May 16, 2020

PT Gazell interview

PT Gazell interview
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Season 1 Diatonic Harmonica Jazz Diatonic Country Harmonica Harmonica Customiser Bluegrass Or Old Timey Overblow Player Pop Harmonica

PT Gazell developed his melodic style of harmonica through playing a range of genres, from Bluegrass, to Pop, Country and Jazz.

After his iconic first album, Pace Yourself, he became a session musician and toured with Country bands before taking a prolonged break from playing due to his frustrations at the limitations of the diatonic harmonica. 

This led him to develop his Gazell Method half-valved diatonic, in partnership with the German manufacturer Seydel.


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

http://www.ptgazell.com

If you're interested in purchasing a Gazell Method diatonic:
from within the US: http://www.ptgazell.com/gazell-method-harmonicas-1.html
outside the US: https://www.seydel1847.de/epages/Seydel1847.sf/en_US/?ObjectPath=/Shops/Seydel/Categories/Products/Specialities/PT-Halbventiliert

PT offers teaching either through the online course at Music Gurus:
http://www.ptgazell.com/online-instruction.html
Or you can email PT if you're interested in one-to-one tuition: info@ptgazell.com

Some of the equipment PT uses:
Audix Fireball V5 mic: https://audixusa.com/docs_12/units/FireBall_V.shtml
Bulletini mic: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/bulletini.html
Lone Wolf effects pedals: https://www.lonewolfblues.com


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

01:42 - Origins

04:01 - When started playing harmonica

04:54 - Decision to pursue music as a career

05:59 - Moved to Lexington and early musical influences

07:57 - Pace Yourself album

13:54 - Influence of Charlie McCoy

15:18 - Started touring with Johnny Paycheck

18:59 - Decided to give up playing harmonica for a spell

20:22 - What brought PT back to the harmonica

23:54 - The advent of half-valve playing for PT

24:58 - What is half-valving?

27:08 - Why PT plays half-valved harmonicas

32:23 - Overblows / overbending comparison to half-valve playing

35:44 - Development of Gazell Method diatonic

38:08 - Comparison of half-valved diatonic with chromatic

39:23 - What genre of music to use half-valved diatonic for

39:59 - Can buy Gazell Method diatonic from Seydel

41:21 - Swingin’ Easy and Hittin’ Hard album and playing jazz

43:50 - Back To Back album with Brendan Power

45:28 - Two Days Out album

46:51 - Gazell Method range of harmonicas from Seydel

49:11 - PT’s website shows keys of harmonicas used on albums

50:07 - PT’s CDs have the tracks available without harmonica

50:50 - Beatles Songs

51:28 - A Madness To The Method album

52:18 - Latest album: The Loft Sessions

53:21 - Being a bandleader

53:43 - Singing

54:07 - Advice for upcoming bands

54:30 - Chromatic harmonica

54:48 - 10 minute question

55:28 - Teaching

56:14 - Harmonica of choice

56:28 - Favourite key of harmonica

56:46 - Different tunings

57:08 - Amplifiers and pedals

57:33 - Embouchre

59:09 - Future plans

WEBVTT

00:00:00.353 --> 00:00:09.153
Hi, Neil Warren here again and welcome to another episode of the Happy Hour Harmonica podcast with more interviews with some of the finest harmonica players around today.

00:00:09.955 --> 00:00:17.272
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and also check out the Spotify playlist where some of the tracks discussed during the interviews can be heard.

00:00:19.905 --> 00:00:27.044
Quick word from my sponsor now, the Lone Wolf Blues Company, makers of effects pedals, microphones and more, designed for harmonica.

00:00:27.605 --> 00:00:30.913
Remember, when you want control over your tone, you want Lone Wolf.

00:00:33.314 --> 00:00:34.354
I welcome P.T.

00:00:34.395 --> 00:00:35.816
Gazelle to the podcast today.

00:00:36.457 --> 00:00:36.877
P.T.

00:00:36.917 --> 00:00:44.182
developed his melodic style of harmonica through playing a range of different genres from bluegrass to pop, country and jazz.

00:00:45.003 --> 00:00:57.795
After his iconic first album, Pace Yourself, he became a session musician and toured with country bands before taking a prolonged break from playing due to his frustrations at the limitations of the diatonic harmonica.

00:00:58.615 --> 00:01:27.001
This led him to develop his Gazelle Method half-valve diatonic, important Hello PT Gazelle and welcome to the podcast.

00:01:27.802 --> 00:01:28.242
Hi Neil.

00:01:28.623 --> 00:01:32.085
First question, what does the PT stand for in the PT Gazelle?

00:01:32.578 --> 00:01:37.084
It's actually much more innocent and less mysterious than people think.

00:01:37.185 --> 00:01:42.070
It's actually just the initials of my first and middle name, Phil Thomas.

00:01:42.772 --> 00:01:48.459
I see that you grew up in Wisconsin, in a town called, I'm not sure I want to dare pronounce it.

00:01:48.781 --> 00:01:50.903
It's pronounced Oconomowoc.

00:01:51.084 --> 00:01:53.447
It's a Native American name.

00:01:53.688 --> 00:01:57.834
From what I've read, that town was quite a good little music scene for a small place.

00:01:58.209 --> 00:02:09.621
I'm sure it's not unlike a lot of other places, but for the size of the community, it seemed to have quite a bit of music, and music being a real important part of the social life there.

00:02:10.121 --> 00:02:19.990
And I guess we weren't very far, maybe a 30-minute drive from Milwaukee, which had a lot of regional acts come through as well.

00:02:20.711 --> 00:02:25.656
The town in Wisconsin, which I don't pronounce, it wasn't so far from Chicago.

00:02:26.036 --> 00:02:27.638
Yeah, 90 minutes away.

00:02:28.322 --> 00:02:34.491
from Chicago, basically two hours from where I lived, but 90 minutes from Milwaukee.

00:02:34.591 --> 00:03:03.926
So it was a regular stop on the, certainly the blues music scene, you know, all the blues touring acts would, there were several clubs, one in particular called Teddy's in Milwaukee that regularly had people like, you know, Muddy Waters, Paul Butterfield and Charlie Musselwhite and James Cott I snuck in at, I was probably only 16 years old, but I would regularly try to sneak in to see those acts.

00:03:03.986 --> 00:03:09.957
So I got to see a lot of the major harmonica stars of the day early on.

00:03:10.459 --> 00:03:13.044
Did that sow the seeds for your interest in harmonica?

00:03:13.444 --> 00:03:27.270
You know, like a lot of other people, I think I was always taken by the fact that Here was an instrument that you couldn't really see because somebody had it up against their, you know, against their face with their hands covering it.

00:03:27.611 --> 00:03:40.765
The men that, you know, the players in general that could really play, it was like a magic trick because there was just so much music and so much soul coming out of something you couldn't even see.

00:03:41.006 --> 00:03:44.069
Some tiny little instrument that was hidden.

00:03:44.751 --> 00:03:47.834
And I always liked the sound of the instrument.

00:03:48.418 --> 00:03:51.581
You moved to Lexington, Kentucky.

00:03:52.002 --> 00:03:52.644
What sort of age?

00:03:52.663 --> 00:03:55.026
24 or 5, I think.

00:03:55.888 --> 00:03:59.752
Okay, so you started playing harmonica before you moved to Lexington.

00:04:00.234 --> 00:04:00.814
Yeah,

00:04:01.336 --> 00:04:02.217
but not much more.

00:04:02.236 --> 00:04:06.923
I didn't really take up the instrument until I was 19 years old.

00:04:07.524 --> 00:04:10.728
I had only been playing several years by then.

00:04:10.768 --> 00:04:14.834
Okay, and do you remember what made you pick up the harmonica for the first time?

00:04:15.457 --> 00:04:16.920
It was a couple of things.

00:04:17.019 --> 00:04:23.307
Number one is being exposed to the blues artists that I saw traveling through the Milwaukee area.

00:04:23.547 --> 00:04:31.216
And number two, from the moment I picked it up at age 19, I felt like I could play the instrument.

00:04:31.757 --> 00:04:38.925
Of course, it's an instrument that people can make sounds on without any musical talent whatsoever.

00:04:39.545 --> 00:04:54.778
But I was blessed with a pretty good ear, so I could pick out melodies and pretty much figure out how to play them right away on the instrument and just kind of really evolved that way.

00:04:54.798 --> 00:04:54.817
I

00:04:54.898 --> 00:04:59.624
believe you dropped out of college to pursue a career in music.

00:05:00.906 --> 00:05:03.709
Actually, it's a little more involved than that.

00:05:04.033 --> 00:05:14.009
I actually went to university for a year with the intention of doing something in the radio, film, or television industry.

00:05:14.370 --> 00:05:31.557
But there were so many hundreds of other people at the one university I was at that were trying to do the same exact thing that I thought, am I ever going to be able to get a job with a college degree doing this?

00:05:31.970 --> 00:05:34.612
Maybe I should take some time off and reevaluate.

00:05:34.913 --> 00:05:41.721
And that was when I discovered that I could actually play harmonica and decided to try and make a go of that.

00:05:42.463 --> 00:05:43.043
So great to see.

00:05:43.062 --> 00:05:47.528
You thought the prospects making money from playing harmonica was even higher.

00:05:47.548 --> 00:05:53.456
Well, I mean, I think like so many of us, Neil, at age 19, we didn't really think through the process.

00:05:54.115 --> 00:05:55.879
Sure, I'll just try and play harmonica.

00:05:55.918 --> 00:05:57.800
Let's see if I can make a living doing that.

00:05:58.701 --> 00:05:58.781
Yeah.

00:05:59.266 --> 00:06:02.370
So, okay, so then you moved to Lexington, Kentucky.

00:06:02.891 --> 00:06:06.014
Was that with the intention to play music into the music scene

00:06:06.035 --> 00:06:06.636
there?

00:06:06.656 --> 00:06:24.839
It was, and I should preface all this by saying that even though I was influenced on the instrument by watching a lot of blues artists, I was never that really interested in using the harmonica in that medium, in that genre of music.

00:06:25.721 --> 00:06:25.802
I...

00:06:26.305 --> 00:06:52.281
liked it and I to this day still admire people that have crafted their sound and understand the genre and do all the techniques and everything associated with blues harmonica playing but to me I always thought about the instrument more like a clarinet or a trumpet and I think that's Circles back to listening to music that my father liked.

00:06:52.523 --> 00:07:02.922
And so I was always trying to play the instrument more in that vein and kind of gravitated more towards country and bluegrass and folk music to start with.

00:07:03.322 --> 00:07:07.951
That's one of the reasons I ended up in Kentucky.

00:07:07.992 --> 00:07:10.836
I had started to travel south.

00:07:11.458 --> 00:07:20.617
During the summer months to go to festivals, the bluegrass festivals were in the South, in Kentucky and Tennessee and North Carolina.

00:07:20.637 --> 00:07:31.343
And I started traveling there to go be more exposed to that style of music and through a series of events that happened.

00:07:31.382 --> 00:07:40.798
I met someone who owned a recording studio in Kentucky, and he heard me play and said, you know, would you be interested in moving to Kentucky?

00:07:40.877 --> 00:07:46.607
Because I have a need for a harmonica player in Lexington, Kentucky.

00:07:46.666 --> 00:07:50.151
There's really not anybody there that can play the style you're playing.

00:07:50.192 --> 00:07:57.180
And There's many people that come to record and looking for a harmonica on one or two songs.

00:07:57.240 --> 00:08:02.826
And I struck up a deal with him and said, well, I would be willing to do that.

00:08:03.047 --> 00:08:10.875
But in exchange for that, what I would like to get is recording time so I can record an album.

00:08:10.894 --> 00:08:17.182
And that's kind of how the first recording, Pace Yourself, the LP Pace Yourself kind of came to be.

00:08:17.697 --> 00:08:24.725
At the time, Lexington was a really happening scene, mostly because of this recording studio.

00:08:25.607 --> 00:08:31.733
That studio had become known for recording bluegrass albums.

00:08:32.333 --> 00:08:34.275
You made the album Pace Yourself.

00:08:34.636 --> 00:08:37.240
You had quite a beard then, P.T.

00:08:37.960 --> 00:08:40.864
Well, I used to have more hair on my head, too.

00:08:41.264 --> 00:08:42.544
That was kind of the look.

00:08:43.330 --> 00:08:46.192
Just hope you didn't get your harmonica trapped in that beard, but yes, a fine beard.

00:08:48.735 --> 00:08:58.306
You know, I can remember, I actually, back then, when you played harmonica, you basically played a honer and you played a marine band.

00:08:58.346 --> 00:09:06.475
There really wasn't much else in the late 70s, and they were notorious for not being put together that great.

00:09:06.975 --> 00:09:12.076
Pulling your mustache or beard hairs together was not uncommon at all,

00:09:12.136 --> 00:09:12.398
man.

00:09:13.278 --> 00:09:21.190
Yeah, so the album pays yourself a nice mixture of mainly bluegrass album, but with a mixture of some other stuff on there.

00:09:21.850 --> 00:09:22.412
It was funny.

00:09:22.451 --> 00:09:37.011
It was like a mixture of, yeah, definitely some bluegrass stuff and definitely some Irish and Scottish-influenced sort of things, and definitely a couple of country tunes as well.

00:09:37.052 --> 00:09:38.634
And I just felt like...

00:09:39.009 --> 00:10:05.394
through my entire recording and performing career i just play what i think i can perform the best and that the audience will enjoy i don't really think much about concept albums in terms of you know i want to keep it all x or y it's just what i feel like i can actually do the best and make it entertaining for the audience.

00:10:06.275 --> 00:10:13.171
It's interesting that obviously the harmonica is associated a lot with blues, but I'm personally interested in playing a lot of different genres on the harmonica myself.

00:10:13.773 --> 00:10:19.024
Yeah, I think to check out a different genre of playing for a lot of people listening, you know, it's a great album for that.

00:10:19.465 --> 00:10:21.669
Tennessee Waltz, I was enjoying playing along with that one.

00:10:36.385 --> 00:10:39.691
Tennessee Waltz is a great, it's such a great tune.

00:10:39.730 --> 00:10:43.477
It just seems to lay perfect on the harmonica.

00:10:43.878 --> 00:10:52.152
And I just felt like I could perform that song with enough emotion and grace to do it justice.

00:10:53.173 --> 00:10:59.364
And the song on there, which I really love, and it's been one of my favorite harmonica songs for a long time, is the Flintstones.

00:11:00.946 --> 00:11:03.070
That's probably the most...

00:11:03.361 --> 00:11:03.822
I don't know.

00:11:04.163 --> 00:11:12.876
Last time I checked, and it's been a long time since I went to look at what gets downloaded the most off that CD.

00:11:13.277 --> 00:11:18.125
For a long time, it was a tie between Red-Haired Boy and The Flintstones.

00:11:18.706 --> 00:11:29.304
The Flintstones, the idea for that I was watching some show one night and Barney Kessel, great jazz guitar player, did the tune.

00:11:29.365 --> 00:11:33.913
And I thought, wow, I wonder if I could actually play that on the harmonica.

00:11:34.913 --> 00:11:38.779
And so, you know, the first part is I could do pretty easily.

00:11:38.820 --> 00:11:47.153
And then I realized that I was missing a note when I had to go to the B part of the song, the chorus part of the song.

00:11:47.232 --> 00:12:07.116
So Having been largely influenced by Charlie McCoy for the first several years of my playing and realized that Charlie used to get around doing that by switching harmonicas for a phrase or two, I discovered that I could jump to another harmonica and actually play that phrase and jump back.

00:12:07.177 --> 00:12:14.368
So the practice part was trying to do that fluidly without it sounding like me changing harmonicas.

00:12:15.129 --> 00:12:17.173
And of course, now I don't need to do that.

00:12:17.232 --> 00:12:22.061
I can do it all in a harmonica or, you know, there's different tuned harmonicas.

00:12:23.001 --> 00:12:32.798
And I think just the speed of how fast we decided to do the tune or I decided to do the tune was part of the thing that appealed to people so much.

00:12:33.250 --> 00:12:35.111
As time goes on, I don't play that.

00:12:35.511 --> 00:12:37.573
I try not to play that fast anymore.

00:12:37.614 --> 00:12:42.600
I try to play more about content, more their quality, more than quantity.

00:12:42.980 --> 00:12:50.226
Back then, it was something to do, and it was one of those magical cuts that just kind of came out.

00:12:50.707 --> 00:12:54.532
It's a great song, and the melody at the first part is great.

00:12:54.552 --> 00:12:55.351
I love playing along with that.

00:12:55.393 --> 00:12:59.636
But then you really get into it when you start improvising after you play through the melody.

00:13:00.717 --> 00:13:00.798
Yeah.

00:13:15.553 --> 00:13:21.302
I don't believe we did more than one or two takes, and that may have been the first take of it we did.

00:13:22.063 --> 00:13:25.028
It's just a lot of times that's always the best.

00:13:25.428 --> 00:13:27.331
You don't think about it too much.

00:13:27.432 --> 00:13:27.652
So

00:13:28.673 --> 00:13:30.836
the last podcast was with Charlie McCoy.

00:13:31.057 --> 00:13:35.943
I was talking to Charlie, obviously, about he's very heavily into playing melodic style of harmonica.

00:13:36.164 --> 00:13:38.989
You say he was quite an influence on you in the early days, was he, Charlie?

00:13:39.830 --> 00:13:40.792
Oh, my gosh, yes.

00:13:40.951 --> 00:13:44.957
I'll tell you when my life changed.

00:13:45.250 --> 00:13:51.755
I mean, I was already playing harmonica, and I had just learned how to play in second position.

00:13:52.235 --> 00:13:57.080
And I was still kind of struggling with bending notes, but I could figure out how to bend notes.

00:13:58.280 --> 00:14:07.208
And I was driving in my car, pushed the button and hit a country station, and I heard somebody playing harmonica.

00:14:07.288 --> 00:14:22.543
And I knew enough by then that I knew it was in second position, but it was incredibly melodic, incredibly incredibly accurate on the bending, just incredibly produced with the harmonica right out in front as the lead instrument.

00:14:22.643 --> 00:14:24.745
I almost drove off the road.

00:14:25.164 --> 00:14:27.187
I mean, I was flabbergasted.

00:14:27.647 --> 00:14:29.849
And the song was Take Me Home, Country Roads.

00:14:41.100 --> 00:14:43.322
By the time it hit the second verse...

00:14:43.714 --> 00:14:52.326
and then heard this player actually playing Harmony with himself too, I was at that point in for all the money in the world at that point.

00:14:52.386 --> 00:14:53.769
That's what I wanted to do.

00:14:54.009 --> 00:14:56.393
I wanted to be able to do what I was hearing.

00:14:56.714 --> 00:15:04.085
Immediately, didn't even go home, just drove directly to the local record store and asked a guy who has this record out.

00:15:04.785 --> 00:15:07.070
And he says, well, it's some guy named Charlie McCoy.

00:15:07.457 --> 00:15:12.563
The next several years were me trying to imitate Charlie McCoy until I could find my own voice.

00:15:12.865 --> 00:15:15.106
The guy's a good personal close friend of mine.

00:15:15.147 --> 00:15:18.110
I'm just, I'm really honored to be, just to call him a friend.

00:15:18.631 --> 00:15:23.837
So yeah, we've been talking around the album Pay For Self, which you released in 1978.

00:15:24.259 --> 00:15:26.942
So where did that, where did that take you then?

00:15:27.241 --> 00:15:33.629
Did you, I think you then got an offer to go and play with Johnny Paycheck in Nashville a little while after that.

00:15:33.950 --> 00:15:34.410
I did.

00:15:34.451 --> 00:15:43.873
I was living in Lexington and, and, a bluegrass artist that was in Lexington also, a very famous one in the bluegrass field called, named J.D.

00:15:44.013 --> 00:15:51.004
Crowe, went to Nashville and recorded a bluegrass album, but decided he wanted to kind of modernize the sound.

00:15:51.024 --> 00:15:55.230
So he put a pedal steel guitar on it and harmonica.

00:15:55.389 --> 00:15:57.953
And of course, Charlie McCoy was the harmonica player.

00:15:58.274 --> 00:16:01.860
About two months after the record came out, J.D.

00:16:01.921 --> 00:16:13.278
decided that the public television station in Lexington had a music show, and they decided to invite JD to come and do his new songs.

00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:25.260
And rather than pay Charlie McCoy, or Charlie may not have been available, I don't know what the circumstances were, but they knew I was in town, so they asked me if I would come and play his parts.

00:16:26.383 --> 00:16:30.429
Well, I decided to do it, and the steel player...

00:16:30.721 --> 00:16:33.547
who was actually on the record, was available.

00:16:33.606 --> 00:16:36.912
So he came up from Nashville to do the show.

00:16:36.951 --> 00:16:41.740
And it turned out that he was actually playing for Johnny Paycheck at the time.

00:16:41.820 --> 00:16:50.413
And this guy heard me play and he said, you know, Johnny Paycheck just hired a harmonica player last week and he's not very good.

00:16:50.975 --> 00:16:57.456
He said, I'm going to, when I get back to Nashville, you know, on Monday, I'm going to recommend that he hires you.

00:16:57.515 --> 00:17:00.019
And I thought, well, you know, sure.

00:17:00.801 --> 00:17:09.833
But darned if the phone didn't ring on Monday and I got offered this job and I just took it and moved to Nashville and been here ever since.

00:17:10.314 --> 00:17:17.002
Yeah, we toured for, I worked for Johnny for about four years and we were gone a lot, man.

00:17:17.083 --> 00:17:24.817
We probably were, we probably did, oh, in excess of, 220 shows a year.

00:17:25.219 --> 00:17:25.942
And what style of

00:17:25.981 --> 00:17:27.147
music were you playing with them?

00:17:27.188 --> 00:17:28.615
It was country.

00:17:29.037 --> 00:17:44.117
One of the cool things about that job was that not only the steel guitar player, but the bass player and the drummer were also very much influenced by Western swing music and had grown up playing Western swing.

00:17:44.898 --> 00:17:49.285
And so that was kind of my first exposure to Western swing music.

00:17:49.905 --> 00:17:51.347
And I just fell in love with it.

00:17:51.548 --> 00:18:09.653
And it made me have to really rethink how I was playing because they wanted to play parts, the steel player and the guitar player, and they wanted me to play one of the parts, like a little section, a lot of arranged, very arranged sort of things.

00:18:10.534 --> 00:18:16.138
And so I had to really learn how to jump around on different harmonicas to try and do some of that stuff.

00:18:16.799 --> 00:18:20.663
So it was quite beneficial and very rewarding all at the same time.

00:18:24.948 --> 00:18:38.387
Out here in this night air When

00:18:38.448 --> 00:18:42.893
I left Paycheck, I actually did sessions for a couple of years.

00:18:43.953 --> 00:18:49.499
And then I went back out on the road again with Mel McDaniel, another country artist.

00:18:49.519 --> 00:18:52.481
And I worked for him for about three years.

00:18:52.741 --> 00:18:56.605
And that kind of ended my working as a sideman career.

00:18:56.738 --> 00:18:59.221
That was kind of like my last Sideman gig.

00:18:59.722 --> 00:19:04.329
Around this time, you decided at some point to stop playing the harmonica.

00:19:05.070 --> 00:19:05.271
Yep.

00:19:05.751 --> 00:19:06.133
Yeah.

00:19:06.333 --> 00:19:11.521
In 1988, I basically set the instrument down, Neil, and said, I'm not playing anymore.

00:19:11.541 --> 00:19:12.844
I'm not playing music anymore.

00:19:13.104 --> 00:19:24.041
I was very frustrated with the diatonic Richter-tuned harmonica in that I couldn't play what I wanted to play without changing harmonicas.

00:19:24.673 --> 00:19:26.276
I didn't want to fight it anymore.

00:19:26.316 --> 00:19:31.923
And I didn't want to compromise what I was hearing in my head.

00:19:31.943 --> 00:19:37.151
And so I just basically set the instrument down and decided I wasn't going to play anymore.

00:19:37.490 --> 00:19:51.049
Part of it was because I had been playing in the late 70s and early 80s with Johnny Paycheck and doing Western swing arrangements where I needed all the notes on the harmonica.

00:19:51.430 --> 00:19:53.532
And I was forced to have to sometimes play...

00:19:54.721 --> 00:20:00.250
stack up two or three harmonicas and jump back and forth and try and make it sound fluid.

00:20:00.630 --> 00:20:12.968
Part of the reason was that, yeah, I had been exposed to different sorts of music other than three-chord blues tunes, and the melodies were a little more complicated, and I needed those notes.

00:20:13.848 --> 00:20:20.178
And I just didn't want to compromise by having to switch harmonicas anymore, and I didn't want to play chromatic.

00:20:20.278 --> 00:20:22.622
I liked the sound of the diatonic.

00:20:23.137 --> 00:20:26.722
So you had a period of 15 years where you didn't play and you went to get a regular job.

00:20:27.063 --> 00:20:41.522
When I quit playing, I actually came full circle back to being 19 years old and actually started working as an audio post-production engineer for film and television.

00:20:42.044 --> 00:20:49.334
One of the young film editors that I was working with was doing a documentary on a very famous...

00:20:49.922 --> 00:21:20.476
music venue here in Nashville called the Blue Grass Inn and he didn't know I played music he had no idea I was a musician but I was helping him do the sound for this documentary and he kept asking me about different names of people because I'm older than he is and I've been in Nashville a long time and I said yeah well I knew him yeah I know who he is and finally he said so how do you know all these people and I said well I used to play music with them and he said So you play an instrument?

00:21:20.675 --> 00:21:22.317
And I said, well, I used to play, yes.

00:21:23.098 --> 00:21:25.782
And so he, this is like 2002.

00:21:26.604 --> 00:21:31.951
So he, while I'm standing there, he Googles my name.

00:21:31.990 --> 00:21:37.817
And at that time, Google in 2002 was still something very new.

00:21:37.857 --> 00:21:43.965
And I had never used it and would have never thought to type somebody's name in Google.

00:21:44.097 --> 00:21:48.744
Well, he typed my name in and a bunch of stuff came up, like whatever happened to P.T.

00:21:48.785 --> 00:21:49.286
Gazelle?

00:21:49.846 --> 00:21:50.528
Where is he?

00:21:50.548 --> 00:21:51.869
I heard he died.

00:21:51.890 --> 00:21:56.036
So, I mean, there was quite a variety of things in there.

00:21:56.096 --> 00:22:00.843
And I started thinking, gee, I wonder if I still have an audience.

00:22:01.023 --> 00:22:04.869
I wonder if there's people that would be interested in me playing.

00:22:04.890 --> 00:22:10.498
And I went home and I said to my wife, do I still own my harmonicas?

00:22:10.597 --> 00:22:11.819
Because I had no idea.

00:22:12.080 --> 00:22:12.862
We had moved.

00:22:13.410 --> 00:22:14.590
in between that time.

00:22:15.211 --> 00:22:17.173
And she said, yeah, I know where they are.

00:22:17.534 --> 00:22:21.958
And went upstairs and came downstairs with a briefcase full of harmonicas.

00:22:22.018 --> 00:22:22.659
And I went, wow.

00:22:23.779 --> 00:22:25.181
I started fooling around with it.

00:22:25.500 --> 00:22:38.854
And the next thing I did was called one of my old dear friends, Jelly Roll Johnson, who's a great player, who kind of took over the mantle from McCoy as far as session playing goes in town here.

00:22:39.294 --> 00:22:42.877
And I said to him, so I'm thinking about playing again.

00:22:43.170 --> 00:22:48.275
And he said, well, if you're going to do that, then the first thing you have to do is you have to go to the Spock invention.

00:22:48.755 --> 00:22:50.436
And he said, I'm going, just go with me.

00:22:50.998 --> 00:22:58.845
So we went to the Spock invention and I was totally blown away how much the instrument had grown up in 15 years.

00:22:59.546 --> 00:23:05.852
In 88, when I quit, Howard Levy was just becoming a household name.

00:23:06.353 --> 00:23:06.692
Okay.

00:23:06.873 --> 00:23:15.934
And I mean, I had heard a recording of him and realized he was doing something that I didn't understand and that he was able to get the missing notes.

00:23:16.455 --> 00:23:19.601
But by then I'd made the decision that I was going to quit and didn't care.

00:23:19.642 --> 00:23:32.102
So I basically missed the whole Howard Levy phenomenon of overblowing and how he was doing things in the next 15 years because I wasn't paying any attention anymore.

00:23:34.425 --> 00:23:34.526
Music

00:23:45.857 --> 00:23:54.567
But I was amazed at how much the instrument had grown up and decided that if I was going to play again, I probably would have to learn how to overblow.

00:23:55.208 --> 00:23:57.830
And that's the extent of what I knew about overblowing.

00:23:58.191 --> 00:23:59.512
I didn't even know what it did.

00:23:59.532 --> 00:24:00.773
I had no idea.

00:24:01.294 --> 00:24:12.026
So a couple of guys at Spa who remembered me or knew who I was from 15 years prior said, well, let me take one of your harmonicas apart and we'll we'll gap.

00:24:12.289 --> 00:24:22.625
two of the reeds on hole number six, and then just act like you're going to blow bend at the top of the harmonica, and you'll start to hear how it does it.

00:24:23.546 --> 00:24:27.090
So I did it, and I immediately did an overblow, immediately.

00:24:27.652 --> 00:24:30.256
And they said, wow, that sounds really good.

00:24:30.336 --> 00:24:32.939
And I said, yeah, but that's the wrong note.

00:24:33.200 --> 00:24:34.541
And they went, what are you talking about?

00:24:35.137 --> 00:24:37.803
And I said, well, that makes the note go up in pitch.

00:24:37.942 --> 00:24:39.224
I want the note to go down.

00:24:39.404 --> 00:24:40.928
I just want to flat the note.

00:24:41.308 --> 00:24:42.830
And they said, well, no, you don't do that.

00:24:42.871 --> 00:24:43.833
That's not what you do.

00:24:44.875 --> 00:24:53.308
So the rest is kind of history about the half-valving thing and how that all kind of went from there.

00:24:53.369 --> 00:24:58.137
But that was my first initial back in at playing harmonica.

00:24:58.529 --> 00:25:00.251
So let's talk about the half-valving now.

00:25:00.271 --> 00:25:06.018
I think it'd be of interest to a lot of people listening about exactly how the half-valving works.

00:25:06.637 --> 00:25:16.367
Valve actually is covering the first six draw slots, because what you're trying to do is shut off, as you know, the harmonica.

00:25:16.407 --> 00:25:25.498
When we blow into hole one or draw in hole one, there's air going through both slots all the time.

00:25:25.922 --> 00:25:30.367
Even though both notes don't make a sound, there is air going through there.

00:25:30.848 --> 00:25:33.632
Let's talk about Richter tuning for a second.

00:25:33.732 --> 00:25:46.589
Because of how Richter tuning is set up, some notes, draw notes and some blow notes are bendable because there is a half step or more interval in between the blow and the draw note.

00:25:46.849 --> 00:25:55.986
For instance, on hole, what, four draw, blow four is a C note on a C harmonica, and the draw note is a D note.

00:25:56.306 --> 00:26:03.258
So that means if I draw bend hole four, there's a half step interval that we can make a note.

00:26:07.144 --> 00:26:09.328
So there's that draw bend on four.

00:26:09.729 --> 00:26:17.345
But the problem is we move to like hole five, And there is no half-step interval there because it's, what, an E and an F.

00:26:18.185 --> 00:26:20.950
And we get to hole six and we run into the same problem.

00:26:21.009 --> 00:26:29.784
We can't get that F sharp because there is no half-step interval to allow us to do different things.

00:26:30.265 --> 00:26:41.461
So by shutting off the opposite valve, the opposite reed of the one we're trying to manipulate, we can now do a single reed bend.

00:26:41.890 --> 00:26:50.105
If we put a valve, let's say, on hole 6, on the draw slot of hole 6, I can now blow bend hole 6.

00:26:50.185 --> 00:26:50.507
Listen.

00:26:56.979 --> 00:26:57.179
Right.

00:26:57.220 --> 00:27:02.951
So you're now playing the G note on a C6 blow, and you're bringing that down to an F sharp.

00:27:02.990 --> 00:27:04.653
That's exactly right.

00:27:04.865 --> 00:27:07.971
but you're lowering the pitch rather than raising the pitch.

00:27:08.391 --> 00:27:13.878
And so I'll stop at this point and tell you the three major reasons why I play half valve.

00:27:14.118 --> 00:27:25.035
Number one is, logically, it makes more sense to me to flat everything because that's what I naturally learned how to do when I bent notes.

00:27:25.455 --> 00:27:37.912
Every time you bent a note, and we're not talking about valve bending now, but just regular bending, if it's a draw note, like on hole four draw, I'm flatting that note.

00:27:38.272 --> 00:27:41.836
So on the top of the harmonica, I'm doing the same thing.

00:27:41.957 --> 00:27:46.823
Even though it's a blow bend on hole eight or nine, I'm still flatting that note.

00:27:49.286 --> 00:27:57.576
So logically, not having ever overblown, flatting the note made more sense to me.

00:27:58.096 --> 00:28:01.701
Number two, I now had access to all the notes.

00:28:02.402 --> 00:28:05.989
And here's the part that some people get really confused about.

00:28:06.671 --> 00:28:12.823
In second position or cross harp, you're only missing two notes anyway in the chromatic scale.

00:28:13.324 --> 00:28:17.112
You're missing what we call the flatted sixth and the major seventh.

00:28:17.692 --> 00:28:24.026
And I'm now able to fill those in by blow bending hole five and blow bending hole six.

00:28:24.354 --> 00:28:26.997
I'm now able to fill in the missing notes.

00:28:27.076 --> 00:28:28.358
That's the second reason.

00:28:28.439 --> 00:28:31.863
I now have chromaticity to a diatonic instrument.

00:28:32.584 --> 00:28:49.965
And the third reason, and this probably is maybe the most satisfying reason for me to play half-valving, is I'm able to put shading, coloring, and emotional content on every single read on the harmonica now.

00:28:50.178 --> 00:28:52.540
Not just some of the notes.

00:28:52.922 --> 00:28:57.067
What is it that people really like about the diatonic harmonica?

00:28:57.648 --> 00:28:59.230
Let's go back to four draw.

00:28:59.631 --> 00:28:59.892
This.

00:29:00.051 --> 00:29:03.016
This is what people like about the diatonic instrument.

00:29:07.321 --> 00:29:10.707
That kind of emotional shading or warbling.

00:29:10.747 --> 00:29:12.650
I'm not really hitting...

00:29:13.026 --> 00:29:19.574
full half-step bend there, but I'm shading or emotionally portraying that note.

00:29:20.314 --> 00:29:23.218
And I'm able to do that now on all 20 notes.

00:29:23.278 --> 00:29:25.921
So I'll do the same thing now on six blow.

00:29:25.961 --> 00:29:35.772
For me, what it does is it makes the whole harmonica now more of a complete instrument.

00:29:36.512 --> 00:30:11.877
And I feel like it's more of a, I'm able to emotionally portray portray what i'm trying to do a lot easier when i can shade or color all 20 notes what's interesting about it is when you when you get the hang of this what what what happens is you start to understand where the octaves are on the harmonica because the first thing i try to tell people is when they say well how am i you know what do i need to do to try and do this And the first thing I'd ask them to do is blow bend at the top of the harmonica, which is not a valve bend.

00:30:11.978 --> 00:30:13.400
It's like holes eight and nine.

00:30:13.440 --> 00:30:24.792
That's holes eight and nine, and I'm doing a blow bend, which is something we should all be able to do on a regular Richter tuned diatonic.

00:30:25.614 --> 00:30:29.778
Interestingly enough, holes five and six mirror that.

00:30:29.838 --> 00:30:31.240
That's the octave below it.

00:30:31.299 --> 00:30:32.602
So here's eight and nine again.

00:30:34.978 --> 00:30:37.181
Now I'll drop down to five and six and do that.

00:30:40.185 --> 00:30:40.886
And then two.

00:30:40.967 --> 00:30:44.211
So

00:30:44.511 --> 00:30:55.648
you start to understand how the instrument is laid out a little better, and it allows you to start to do kind of riffs that you interconnect the phrases.

00:30:56.269 --> 00:30:56.349
Yeah.

00:31:01.794 --> 00:31:16.324
yeah like you said that's a really good connection between say the five blow and the eight blow where you've got the same you know you've got it's the same movement isn't it that you that you're used to doing in the top octave there's vowels at the top in the top octave on the blowers, so you can draw bends.

00:31:16.663 --> 00:31:18.685
That's exactly right.

00:31:18.787 --> 00:31:27.555
So now on the top octave, starting on hole seven, which incidentally is where the pattern changes, right?

00:31:27.615 --> 00:31:34.942
We go from starting on hole four, we go blow, draw, blow, draw, blow, draw, and then we have to switch to go draw, blow, right?

00:31:34.982 --> 00:31:37.505
To do the diatonic or major scale.

00:31:38.046 --> 00:31:40.508
And so the valving follows that concept.

00:31:40.847 --> 00:31:45.467
So now on hole seven, I can draw bend holes 7, 8, 9, and 10.

00:31:50.054 --> 00:31:51.296
There's 7, 8, and 9.

00:31:51.375 --> 00:31:53.459
I'm draw bending down a half step.

00:31:54.059 --> 00:32:03.334
And what's cool about that, I think the first note that most people learn to overblow is hole 6, which gives you the minor third.

00:32:03.494 --> 00:32:05.438
And I get that by draw bending 7.

00:32:08.521 --> 00:32:10.645
And that's a really important note in...

00:32:10.978 --> 00:32:13.820
blues playing because it's that...

00:32:19.949 --> 00:32:22.632
That's what really is kind of nice about it.

00:32:23.333 --> 00:32:32.183
I will say that I don't consider playing half-valved any easier or more difficult than doing overbending.

00:32:32.364 --> 00:32:40.145
I think they're both really advanced techniques that require practice and And you have to, you know, you've got to practice.

00:32:40.626 --> 00:32:44.373
There are some benefits for both and some disadvantages for both, I think.

00:32:45.114 --> 00:32:45.273
Yeah.

00:32:45.314 --> 00:32:47.518
So you don't use overblows at all then?

00:32:48.579 --> 00:32:54.009
Well, not only that, but it's impossible when you put the valve in there because you don't have both reeds interacting.

00:32:54.750 --> 00:32:59.136
I think like a lot of people myself, I've sort of looked at overblows, but I haven't pursued them.

00:32:59.176 --> 00:33:04.204
And yeah, the six blow one, which generally is the one which comes out easiest, the diatonic, I can use that one.

00:33:04.665 --> 00:33:04.766
Right.

00:33:04.930 --> 00:33:10.960
I think one of the reasons that I'm not a big fan of overblows is I don't always like the sound of the overblows.

00:33:11.821 --> 00:33:16.789
They sound a little bit weak, the notes which come out compared to the non-overblow.

00:33:17.310 --> 00:33:25.846
I think I would argue that really, really good overbenders of the instrument, I don't hear it sounding weak.

00:33:26.178 --> 00:33:28.701
When Howard Levy does it, I don't hear it.

00:33:29.063 --> 00:33:31.246
When Jason Ricci does it, I don't hear it.

00:33:31.365 --> 00:33:34.912
When Carlos de Honco does it, I don't hear that.

00:33:35.011 --> 00:33:39.278
When Jason Rosenblatt does overblows, they don't sound weak to me.

00:33:40.180 --> 00:33:43.244
It's practice, you know, and you have to be dedicated.

00:33:43.265 --> 00:33:50.797
And, I mean, look, we're asking this instrument to do things it was never meant to do, okay?

00:33:51.617 --> 00:33:53.401
It originally was meant to do this.

00:33:54.061 --> 00:33:54.142
Yeah.

00:33:58.114 --> 00:34:01.218
And that's what it was meant to do with the Richter tuning.

00:34:01.878 --> 00:34:04.182
And then somebody discovered that we could go...

00:34:04.221 --> 00:34:10.048
Right?

00:34:10.148 --> 00:34:13.614
We could go to cross-harp and we could make it sound more soulful.

00:34:13.753 --> 00:34:20.722
And then, you know, now we're doing half-valving and overblowing and we're playing jazz tunes on it.

00:34:20.822 --> 00:34:21.583
So, you know...

00:34:32.865 --> 00:34:37.931
You have to practice, and I don't think one's any easier than the other.

00:34:38.393 --> 00:34:39.353
It's a very good point you make.

00:34:39.393 --> 00:34:44.760
Like you say, the people who are good at it, like some of the names you mentioned there at the Overblow Technique, and obviously you and the Half-Life Technique.

00:34:45.260 --> 00:34:51.668
Like you say, if you're really dedicated to working on it and those sounds are great, then yeah, it does work.

00:34:51.708 --> 00:34:55.012
But it's definitely a different approach to the instrument.

00:34:55.434 --> 00:34:55.934
Here's kind of

00:34:55.954 --> 00:34:58.637
how I feel about the two disciplines.

00:34:59.170 --> 00:35:09.309
I think that the half-valving is better suited to melodic and ballad playing than the overblow technique.

00:35:09.849 --> 00:35:20.849
I do think the overblow technique is better suited to fast passages and stuff where you don't have to dwell on the overbend as long.

00:35:21.217 --> 00:35:26.925
And it's just the nature of how we bend notes or how we, because the overblow isn't really a bend.

00:35:27.385 --> 00:35:37.376
It's a psychoacoustic thing that happens when the two reeds vibrate together, as opposed to what I'm doing, which is actually making the reed bend to curve the air.

00:35:37.916 --> 00:35:39.559
So I think there's that difference.

00:35:40.260 --> 00:35:44.724
You know, when I hear, again, when I hear really great overbenders play, it sounds great.

00:35:45.786 --> 00:36:07.693
So this went on to developing the half valve diatonics that you that you were known for and the gazelle method is is the half valve technique uh and this went on to uh so you developed your own for some years and then sadel picked this up yeah and now you can get um the diatonics directly from sadel yeah

00:36:08.032 --> 00:36:18.806
yeah so how how it works is or how it worked was i showed them uh what i what i had figured out about valve material and setup on the harmonica.

00:36:19.288 --> 00:36:37.422
Because one of the problems with putting a valve in a harmonica or a wind saver, as they're known also, and the distinction there is that wind savers were invented for the chromatic harmonica because there's so many notes and so many slots that if you don't cover some of the notes...

00:36:37.858 --> 00:36:39.840
the thing would be impossible to play.

00:36:39.860 --> 00:36:41.824
It would just sound like air constantly.

00:36:42.405 --> 00:36:45.429
So that's why it has the name Wind Saver.

00:36:46.231 --> 00:36:55.144
Now, when you take a Wind Saver and you put it in a diatonic, I'm referring to it as a valve because it's an opening and closing device.

00:36:55.485 --> 00:37:04.840
I'm trying to shut off one of the reeds from vibrating so I can manipulate the other reed and do a note that normally wouldn't be available.

00:37:05.260 --> 00:37:06.101
The valves...

00:37:06.434 --> 00:37:38.320
in themselves are one of the things that I looked at because plastic wind savers which is what kind of the standard for a chromatic make a lot of noise and they pop and rattle and that only becomes worse in a diatonic because the chamber is smaller and I thought I like half valving but with it making that much noise could I ever record this way I don't think so you would hear that you would hear it slapping you would hear it Because I like to get in really close when I record.

00:37:38.340 --> 00:37:41.527
I like a real intimate, right up front sound.

00:37:42.528 --> 00:37:56.005
So I started playing around and experimenting with different material and finally came up with something that was soft enough to not make noise, but stiff enough yet to function as an opening and closing device and retain its shape.

00:37:56.385 --> 00:38:04.161
Then I set about trying to figure out how to gap and shape the reeds to best facilitate half valve playing.

00:38:04.221 --> 00:38:08.610
So that kind of is the, in essence, is what the gazelle method is all about.

00:38:09.121 --> 00:38:11.565
It's interesting because I play a lot of chromatic harmonica.

00:38:11.704 --> 00:38:17.891
So I understand all the concepts around, you know, what the different notes are and what notes aren't available in diatonic very well.

00:38:18.492 --> 00:38:30.606
I think the difference between playing it on a chromatic harmonica and playing the diatonic is obviously you get the expression, the bending ability in the diatonic, which is, as you say, something we all love about the diatonic, which is moving from the chromatic.

00:38:31.367 --> 00:38:36.574
So it's definitely an appealing idea that you can play in this chromatic way and then play, you know, all the notes.

00:38:36.961 --> 00:38:43.952
The two other things I would say, Neil, is that when you have valve, you're not really taking away anything you can currently do.

00:38:44.012 --> 00:38:47.137
You can still do everything you could do before.

00:38:47.177 --> 00:38:48.440
You could just do more.

00:38:48.840 --> 00:38:53.568
You're adding the ability to do additional blow bending and additional draw bending.

00:38:54.088 --> 00:38:59.458
The other thing I will say is that it does slightly change the tone of the harmonica.

00:38:59.777 --> 00:39:19.905
If you've got the chromatic harmonica sitting at one end of the spectrum of the sound tone, and you've got diatonic and chromatic at opposite ends of tone, when you put valves in the diatonic, you slightly move that tone of the diatonic a little towards a chromatic, maybe about 20%.

00:39:20.065 --> 00:39:27.079
And it makes it a kind of a hybrid sound, but I guess it just depends on what genre and what you're trying to do.

00:39:27.619 --> 00:39:39.538
If I was playing nothing but hardcore Chicago style blues and wasn't interested in getting the additional notes, I wouldn't have valves in my harmonica because it changes the tone a little bit.

00:39:39.918 --> 00:39:45.586
But for what the style of stuff I'm trying to do, I like the sound personally.

00:39:45.887 --> 00:39:49.085
It's all about having different you know, tools in your kit bag, isn't it?

00:39:49.126 --> 00:39:56.507
Like you're saying, if you want to play music and definitely if you want to play jazz where you need to be able to get these extra notes, then you need that.

00:39:57.208 --> 00:39:58.853
But yeah, if you're playing blues, yeah, go back.

00:39:59.362 --> 00:40:07.911
Just pointing out for people listening, if people want to check out the half-valved, again, Seidel will do the two makes and the 1847 in the session steel.

00:40:07.951 --> 00:40:12.677
So if anyone wants to check out and pursue the half-valved, I think that's probably the best place to start.

00:40:12.697 --> 00:40:14.378
Because these are good quality working.

00:40:14.398 --> 00:40:17.661
You don't get these problems with popping, I take it, on these diatonic.

00:40:17.722 --> 00:40:17.981
No.

00:40:18.862 --> 00:40:24.730
The way it works is pretty much anybody outside the United States orders them directly from Seidel.

00:40:24.961 --> 00:40:26.945
Anybody in the U.S.

00:40:26.985 --> 00:40:35.057
pretty much orders them from me because it just the difference in shipping and the difference in, you know, value added tax and everything.

00:40:35.117 --> 00:40:37.461
It just economically makes more sense.

00:40:38.003 --> 00:40:43.331
Plus, the people in this country get the added feature of me going back through the harp one more time.

00:40:44.211 --> 00:40:47.777
I generally do that just kind of an extra QC step.

00:40:48.545 --> 00:40:49.427
Yes, brilliant.

00:40:49.447 --> 00:41:02.259
Yeah, so I think, you know, I'm interested in talking more with you and that I should check out one of the Seidel ones because, yeah, again, it's certainly something worth looking into, particularly if you're interested in playing more melodic and more complex music.

00:41:02.519 --> 00:41:17.094
I think if anybody, you know, everybody could very easily just visit my website, which is ptgazelle.com, and you can listen to samples of the last six CDs I've put out to hear what half-valve playing sounds like.

00:41:17.762 --> 00:41:21.284
Yeah, well, I'll put a link to your website on the page for the podcast for sure.

00:41:22.226 --> 00:41:23.807
So getting on to some of your albums then.

00:41:24.088 --> 00:41:37.601
So once you'd mastered the half-valved diatonic and you'd built your own initially, you came out, after your break from playing harmonica, you came out with Swinging Easy and Hitting Hard, which has got a lot of jazz tunes on, yeah?

00:41:38.280 --> 00:41:47.389
Mostly a lot of swing tunes that I'd been playing around with for years and trying to do on two harmonicas and could finally, you know, do on...

00:41:47.746 --> 00:41:58.253
one harmonica, stuff like Robin's Nest and Just You, Just Me, No Not Much, which is kind of a workout on the instrument.

00:42:11.521 --> 00:42:18.713
Yeah, I mean, that one was something that I was pretty proud of, you know, to come out with two years after I had started playing again.

00:42:18.773 --> 00:42:22.478
Because honestly, the whole first year, I did nothing but practice.

00:42:22.900 --> 00:42:24.362
I knew what I wanted to play.

00:42:24.422 --> 00:42:29.088
But you can imagine after 15 years, I didn't have any chops anymore.

00:42:29.610 --> 00:42:33.436
So I had to learn how to play again, basically.

00:42:34.077 --> 00:42:34.297
Yeah.

00:42:34.317 --> 00:42:37.342
So what about your transition to playing jazz on the diatonic?

00:42:37.634 --> 00:42:39.396
Well, I'm not a scale player.

00:42:39.456 --> 00:42:41.998
I'm not a theory or studied musician.

00:42:42.057 --> 00:42:43.438
I play entirely by ear.

00:42:43.918 --> 00:42:57.251
But I think what I did was, I had to tune my ear to listening to how jazz tunes are basically put together and kind of anticipate where the changes are going to go.

00:42:57.291 --> 00:43:05.958
Much like we learn how to play three chord blues tunes, we kind of get a feel for when the changes are going to happen and what they're going to be.

00:43:06.298 --> 00:43:07.599
So it's the same kind of concept.

00:43:07.599 --> 00:43:13.989
It took me a little while to understand how the songs were constructed.

00:43:14.130 --> 00:43:25.346
And then it took a little while to kind of get my head around the phrasing, how I wanted to phrase things and how I wanted to actually improvise.

00:43:25.827 --> 00:43:30.653
Because I first started to play and try to do country licks mostly.

00:43:30.945 --> 00:43:49.947
over jazz changes and yeah they would work but it just didn't quite fit the genre right then i you know you have to kind of listen to other players you got to listen to jazz players and go okay so i kind of get his approach to how he would play over these changes and let's see if i can kind of you know do that

00:43:50.407 --> 00:43:55.813
and then you did an album with uh with brendan power who lives here in the uk new zealander of course how did that come about

00:43:56.385 --> 00:44:08.186
Actually, because I started playing half-valved, and Brendan is the guy that actually came up with the idea of arranging the valves on the diatonic in the manner that they're in now.

00:44:08.673 --> 00:44:22.014
Valves have been around a long time and old vaudeville guys used to put one or two valves in a diatonic and knew about this just so they could get an extra note, you know, and everybody would be amazed and they would never tell anybody what they were doing.

00:44:22.054 --> 00:44:23.237
It was all a big secret.

00:44:23.737 --> 00:44:30.007
But Brendan came up with the theory of putting it on the first six draw notes in the top four blow notes.

00:44:30.728 --> 00:44:39.041
We kind of discovered each other and really liked our playing and he said well why don't we do a cd and so it kind of evolved from there

00:44:39.483 --> 00:44:44.510
great to see here two harmonicas on there and dill pickle rags on there which is a song that i love so uh

00:44:44.552 --> 00:44:51.362
yeah he did so well on that tune man it's just amazing it's one of my favorite cuts on that cd

00:45:02.882 --> 00:45:04.625
Is he playing all chromatic on that album?

00:45:05.005 --> 00:45:09.833
Yes, he's playing half-valved chromatic, and I'm playing half-valved diatonic.

00:45:10.313 --> 00:45:24.655
We thought it would be cool because he was really trying to push, at the time, push the concept of doing half-valved chromatics, where he gets extra bending capability because it's not fully valved.

00:45:25.416 --> 00:45:27.239
He's a mad scientist, that guy.

00:45:27.681 --> 00:45:28.342
He certainly is.

00:45:28.706 --> 00:45:33.190
And then you did Two Days Out in 2011, which I believe was nominated for

00:45:34.052 --> 00:45:34.492
Grammy.

00:45:34.592 --> 00:45:38.336
Yeah, it made the initial round of Grammy nominations.

00:45:38.516 --> 00:45:51.572
And that was a departure for me because I'd always wanted to see what it was like with a full band, meaning not only bass, drums, and guitar, but piano and some brass instruments as well.

00:45:51.753 --> 00:45:53.494
Man, that one turned out well.

00:45:53.795 --> 00:45:55.617
I really liked that project.

00:45:55.737 --> 00:46:25.384
There was some cool tunes on there that i'd wanted to record for a long time like there is no greater love and love is here to stay and best things in life are free i mean you know they were just in oh the very thought of you And just the way it worked out, I ended up playing a lot of really low-pitched harmonicas.

00:46:25.525 --> 00:46:29.309
You know, there's like three or four there I play a low D flat.

00:46:32.233 --> 00:46:47.938
Man, just the richness of how that blended with the muted trombone is just...

00:46:48.385 --> 00:46:51.269
I'm just really happy with how that project turned out.

00:46:52.190 --> 00:46:54.474
Well, I was going to mention about your low D flat.

00:46:54.494 --> 00:46:56.858
You don't get many low D flats around.

00:46:57.177 --> 00:47:00.822
Is that something you had to buy specially in for the album?

00:47:01.523 --> 00:47:01.824
No.

00:47:02.005 --> 00:47:11.557
You know, I mean, when we made the decision with Seidel, when we made the decision to put out a Gazelle Method line, they asked me, you know, what about keys?

00:47:11.617 --> 00:47:13.139
And I said, well, what's available?

00:47:13.179 --> 00:47:14.322
And they laid it out.

00:47:14.362 --> 00:47:21.146
And I said, well, I think we ought to line a harmonica's audit cover from low C up to regular F.

00:47:21.989 --> 00:47:25.518
And so, I mean, the low D is just part of that family.

00:47:25.599 --> 00:47:26.981
And yeah, I love it.

00:47:27.123 --> 00:47:27.925
I love low D.

00:47:28.766 --> 00:47:34.461
So if someone was going to buy one of the Gazelle method ones, which key would you recommend initially?

00:47:35.041 --> 00:47:36.644
And that's a great question.

00:47:36.784 --> 00:47:51.112
And I always tell everybody what I would initially get would be an A flat or an A or a B flat, mostly because those three fall right in pretty much the middle range of what's available key wise.

00:47:51.452 --> 00:47:53.938
You know, if you think about it from low C up through F.

00:47:54.561 --> 00:48:03.594
And that way you get a good taste of being able to control the low notes without too much trouble and being able to control the high notes without too much trouble.

00:48:04.036 --> 00:48:21.742
And you kind of get a better feel for not only stainless steel reeds, which it's a departure from brass until you get used to it, but you also get a feel for what it's like to control the valves and what it's like to have that range of notes.

00:48:22.210 --> 00:48:27.179
Yeah, it's interesting you should say those keys, because I think a lot of people would probably plummet for the C.

00:48:27.641 --> 00:48:27.721
It'd

00:48:27.740 --> 00:48:31.768
probably be easier to get your head around what the scales are and what the notes are on the C.

00:48:31.809 --> 00:48:42.731
Something like an A-flat, you play a jazz song, say, in second position, you're playing an E-flat, then that's okay for jazz, but maybe for other stuff it's not so common a key to use.

00:48:42.831 --> 00:48:43.532
So interesting.

00:48:43.632 --> 00:48:43.934
Right.

00:48:44.130 --> 00:48:52.882
I don't think about it that way as much as I'm always thinking more in terms of somebody jumping to a half-valved stainless steel harmonica.

00:48:53.402 --> 00:49:11.226
To me, an A or an A-flat is just going to give them a better feel and just kind of get them in the groove of how to use the harmonica and what it's like to play one, as opposed to what key they can specifically use it on or what song they're going to be able to use it on.

00:49:12.193 --> 00:49:25.855
One thing I want to mention on your website, which is a great resource, which also Charlie McCoy does as well, is you give all the keys that you're playing, which is fantastic, particularly for some music like yours, where, you know, maybe it's not so particular.

00:49:25.894 --> 00:49:32.385
It's quite a lot of low tunings and things to be able to go and see exactly what you're playing is a brilliant resource for people to check out on your website.

00:49:32.806 --> 00:49:35.170
If they're interested in, you know, learning, playing along with some of your songs.

00:49:35.905 --> 00:50:01.036
Yeah I think it's a good idea you know and especially in the last couple CDs that I've put out because I'm playing a lot in there's some stuff in third major position there's some a lot of stuff in fifth minor position so you know rather than fumbling around I mean it's all that stuff used to be a big secret you know people used to closely guard all that information but I don't feel that way.

00:50:01.175 --> 00:50:04.463
And I think most people don't feel that way anymore.

00:50:04.503 --> 00:50:07.088
It's, you know, it's an information age now.

00:50:07.389 --> 00:50:07.630
Yeah.

00:50:07.929 --> 00:50:35.271
And not only that, but all my CDs, with the exception of Pace Yourself, all my projects also have mix minus versions available with them as well that people can purchase because it just means that the harmonica is not on it but the track is there and so you can learn you can learn the song by listening to the full production version and then go to the mix minus version and you can play along you know i mean i think it's a great idea

00:50:35.992 --> 00:50:40.617
yeah that's a superb idea yeah that's available on your website too isn't it people buy those directly

00:50:41.137 --> 00:50:50.085
all my music is purchasable on my website as either a physical cd or as a download either you know the mix minus or the full production

00:50:50.561 --> 00:50:55.827
One thing I noticed as well is there's a few Beatles songs on your albums.

00:50:56.268 --> 00:50:57.730
I take you're quite a Beatles fan then.

00:50:57.951 --> 00:51:00.653
People always say, you know, do you listen to other kinds of music?

00:51:00.713 --> 00:51:05.619
Because all my albums, you know, the last five albums have all been kind of jazz influenced.

00:51:05.699 --> 00:51:07.942
But man, I like a lot of kind of music.

00:51:08.021 --> 00:51:09.824
I mean, you know, I like Beatles.

00:51:09.923 --> 00:51:12.186
I mean, gosh, I mean, how could you not like the Beatles?

00:51:12.788 --> 00:51:14.989
I feel quite lucky to have recorded a couple of them.

00:51:17.954 --> 00:51:18.173
piano plays

00:51:20.418 --> 00:51:31.690
Then you released a madness to his method.

00:51:32.490 --> 00:51:36.635
That was another thing that I, on the back of my mind, always wanted to do.

00:51:36.675 --> 00:51:40.599
And that was record with a lap steel player.

00:51:40.619 --> 00:51:45.465
Just kind of do stuff in unison, but an octave apart.

00:51:45.826 --> 00:51:50.434
That also was in the initial round of Grammy balloting, that particular CD.

00:51:50.976 --> 00:51:52.458
There's a couple of jazz standards.

00:51:52.478 --> 00:51:57.409
There's a couple of Louis Jordan tunes on there, which I, another guy that I really admired.

00:51:57.429 --> 00:51:57.449
¦

00:52:13.634 --> 00:52:17.878
lap steel and the harmonica just seemed to blend really well together.

00:52:18.619 --> 00:52:21.943
Your latest album is this Loft Sessions, yeah?

00:52:22.704 --> 00:52:25.146
Yeah, that one came out last year.

00:52:25.186 --> 00:52:32.014
It's just a bass player and myself and a guitar player from the Czech Republic.

00:52:32.335 --> 00:52:37.722
While he was here, we laid down these tracks and we actually did it in my loft here at the house.

00:52:38.273 --> 00:52:39.856
Thus the name, The Loft Sessions.

00:52:40.639 --> 00:52:51.460
And it was something, again, it was something that I wanted to do for a long time, was do something without drums and have it seem real intimate and just real personal.

00:52:51.501 --> 00:52:53.525
And I think we managed to do it.

00:52:53.945 --> 00:52:56.711
There's several ballads on there, which I really like.

00:52:56.791 --> 00:52:59.498
I Wish I Knew and Angel Eyes.

00:53:13.186 --> 00:53:19.233
A couple of up-tempo tunes and one real famous jazz tune called Stolen Moments.

00:53:19.673 --> 00:53:21.115
I'm pretty happy with that project.

00:53:21.757 --> 00:53:23.639
So what's it been like being the band leader?

00:53:24.219 --> 00:53:28.224
Well, as you can imagine, it's a lot more gratifying and you're more in control.

00:53:28.244 --> 00:53:30.728
And at the same time, there's more headaches involved with it.

00:53:31.007 --> 00:53:36.835
But I think overall, it's been very gratifying because I'm totally in control of the choice of material.

00:53:37.356 --> 00:53:41.079
I'm totally in control of how I want to portray the material.

00:53:41.481 --> 00:53:42.181
Yeah, I...

00:53:42.498 --> 00:53:43.079
I dig it.

00:53:43.659 --> 00:53:44.019
And so

00:53:44.219 --> 00:53:46.101
you don't sing yourself, do you not?

00:53:46.802 --> 00:53:50.286
On A Method to the Madness, the two Louis Jordan tunes I'm singing.

00:53:51.268 --> 00:53:55.974
I do a couple other songs in my live show that I sing.

00:53:56.414 --> 00:54:01.440
I don't have a big range, and I try to pick my spots so that I can pull it off convincingly.

00:54:01.460 --> 00:54:03.682
I don't really consider myself a great singer.

00:54:04.143 --> 00:54:07.307
If I'm careful, I can get away with a couple things here and there.

00:54:07.969 --> 00:54:12.414
And would you have any advice for other bands, maybe young bands coming up?

00:54:12.706 --> 00:54:16.612
Well, it's getting tougher, you know, and of course with the pandemic, it's even tougher.

00:54:17.052 --> 00:54:23.583
You have to have six revenue streams, you know, not just playing live, not just whatever.

00:54:23.663 --> 00:54:26.887
I mean, you've got to figure out ways to kind of make money.

00:54:26.927 --> 00:54:30.472
You just have to be very flexible and inventive these days.

00:54:31.034 --> 00:54:33.518
We touched on chromatic harmonica a little bit earlier on.

00:54:33.717 --> 00:54:36.222
So you don't play chromatic harmonica at all, do you not?

00:54:36.769 --> 00:54:37.871
I don't anymore.

00:54:38.353 --> 00:54:44.762
Years ago, I did a little bit, but it was always, it had to be rehearsed and it had to be memorized.

00:54:45.284 --> 00:54:48.369
I'd never really got the hang of improvising on a chromatic.

00:54:48.869 --> 00:54:55.400
A question I ask each time, if you had 10 minutes to work on the harmonica today, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

00:54:56.061 --> 00:54:57.202
Regulating breathing.

00:54:57.684 --> 00:55:14.251
Learning to relax and regulate your breathing because most people tense up and get too involved and try to play too hard and it's just no you're having to work way too hard to make any sound on an instrument that shouldn't be that difficult to do

00:55:15.092 --> 00:55:16.795
and any particular tips of how you would do that

00:55:17.536 --> 00:55:28.369
it all starts with relaxing if you're relaxed then your diaphragm is open and then it's easier to inhale or exhale it all kind of starts there for me

00:55:28.833 --> 00:55:35.402
Teaching-wise, I know you have an online tuition available through Music Gurus, which is linked off your website.

00:55:35.963 --> 00:55:36.844
There's two courses.

00:55:36.885 --> 00:55:38.927
There's a beginning course and an advanced course.

00:55:38.967 --> 00:55:56.311
The beginning course basically just covers basics of how I go about playing the harmonica, you know, talking about regulating your breathing and where the notes are on the instrument and just good posture and, you know, et cetera, et cetera, and some exercises and some songs to learn.

00:55:56.351 --> 00:56:00.481
And then there's an advanced course course that deals with half-valving.

00:56:01.061 --> 00:56:07.347
And you get the chance to learn a couple of tunes and you get to understand the concept behind how to play half-valved.

00:56:07.728 --> 00:56:09.251
And do you offer private teaching as well?

00:56:09.271 --> 00:56:09.291
I

00:56:09.990 --> 00:56:13.976
do offer private teaching and do that with either Skype or with Zoom.

00:56:14.016 --> 00:56:16.117
So first of all, which harmonica do you use?

00:56:16.157 --> 00:56:17.900
I think that's a pretty obvious answer.

00:56:17.940 --> 00:56:22.706
So yeah, I take it you exclusively use the Seidel Gazelle method harmonicas.

00:56:23.233 --> 00:56:26.597
Yeah, I play the 1847 Silver Gazelle Method.

00:56:26.858 --> 00:56:28.561
I play exclusively half-valved.

00:56:29.061 --> 00:56:32.706
Another one we touched on earlier on, but do you have a favorite key of harmonica?

00:56:33.166 --> 00:56:35.409
I would say A-flat is my favorite key.

00:56:35.708 --> 00:56:37.530
I just like the tone of it.

00:56:37.632 --> 00:56:41.235
I like where it sits in the register of available keys.

00:56:41.396 --> 00:56:44.619
And so many jazz tunes are written in E-flat.

00:56:45.141 --> 00:56:46.021
I just like that key.

00:56:46.914 --> 00:56:53.905
different tunings i i think the uh the gazelle method harmonic has come in paddy richter and country tuning as well yeah

00:56:54.806 --> 00:57:10.510
i do that for customers it doesn't come manufactured that way you could you could obviously special order it from from sidle that way if you wanted use those tunings much yourself i i never use them i play strictly diatonic uh richter tuned

00:57:11.074 --> 00:57:13.858
Yeah, because of the half valve technique and the way you can bend.

00:57:13.938 --> 00:57:17.764
I mean, would you see any advances to using the half valve ones in those two tunings?

00:57:18.585 --> 00:57:19.628
In the paddy, I do.

00:57:19.748 --> 00:57:33.811
In the country tuning, I don't, except that some people like the choice of being able to blow bend six or just have that note available as five draw and bend down to the note that was originally tuned to.

00:57:34.391 --> 00:57:35.853
And what about your embouchure?

00:57:35.934 --> 00:57:37.938
I'm strictly a pucker player.

00:57:38.498 --> 00:57:41.061
I do octave splits depending on what I'm, you know.

00:57:45.047 --> 00:57:52.916
I mean, I do that stuff, but it just depends on what genre of music I'm playing and what I'm trying to portray.

00:57:53.038 --> 00:58:00.547
Mostly I'm a pucker player because I'm playing melodically and I want a really clean, accurate sound.

00:58:01.449 --> 00:58:04.393
And you don't really need the effects of tongue blocking, do you?

00:58:04.452 --> 00:58:04.572
Not

00:58:05.253 --> 00:58:06.476
for what I'm doing, no.

00:58:07.217 --> 00:58:08.157
Not for what I'm doing.

00:58:08.673 --> 00:58:11.157
And what about your amplifier of choice?

00:58:11.918 --> 00:58:15.105
Well, I normally just play through the PA.

00:58:15.485 --> 00:58:20.594
I have a Fireball V microphone that I really like, made by Audax.

00:58:21.375 --> 00:58:25.342
Pedal-wise, I have a delay pedal and I have a reverb pedal.

00:58:26.003 --> 00:58:29.889
And I try to control my own sound and they just pass the signal through the PA.

00:58:30.289 --> 00:58:35.097
Now, I do have a 1971 Fender Champ amp.

00:58:35.938 --> 00:58:46.208
that I love, and I play it through a harp attack pedal made by Lone Wolf, and I use a bulletini microphone with that.

00:58:46.668 --> 00:59:00.260
And there's a couple of bands that I work with sometimes here in Nashville, and I get to play that amp with that dirtier sound and do all those other kind of techniques and warbles and stuff.

00:59:01.222 --> 00:59:02.402
But not very much.

00:59:02.463 --> 00:59:05.286
In my own shows, it's mostly clean right through the PA.

00:59:05.634 --> 00:59:07.835
But you like to play a bit of blues as well sometimes.

00:59:08.277 --> 00:59:08.876
Absolutely.

00:59:09.538 --> 00:59:12.820
So final question, just obviously we're in pandemic time now.

00:59:13.221 --> 00:59:19.166
I mean, all my gigs in April, May and June got tanked early on because of this.

00:59:19.847 --> 00:59:25.672
And basically nobody is booking right now because nobody knows what's going to happen, unfortunately.

00:59:26.273 --> 00:59:30.597
So, I mean, I was supposed to be in Sacramento, California today.

00:59:30.617 --> 00:59:37.701
And then I was coming home and next Tuesday I was supposed to go to the Czech Republic for two weeks for a tour.

00:59:37.721 --> 00:59:40.706
Right now, I'm gigless.

00:59:41.126 --> 00:59:44.572
I mean, I hate to say it, but that's kind of the way, that's the reality of it.

00:59:44.632 --> 00:59:52.864
And until people start to actually be able to go to music venues with X amount of people, it's going to be difficult.

00:59:53.364 --> 00:59:55.168
Well, thanks very much for talking to me, Peter.

00:59:55.188 --> 00:59:59.735
It's been a real pleasure to talk to you and get a real insight to your approach to playing the diatonic harmonica.

01:00:00.635 --> 01:00:01.097
Well, thank

01:00:01.137 --> 01:00:01.277
you

01:00:01.297 --> 01:00:01.838
very much.

01:00:02.434 --> 01:00:03.798
That's it for today, folks.

01:00:04.139 --> 01:00:11.909
Final word from my sponsor, the Longwolf Blues Company, providing some great effects pedals and microphones, all purpose-built for the harmonica.

01:00:12.231 --> 01:00:13.777
Be sure to check out their website.