:47:28.373
Yeah, but I still use golden melodies sometimes.

00:47:28.454 --> 00:47:30.777
I still really like golden melodies out of the box.

00:47:30.856 --> 00:47:35.822
And sometimes I tweak certain reeds a little bit just for the clearances, you know.

00:47:36.769 --> 00:47:39.152
And I read you used some double reed harmonicas.

00:47:39.193 --> 00:47:40.054
Do you still use those?

00:47:40.833 --> 00:47:44.018
I was using double thick reed plates in the late 90s.

00:47:44.217 --> 00:47:47.541
And the tone was wonderful, but the reeds were breaking too often.

00:47:47.581 --> 00:47:51.286
And so I kind of abandoned that around 2001, maybe.

00:47:51.326 --> 00:47:54.869
The next question is, what's your favorite key of harmonica?

00:47:54.909 --> 00:47:56.572
And I always like to try and guess this.

00:47:56.652 --> 00:48:00.556
And I'm going to guess G, because that was the first key you got, wasn't it?

00:48:00.635 --> 00:48:02.458
And that low key, you like the G.

00:48:02.690 --> 00:48:05.213
Yeah, G, A flat, A, B flat.

00:48:05.353 --> 00:48:06.315
I like all those.

00:48:06.775 --> 00:48:15.309
And I like C more than I used to, because when I was forced to use it for that out-of-the-box video, I discovered, yeah, I kind of like playing a C harp.

00:48:15.931 --> 00:48:18.114
So yeah, everything from C on down.

00:48:19.076 --> 00:48:22.501
But I really like playing some of the high harps as well.

00:48:22.521 --> 00:48:24.543
I like playing D harps sometimes.

00:48:25.585 --> 00:48:30.594
Do you find you can get the overblows out of the higher-tuned harps the same, or is it more difficult?

00:48:30.882 --> 00:48:32.202
No, it's not more difficult.

00:48:32.262 --> 00:48:44.456
It's actually easier to play like fourth hole overblow on a C harp than it would be on a G harp because you don't have to be so far back in your mouth to do it.

00:48:44.536 --> 00:48:49.161
So overdraws sometimes are a little harder on the higher pitched harmonicas.

00:48:49.362 --> 00:48:49.561
Yeah.

00:48:50.163 --> 00:48:57.050
But overblows are actually easier when you're not playing a super low harmonica.

00:48:57.601 --> 00:48:59.284
again, you just touched on different tunes.

00:48:59.324 --> 00:49:03.208
Do you play any different tunes or because you're playing overblows, you feel you don't need them?

00:49:03.889 --> 00:49:06.411
Yeah, I, you know, experimented with it years ago.

00:49:06.431 --> 00:49:10.737
I would actually file reads and, you know, come up with my own tunings.

00:49:10.757 --> 00:49:17.605
I had some interesting ideas, but I figured out that what I'm supposed to do is to make the most of what's in front of me.

00:49:18.425 --> 00:49:24.012
So take the Richter tune harmonica and just find absolutely everything I can find in it.

00:49:24.672 --> 00:49:29.264
And when you do that, It's kind of like the diametric opposite of what Brendan Power does.

00:49:29.784 --> 00:49:30.766
And Brendan is a genius.

00:49:30.887 --> 00:49:34.173
I mean, I just am amazed at all the stuff he comes up with.

00:49:34.775 --> 00:49:42.829
He's exploring this infinity of different tuning systems, and I'm exploring the infinity that can be found in the one tuning system.

00:49:43.489 --> 00:49:45.092
Yeah, it's funny talking to Brendan.

00:49:45.112 --> 00:49:46.634
I had a similar view of him.

00:49:46.673 --> 00:49:53.905
But actually, talking to him, he had a very similar approach to you, which was, well, basically, I just had this harmonica in front of me.

00:49:53.945 --> 00:49:56.268
I just wanted to make it work the way I wanted it to work.

00:49:56.307 --> 00:50:00.373
You know, exactly the way that you were recounting your story about discovering overblows early on.

00:50:00.393 --> 00:50:02.056
It was a very similar sort of view.

00:50:02.076 --> 00:50:04.880
He didn't see what he was doing as radical at all.

00:50:04.900 --> 00:50:07.844
It's just like, oh, this doesn't quite do what I want, so I'm going to just do this to it.

00:50:08.264 --> 00:50:12.190
And, you know, very similar, interesting comparison between the two of you there.

00:50:12.481 --> 00:50:13.724
No, I agree.

00:50:13.784 --> 00:50:14.905
It is the same motivation.

00:50:15.105 --> 00:50:15.286
Yeah.

00:50:17.467 --> 00:50:19.210
So what about your embouchure?

00:50:19.891 --> 00:50:20.873
Are you a puckerer?

00:50:21.213 --> 00:50:21.434
Yes.

00:50:22.235 --> 00:50:27.902
And I do the tongue blocking, of course, for playing intervals and doing counterpoint and all that stuff.

00:50:28.922 --> 00:50:31.987
But you find that puckering is needed to get the overblows.

00:50:32.067 --> 00:50:34.010
Is tongue blocking– you can

00:50:34.090 --> 00:50:34.469
use it, though?

00:50:34.871 --> 00:50:38.576
Oh, I mean, there are people who do overblows with tongue blocking, sure.

00:50:38.596 --> 00:50:44.605
I just always– started with the pucker to seem more natural, they're very different.

00:50:44.865 --> 00:50:49.634
I've done one or two overblows with tongue blocking.

00:50:49.693 --> 00:50:57.186
It's one of those things that if I live long enough, maybe I'll figure out how to play all the stuff I do pucker with tongue blocking.

00:50:57.268 --> 00:51:00.552
But I don't know if I'll be able to live to 140.

00:51:03.969 --> 00:51:07.797
Talking about amplifiers, obviously, again, you're playing a lot of different styles.

00:51:07.898 --> 00:51:12.248
So do you use a particular amplifier or are you using a PA a lot of the time?

00:51:12.608 --> 00:51:13.510
Mostly a PA.

00:51:13.811 --> 00:51:19.101
If I'm playing distortion blues stuff, of course, it's great to have an old Fender amplifier.

00:51:19.233 --> 00:51:21.737
I love Fender Deluxe Reverb.

00:51:21.797 --> 00:51:23.119
It's a wonderful amp.

00:51:23.340 --> 00:51:25.342
I used to have a Princeton that was fantastic.

00:51:25.902 --> 00:51:30.570
And with all different kinds of mics, you know, I had some Green Bullet and EV-10.

00:51:30.670 --> 00:51:36.978
And lately, I've used some of the Boogeyman from Lone Wolf Boogeyman.

00:51:37.440 --> 00:51:40.423
It's got some pretty decent distortion and delay.

00:51:41.025 --> 00:51:44.650
You know, you plug a mic into it, go into the PA system, not bad.

00:51:45.121 --> 00:51:47.985
In the past, I had some little tube modules.

00:51:48.067 --> 00:51:52.092
I had one by, what was it, Hughes de Kettner, I think, that I recorded with.

00:51:52.512 --> 00:51:53.474
It sounded really good.

00:51:53.936 --> 00:51:57.181
Yeah, if you put a tube into the proceedings, usually things get better.

00:51:58.802 --> 00:52:03.070
When you're playing clean, do you have one particular microphone when you're playing clean?

00:52:03.530 --> 00:52:07.295
My favorite mic for most applications is a Sennheiser 441.

00:52:07.697 --> 00:52:08.257
I just love it.

00:52:08.481 --> 00:52:12.146
Also, I have to say for handheld, I really like the Beyer TG-88.

00:52:12.246 --> 00:52:17.735
It's not a distortion mic per se, but it has a very rich, full, low end.

00:52:18.135 --> 00:52:21.480
If you put it through a distortion unit, it sounds very rich.

00:52:21.721 --> 00:52:25.726
Even if you don't put it through one, it just sounds really good just hand-holding it.

00:52:26.387 --> 00:52:27.148
Everyone's different.

00:52:28.128 --> 00:52:29.851
Some people really love hand-holding.

00:52:30.231 --> 00:52:34.237
I discovered that for playing jazz, most of the time I don't like hand-holding the mic.

00:52:34.338 --> 00:52:37.902
I like the freedom of being able to move around without gripping something.

00:52:37.983 --> 00:52:45.213
And also, I felt that having the mic on the instrument, you lose some of the nuances of moving on and off mic.

00:52:45.733 --> 00:52:49.858
It can kind of create more humidity buildup in your hands too.

00:52:49.918 --> 00:52:52.181
It can kind of freak the reeds out a little bit.

00:52:52.603 --> 00:52:53.603
It's a weird thing.

00:52:53.623 --> 00:52:55.266
I go back and forth about that.

00:52:55.365 --> 00:53:01.505
And sometimes I've discovered that If I'm not having success in the studio, this is really interesting.

00:53:01.545 --> 00:53:09.376
On the Acoustic Express album, we recorded some stuff in a studio, really nice studio, but they just didn't get a good sound on my Sennheiser.

00:53:09.496 --> 00:53:10.657
I just wasn't happy with it.

00:53:10.677 --> 00:53:11.539
I don't know why.

00:53:11.559 --> 00:53:17.467
And I ended up playing, hand-holding a Shure Beta 57A, which I used to really like playing.

00:53:17.487 --> 00:53:22.873
And it sounds really warm and rich, like you'd never dream that that's what I was playing through.

00:53:23.106 --> 00:53:28.157
Sometimes it's just the match of the mic and the mic preamp and the particular engineer who's recording you.

00:53:55.297 --> 00:53:56.699
And what about effects pedals?

00:53:56.780 --> 00:53:57.961
Do you use any in particular?

00:53:58.422 --> 00:54:00.264
You know, I tend not to.

00:54:00.284 --> 00:54:04.010
I used to mess around with stuff just to experiment.

00:54:04.530 --> 00:54:15.266
But just due to the nature of how I play, especially some of the contrapuntal things that I do, I don't know if you've ever heard any of that, you know, where it sounds like I'm playing a drone and a melody at the same time.

00:54:15.365 --> 00:54:15.445
And...

00:54:30.338 --> 00:54:39.411
And I just figured that some people think that it's a trick, that it's an electronic trick or something.

00:54:39.893 --> 00:54:43.539
I just don't want anyone to think that what I'm doing is due to electronics.

00:54:44.340 --> 00:54:58.081
Even though chorus and octave stuff can sound good on a harmonica, I just prefer, like I said, to make the most of what's in front of me, to not use effects for that reason.

00:54:58.753 --> 00:55:00.996
Right, so you don't even use reverb or delay or anything?

00:55:01.016 --> 00:55:02.378
Oh, no, no, of course I use reverb.

00:55:02.418 --> 00:55:03.179
That's not an effect.

00:55:03.619 --> 00:55:11.329
I'm not changing the nature of the sound, like a chorus would or like an octave harmonizer and stuff like that.

00:55:11.731 --> 00:55:12.992
Oh, no, no, reverb, sure.

00:55:13.253 --> 00:55:19.201
I mean, reverb is like breathing, you know, and delay when it's tasteful, like for the distortion stuff.

00:55:19.221 --> 00:55:19.961
Yeah, of course.

00:55:21.250 --> 00:55:26.914
Okay, so your final question now, and obviously we're in pandemic time, or hopefully coming out of pandemic time now.

00:55:26.994 --> 00:55:33.481
So just wondering on your future plans, I know that you're working on memoirs and also some music tuition books as well.

00:55:34.181 --> 00:55:35.923
Yeah, lots of stuff.

00:55:36.583 --> 00:55:38.326
I've been writing my memoirs for a few years.

00:55:39.166 --> 00:55:40.427
I definitely want to put that out.

00:55:40.889 --> 00:55:45.652
I did put out one book called Songs, Poems, and Stories, which I'm very pleased with.

00:55:46.333 --> 00:55:49.617
I'd like to record a CD of my vocal tunes because I do sing.

00:55:50.077 --> 00:55:52.396
Not great, but I can sing my songs.

00:55:53.016 --> 00:56:00.108
And I was doing a bunch of free improvisations on piano that ended up, a lot of them came out really good.

00:56:00.148 --> 00:56:02.192
They're kind of contemplative and meditative.

00:56:02.592 --> 00:56:03.793
And I'm going to put that out.

00:56:03.813 --> 00:56:05.436
I called it looking inward.

00:56:05.998 --> 00:56:12.547
And that's kind of a reflection of these times because we can't really go anywhere or really do anything.

00:56:12.668 --> 00:56:18.577
So you end up spending time introspecting and evaluating who you are.

00:56:18.978 --> 00:56:20.202
So that's what that's about.

00:56:21.025 --> 00:56:39.063
And then I have a book, a music theory book that is basically written about integrating scales and modes and rhythms for musicians to be able to be comfortable improvising on any combination of different rhythms, different scales, different modes, different harmonies.

00:56:39.423 --> 00:56:44.467
It's very simple, the principles it's based on and the exercises.

00:56:44.927 --> 00:56:48.771
But if you do it, it's sort of like having an exercise regimen.

00:56:48.851 --> 00:56:52.375
It's very organized and it starts paying you dividends.

00:56:52.695 --> 00:56:53.576
I'll just put it that way.

00:56:54.016 --> 00:56:55.818
It's stuff that I've done myself.

00:56:56.137 --> 00:57:00.782
And I did one workshop where I laid it all out at a music conservatory in Germany.

00:57:01.143 --> 00:57:02.083
Really went over well.

00:57:02.123 --> 00:57:07.010
So I'm just Just trying to get all the musical examples into Finale so I can publish it.

00:57:08.391 --> 00:57:09.253
Fantastic, Howard.

00:57:09.293 --> 00:57:10.856
Thanks very much for your insight.

00:57:10.876 --> 00:57:14.842
I was thinking very deeply about your music and it really shines through.

00:57:14.862 --> 00:57:20.230
But I think the message to a lot of people, if they haven't checked you out, is it all sounds great.

00:57:20.471 --> 00:57:23.295
So I definitely recommend people to check out your music.

00:57:23.735 --> 00:57:25.097
So thanks very much for joining me today.

00:57:25.739 --> 00:57:26.280
You're welcome.

00:57:26.360 --> 00:57:27.842
It was a real pleasure talking with you.

00:57:28.545 --> 00:57:29.907
That's it for today folks.

00:57:30.248 --> 00:57:37.981
Final word from my sponsor, the Longwolf Blues Company, providing some great effects pedals and microphones, all purpose built for the harmonica.

00:57:38.320 --> 00:57:39.864
Be sure to check out their website.

00:57:40.925 --> 00:57:44.811
Mr Levy shows what that humble diatonic harmonica can do.