March 27, 2021

Robert Bonfiglio interview

Robert Bonfiglio interview
Apple Podcasts podcast player badge
Spotify podcast player badge
Castro podcast player badge
RSS Feed podcast player badge
Apple Podcasts podcast player icon Spotify podcast player icon Castro podcast player icon RSS Feed podcast player icon
Season 1 Chromatic Harmonica Classical Chromatic Pop Harmonica

Robert Bonfiglio shares with us the world of the concert chromatic harmonica player.
After studying composition in New York, he spent five years under the tutelage of Chinese classical player, Cham Ber Huang, and another 12 years studying with the first flute player of the New York ballet.
Robert has been playing classical harmonica concertos since 1986, and has played in some of the great venues around the world. He has performed all the major pieces composed for the harmonica, as well as releasing some more popular recordings, which saw him spend 8 weeks on the Billboard charts in the US.
Robert reveals some of the daily practise methods he has followed to attain the high level of technical expertise that has seen him flourish in the elite world of classical music.

Select the Chapter Markers tab above to jump to different sections of the podcast.

Links:
Robert's website: http://www.robertbonfiglio.com/

Cham-Ber Huang: http://www.chamberhuang.com/

Videos:
Thais Meditation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgJy9uwxhmE

Gerswin Medley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAWiRQ39PUQ

SPAH appearance 2013: https://youtu.be/HRp3x7t2EIc

NHL October Virtual Festival: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiUpPyYnh_A

John Sebastien Senior: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eiV_XZUa1g

Roger Trobridge Harmonica Archivist site: http://www.the-archivist.co.uk/


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

01:35 - Robert is from Iowa, and his father was a surgeon

01:45 - Learnt harmonica as a child and then joined a High School blues band

02:08 - Started playing chromatic harmonica, moving to New York to go to music school

02:49 - Reason for switching from diatonic to chromatic and classical music

04:18 - Still enjoyed blues harmonica when he got interested in classical

04:56 - Plays some blues diatonic at the end of Classical concerts, which is well received by

06:00 - Robert has felt the responsibility to build on the playing of John Sebastien (senior) and Larry Adler

06:56 - Was coached for 12 years with the first flute of New York City Ballet

07:29 - Learnt piano when at music school, but harmonica was always main instrument

07:58 - Has a Masters degree in composition

10:22 - Being accepted as a harmonica player in Classical music scene

11:07 - One of conductors told Robert he was the best soloist he ever played with

12:26 - Importance of a good teacher, and the tradition of this for other instruments

14:37 - Making music, and the sound you make is what is important

15:35 - Technical challenges of the chromatic harmonica

16:29 - The purpose of teachers is to show you what works on the instrument, from their past experience

16:57 - Robert has said that the harmonica is “America’s instrument”, and is such an emotional instrument

17:35 - Because the harmonica is similar to human voice makes it a great solo instrument with an orchestra

18:43 - Went to Trossingen in 1970, where first met Chamber Huang

19:05 - Did a lot of session work after completing music school

19:22 - Played first orchestra in 1986, a Henry Cowell composition

20:02 - Signed to RCA records in 1988 and recorded Villa-Lobos Harmonica Concerto and performed it many times

21:31 - Henry Cowell Concerto was originally written for John Sebastien Senior

21:48 - Other harmonica concerto’s performed

22:51 - How Robert was selected to play the harmonica concertos

23:19 - What is it about the harmonica concerto’s that fit the instrument well

24:30 - Bach pieces

26:12 - Some of more popular music Robert plays, such as Gershwin and Elvis medley, and some diatonic

28:12 - How Robert got the classical concert gigs

28:40 - Runs a classical music festival at the Grand Canyon

29:30 - Why Classical music concerts are so well attended

30:43 - Bonfiglio Group, with an album that spent 8 weeks on Billboard Charts in US

33:49 - When Robert met Toots Thielemans and how they had their different sounds for Classical and Jazz

34:48 - The part improvising plays in Classical music

35:58 - The genres of music that get played on the chromatic, and Robert recordings with pop singers

38:46 - Favourite venue Robert has performed in

39:44 - Received a Grammy for playing on Ragtime musical

40:14 - Has appeared at SPAH numerous times

40:40 - Phillip Achille, a UK chromatic player, and how he was impacted by decline in record sales

42:04 - Ability to play with power to get the sound is key to classical playing

42:26 - Robert plays the CDH model from Hohner

43:52 - How to develop the powerful sound needed for classical playing is to practise scales and arpeggios and increase volume and speed

44:45 - Doesn’t like to use microphones, but to play acoustically

46:16 - 10 minute question: scales & arpeggios, etudes, duets, work on a piece

49:18 - CDH chromatic design

51:54 - Embouchre demonstrations

55:18 - Future plans

56:17 - What has Robert been doing during lockdown

56:51 - Mic used in home studio

57:34 - Mics used for live performance

58:02 - Blues gear used

WEBVTT

00:00:00.034 --> 00:00:06.865
Robert Bonfilio joins me on episode 35 of the podcast to share with us the world of the concert chromatic harmonica player.

00:00:07.727 --> 00:00:18.045
After studying composition in New York, he spent five years under the tutelage of Chinese classical player Chamber Huang and another 12 years studying with the first flute of the New York Ballet.

00:00:18.565 --> 00:00:25.077
Robert has been playing classical harmonica concertos since 1986 and has played in some of the great venues around the world.

00:00:25.538 --> 00:00:34.554
He has performed all the major pieces composed for the harmonica, as well as releasing some more popular recordings, which saw him spend eight weeks on the Billboard charts in the US.

00:00:35.137 --> 00:00:43.713
Robert shares some of the daily practice methods he has followed to attain the high level of technical expertise that has seen him flourish in the elite world of classical music.

00:01:23.522 --> 00:01:26.317
So hello, Robert Bonfilio, and welcome to the podcast.

00:01:27.082 --> 00:01:28.349
Hi, how are you doing, Neil?

00:01:28.481 --> 00:01:28.962
Yeah, great.

00:01:29.001 --> 00:01:29.263
Thanks.

00:01:29.302 --> 00:01:30.563
So thanks so much for joining.

00:01:30.804 --> 00:01:32.605
And yeah, we'll start off all about you.

00:01:32.646 --> 00:01:35.328
You were born in Milwaukee in Wisconsin.

00:01:35.727 --> 00:01:37.890
No, no, actually, I'm from Iowa.

00:01:38.209 --> 00:01:40.391
My dad was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

00:01:40.412 --> 00:01:40.712
Okay.

00:01:40.793 --> 00:01:41.993
And your dad was a surgeon.

00:01:42.054 --> 00:01:42.534
Is that right?

00:01:42.793 --> 00:01:42.974
Yeah,

00:01:43.034 --> 00:01:43.635
he was an

00:01:43.694 --> 00:01:44.516
orthopedic surgeon.

00:01:45.156 --> 00:01:48.399
What got you into playing the harmonica and the music around Iowa?

00:01:48.780 --> 00:01:48.859
I

00:01:48.939 --> 00:01:50.281
started when I was a kid.

00:01:50.540 --> 00:01:56.727
I got a harmonica in my Christmas stocking or whatever and started messing around with it, could play Oh Susanna stuff.

00:01:56.746 --> 00:02:01.412
And then in high school, a couple of kids found out I played and they wanted to start a blues band.

00:02:01.691 --> 00:02:02.894
I started playing blues.

00:02:03.194 --> 00:02:08.121
Favorite players were people like Sonny Boy Williamson, Junior Wells, James Cotton, Paul Butterfield.

00:02:08.540 --> 00:02:15.050
Then in my backyard in Iowa at some point, I decided, you know, I really wanted to get serious about the instrument.

00:02:15.371 --> 00:02:20.957
I came to New York City, studied with Chamber Wong.

00:02:38.753 --> 00:02:41.602
classical music, because that's what I was really interested in.

00:02:41.622 --> 00:02:48.282
And then I went to Manus College of Music and Manhattan School of Music, where I got my master's in composition.

00:02:48.641 --> 00:02:54.266
So what made you make the switch from diatonic to chromatic and the interest in classical music?

00:02:54.667 --> 00:02:55.247
I don't know.

00:02:55.328 --> 00:02:59.290
I just decided in my backyard that I wanted to be more serious.

00:02:59.812 --> 00:03:01.612
Here I am in the backyard in Iowa.

00:03:01.733 --> 00:03:07.718
I wanted to be serious about the instrument and I really wanted to study it and study how to be a musician.

00:03:07.998 --> 00:03:12.062
And I was already playing some Bach and stuff on chromatic a little bit.

00:03:12.302 --> 00:03:16.186
And the more I did it, the more into it I got.

00:03:16.225 --> 00:03:20.270
And so you made a conscious decision to move to chromatic at this point, then, I take it.

00:03:20.289 --> 00:03:22.711
And then you weren't trying to play any of these things on diatonic, say.

00:03:22.932 --> 00:03:25.215
I still played the stuff on diatonic.

00:03:25.414 --> 00:03:36.205
I mean, when I first came to New York City to study with Chamber Wong, I mean, I remember being up at Manhattan School of Music, and we were doing an analysis of a Vaughan Williams symphony.

00:03:36.546 --> 00:03:40.230
And I knew that Vaughan Williams had written a romance for harmonic and orchestra.

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

00:03:48.993 --> 00:03:52.030
Thank you.

00:04:15.394 --> 00:04:18.038
And we're doing this analysis of one of his symphonies.

00:04:18.358 --> 00:04:20.180
And I'm up there in the record library.

00:04:20.401 --> 00:04:23.124
And what do I see but Chicago blues today?

00:04:23.345 --> 00:04:25.086
You know, the three albums that...

00:04:25.427 --> 00:04:28.331
And I took out the album with Junior Wells on it.

00:04:28.411 --> 00:04:30.875
I said, this can't be as good as I remember it.

00:04:30.954 --> 00:04:33.038
Because, you know, I'm now sophisticated.

00:04:33.197 --> 00:04:34.939
I'm doing analysis of symphony.

00:04:35.079 --> 00:04:40.226
And I put that on with my earphones in the library at Manhattan School of Music.

00:04:40.307 --> 00:04:41.928
Then I'm listening to Messing with the Kid.

00:04:42.129 --> 00:04:44.853
And it's just like smoke coming out of my earphones.

00:04:45.053 --> 00:04:45.374
I go like...

00:04:45.442 --> 00:04:49.144
Whoa, geez, it was as hot as I remembered it.

00:04:49.384 --> 00:04:50.605
So it's been there.

00:04:50.846 --> 00:04:52.007
I love the diatonic.

00:04:52.048 --> 00:04:53.168
You know, I like the instrument.

00:04:53.428 --> 00:04:55.490
It just is that it's not my thing.

00:04:55.531 --> 00:05:00.855
Yeah, and I know you like to play some diatonic in shows, don't you, to blues it up a little bit to a classical audience as well.

00:05:00.875 --> 00:05:01.776
That's something you like to do.

00:05:02.096 --> 00:05:03.677
Yeah, it's a career move.

00:05:03.838 --> 00:05:06.740
You know, I mean, James Galway used to pull out the penny whistles.

00:05:07.021 --> 00:05:15.408
And you have to remember, you play a concerto with an orchestra, then you pull out a diatonic and you start playing a little bit of riff on Sonny Boy Williamson.

00:05:15.408 --> 00:05:20.372
And you get these people afterwards and say, wow, oh, I love that blues.

00:05:20.432 --> 00:05:21.894
I could listen to that all night.

00:05:22.055 --> 00:05:26.680
But they don't realize that what you just did was let them let their hair down.

00:05:26.779 --> 00:05:33.307
Because this has been a whole sophisticated emotional experience that you get from playing a concerto.

00:05:33.547 --> 00:05:39.533
And all of a sudden, you're getting diatonic blues and everybody can laugh and clap.

00:05:39.713 --> 00:05:41.915
And symphony audiences don't get that.

00:05:41.995 --> 00:05:44.199
So they get really riled up.

00:05:44.338 --> 00:05:50.425
But the truth is, If I started playing blues by about the second or third blues number, you go like, okay, yawn.

00:05:50.665 --> 00:05:55.891
Because there wouldn't be a concerto to set up the fact that I just let them let loose.

00:05:56.252 --> 00:05:57.333
A little light relief.

00:05:57.413 --> 00:06:00.355
So you talked about the blues players you influence you.

00:06:00.456 --> 00:06:04.199
What about some of the chromatic players and some of the classical and chromatic players?

00:06:04.339 --> 00:06:05.762
Well, I really didn't have

00:06:05.862 --> 00:06:07.863
any classical chromatic players.

00:06:07.963 --> 00:06:09.766
I mean, I studied with Chamber Wong.

00:06:09.985 --> 00:06:19.117
The two pioneers of the classical harmonica, major ones for which most of the orchestras the concertos were written are John Sebastian and Larry Adler.

00:06:39.425 --> 00:06:45.550
And I always felt it was my job to pick up where these guys left off and take the harmonica to a new level.

00:06:45.750 --> 00:06:48.894
I mean, that was what my whole career has been about.

00:06:49.173 --> 00:06:55.560
I did not particularly listen to any of their recordings in order to get inspiration as to how to play pieces.

00:06:55.899 --> 00:07:03.206
I would say my biggest inspiration probably is I coached for 12 years with the first flute of the New York City Ballet.

00:07:03.226 --> 00:07:05.749
I met him when I was at Manus College of Music.

00:07:05.889 --> 00:07:07.009
He became my coach.

00:07:07.310 --> 00:07:09.391
We worked on all the major works for harmonica.

00:07:09.391 --> 00:07:10.192
an orchestra.

00:07:10.533 --> 00:07:23.607
So when I played with an orchestra, Andrew Lolia was his name, Andy, it's a running dialogue with Andy as to how you should phrase, what's your articulation, what kind of power, all this other stuff.

00:07:23.807 --> 00:07:28.713
So my real influences are in the orchestra setting and from musicians.

00:07:28.992 --> 00:07:29.052
And

00:07:29.874 --> 00:07:34.939
when you were younger, did you play any other instruments, more traditional classical instruments, or was harmonica your first?

00:07:35.240 --> 00:07:37.601
No, harmonica was primarily it.

00:07:37.641 --> 00:07:40.704
I mean, when we all went to music school, I we had to play piano.

00:07:40.925 --> 00:07:44.269
And I always thought, you know, they got a two-finger typing technique.

00:07:44.329 --> 00:07:47.151
Why can't they have a two-finger piano technique?

00:07:47.612 --> 00:07:53.538
Because I can't use these fingers on the little, the pinky and the ring finger don't work on my hands.

00:07:53.899 --> 00:07:58.343
On the other hand, I could pretty much do anything with my mouth.

00:07:58.824 --> 00:08:06.653
As a matter of fact, I really think I got my master's degree in composition from Manhattan School of Music because I could play the harmonica.

00:08:06.973 --> 00:08:42.792
I'm saying this because all of us had to pass piano performance so what they would do in the test when you're getting your masters they'd have you go in front of these piano teachers and they would have you play a little set piece and of course i'd practice the hell out of that so i could play it pretty well and then they would have you play a little accompaniment and my wife plays flute so i played the bach flute a slow movement to the bach flute sonata and we had all these technical rubatos written in rubato means where you slow down and it would slow down where i had to make the leap in my left hand or whatever, but she knew where they were, so we had that all set up.

00:08:43.052 --> 00:08:47.496
We came in, nailed that, because you know, it wasn't in time.

00:08:47.876 --> 00:08:50.860
The next thing was sight reading on the piano.

00:08:50.980 --> 00:08:58.649
Well, I couldn't sight read worth it, you know, and I thought, oh God, I'm not going to be able to get my master's degree from, because I can't sight read on the piano.

00:08:58.849 --> 00:09:40.793
Well, the next person came in, who was with the orchestra, and I'd already played with the harmonica with the orchestra, and she was a violinist, and she was supposed to play her set piece, but her accompaniment piece was going to be a Mozart violin sonata and her violinist didn't show up so now she's not graduating because the person who was supposed to play with her wasn't there and she sees me and she said oh it's okay he can play it on the harmonica and these people have just saw me sight read on the piano and they go like uh I don't think so no he can play so she convinced him to let me play a Mozart sonata on the harmonica that was written for the violin And I nailed it.

00:09:41.053 --> 00:09:42.174
Didn't drop a note.

00:09:42.335 --> 00:09:47.301
And I'm walking out, and I'm thinking to myself, they're thinking, he can't sight read on the piano.

00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:48.782
He knows how to sight read, though.

00:09:49.964 --> 00:09:52.105
So this was sight read, this piece, was it?

00:09:52.346 --> 00:09:55.570
Sight read the piece, nailed it, all the trills and turns.

00:09:55.909 --> 00:09:57.792
And they're going like, never seen it before.

00:09:57.812 --> 00:10:03.918
And she's going like, oh, the two piano teachers just heard me try to play Mary Had a Little Lamb, you know.

00:10:04.499 --> 00:10:05.440
And I couldn't sight read.

00:10:05.799 --> 00:10:07.241
I took full typing courses.

00:10:07.302 --> 00:10:09.104
I could type 20 words a minute, you know.

00:10:09.104 --> 00:10:10.525
It's not my thing.

00:10:10.745 --> 00:10:13.649
Hand-eye coordination for fingers, that isn't.

00:10:14.009 --> 00:10:17.072
I'm always amazed those piano players can do two different things with their hands.

00:10:17.133 --> 00:10:18.474
Oh, good, two, three

00:10:18.494 --> 00:10:18.955
and four.

00:10:19.014 --> 00:10:21.998
They're trilling in one hand playing this and doing, and forget it.

00:10:22.018 --> 00:10:28.004
So what about the whole, you know, the reception to being a harmonica player in the education institutions there?

00:10:28.043 --> 00:10:28.705
You know, what was that?

00:10:28.945 --> 00:10:30.307
Because, I mean, how was it received?

00:10:30.846 --> 00:10:34.892
It really is not that big a thing when they hear you play.

00:10:35.152 --> 00:10:41.899
Sometimes before they hear you play, you can get, obviously, the classical music world is extremely snooty.

00:10:42.239 --> 00:10:45.822
And it is way beyond what Toots had to deal with in jazz.

00:10:46.783 --> 00:10:49.908
How can he play harmonica and play with the saxophones?

00:10:50.207 --> 00:10:55.494
This world thinks of the harmonica being one step above the kazoo, I guess.

00:10:55.734 --> 00:11:05.224
But that said, when you go in and play, they hear you start doing stuff and they realize, oh my gosh, how does this person play like that?

00:11:05.443 --> 00:11:11.770
So I remember my big kudos when I get them are from like the concert masters of these symphonies I play with.

00:11:11.910 --> 00:11:16.996
I was playing with the Boston Pops, great gig, John Williams conducting, Boston Symphony Hall.

00:11:17.216 --> 00:11:19.678
And we did the rehearsal and the concert master comes up to me.

00:11:19.759 --> 00:11:23.342
She says, my God, how did you learn how to phrase like that?

00:11:23.503 --> 00:11:27.587
And I said, well, I was coached 12 years by the first flute in New York City Ballet.

00:11:27.748 --> 00:11:30.471
And she said, ah, I knew it was something and walked away.

00:11:30.770 --> 00:11:36.177
In other words, it's like beforehand, I was told I had to play with a harmonica player.

00:11:36.456 --> 00:11:37.778
Now I can't believe it.

00:11:38.038 --> 00:11:47.408
So I've actually had a few concert masters to say that I was the best soloist they ever worked with, including Zuckerman and Perlman and Yo-Yo Mano.

00:11:47.688 --> 00:11:54.155
Maybe is a bit of, it's that they can't believe that you're actually getting these sounds out of this instrument.

00:11:54.456 --> 00:11:56.258
You know, it's kind of a novelty fact of the harmonica.

00:11:56.278 --> 00:11:57.119
They haven't heard it before.

00:11:57.620 --> 00:12:10.585
And then when you're doing stuff that, I mean, when you do something as silly as trilling chords, that to all the harmonica players, I mean, you're going like, and they're going like, yeah, Yeah, it was a yawn.

00:12:10.745 --> 00:12:15.447
But imagine a violinist thinking, I can't move my fingers back and forth that fast.

00:12:15.707 --> 00:12:22.114
On the other hand, when they're playing the Mendelssohn, they go, you think I'm going to break my teeth if I try that lick.

00:12:22.614 --> 00:12:25.817
Going back a little, you said you had 12 years lessons with a flute player.

00:12:25.876 --> 00:12:35.065
So I've heard you talking about how it's important to get a good teacher and that they've got a tradition of that with the other instruments that we don't have with classical chromatic playing.

00:12:35.144 --> 00:12:42.270
So what about that and the fact that it's fine to go and use another instrument as your teacher in that case, obviously as you did?

00:12:42.672 --> 00:12:42.991
Yeah.

00:12:42.991 --> 00:12:51.160
My feeling is, I mean, it helps if you've got somebody who's teaching you the basics of the harmonica that really knows how to play the instrument.

00:12:51.421 --> 00:13:00.671
But in terms of music, all the people that are in orchestras, when you're a soloist with an orchestra, every single person that's in that orchestra has had a teacher.

00:13:00.990 --> 00:13:02.493
And their teacher had a teacher.

00:13:02.613 --> 00:13:04.554
And their teacher's teacher had a teacher.

00:13:04.654 --> 00:13:09.080
So the tradition of playing, let's say, a flute goes way back to Bach.

00:13:09.320 --> 00:13:13.825
And all of the techniques have been done for hundreds of years.

00:13:14.044 --> 00:13:21.373
So articulations and phrasing and everything is there from one teacher to the next teacher to the next teacher.

00:13:21.592 --> 00:13:24.716
And they constantly are adding on to the technique.

00:13:24.956 --> 00:13:34.625
We have people who say, well, I don't know anything about any of that stuff and I don't want to know anything about any of that stuff because it gets in the way of my feelings and playing.

00:13:34.846 --> 00:13:36.028
Stravinsky was right.

00:13:36.148 --> 00:13:39.551
The more you work over music, the freer it becomes.

00:13:39.910 --> 00:13:52.562
So if you can play absolutely pianissimo in the high register, that means you can grab the emotions of all of these people in an audience that wouldn't normally have their emotions grabbed.

00:13:52.763 --> 00:13:58.447
But if you're not capable of doing that, then you don't have that as one of the tools in your palette.

00:13:58.768 --> 00:14:01.230
Also, everybody in the orchestra probably had a coach.

00:14:01.590 --> 00:14:03.312
I mean, they do chamber music.

00:14:03.371 --> 00:14:07.254
And then when they go, if you're at Juilliard, you're playing in a chamber music group.

00:14:07.355 --> 00:14:08.056
There's a coach.

00:14:08.176 --> 00:14:16.865
And the coach tells you how this piece is going to be played and what the major portions of the piece and how the structure is and where you're going and what you're doing.

00:14:17.186 --> 00:14:28.317
If you go to Berklee, you know, and you're studying with a jazz saxophone player, it's going to tell you, yeah, when I blow over this, I'm thinking actually an F minor scale over a G7 chord.

00:14:28.457 --> 00:14:33.503
So when you're blowing that, then that gives you the, you know, the flat nine and gives you, I mean, all the other stuff.

00:14:33.722 --> 00:14:36.746
They don't care how you get the sound out of your instrument.

00:14:36.907 --> 00:14:41.772
What they care about is let's make some music, and that's what it's about.

00:14:42.231 --> 00:14:47.317
Nobody cares in the audience what you did to get the sound out of the instrument.

00:14:47.518 --> 00:14:53.403
If you get the sound out of the instrument, they aren't going like, well, geez, he didn't use the right technique for that.

00:14:53.423 --> 00:14:54.765
I mean, come on.

00:14:55.186 --> 00:14:57.067
They don't know, and they don't care.

00:14:57.428 --> 00:15:12.384
So you can go to somebody who's, let's say, a great jazz sax player as a harmonica player, and if you know how all your scales and arpeggios and all your chords, you know, how to get around on the instrument, this person's going to say, okay, this is how I approach this.

00:15:12.664 --> 00:15:14.105
And this is where I lay out.

00:15:14.307 --> 00:15:15.248
This is where I come in.

00:15:15.548 --> 00:15:17.250
It's the same for classical music.

00:15:17.450 --> 00:15:22.775
People think, oh, classical music, it's like you push a button like a computer and it plays the music.

00:15:23.096 --> 00:15:25.038
No, there's a groove to it.

00:15:25.438 --> 00:15:29.342
That's why jazz players don't sound really good playing classical music.

00:15:29.462 --> 00:15:33.366
That's also why classical musicians don't sound really good playing jazz.

00:15:33.667 --> 00:15:34.628
It's a groove.

00:15:34.828 --> 00:15:39.953
I mean, there's a groove, but certainly probably technique-wise, classical music is, you know, is a pinnacle, isn't it?

00:15:39.974 --> 00:15:41.755
And your technique has got to be fantastic.

00:15:41.796 --> 00:15:45.059
So, you know, what do you think about the challenges of the technique and the chromatic harmonica?

00:15:45.120 --> 00:15:47.241
Well, it's no different than any other instrument.

00:15:48.043 --> 00:15:52.246
Have you ever thought about, oh yeah, I started playing violin when I was five.

00:15:52.648 --> 00:15:57.352
And by the time I went to Juilliard, I was practicing six hours a day.

00:15:57.393 --> 00:16:00.135
Does that ever ring with somebody?

00:16:00.176 --> 00:16:05.441
And I had a coach and I had a teacher and I used to take lessons once or twice a week.

00:16:05.782 --> 00:16:43.200
Does this tell you it's kind of like being an olympic athlete the purpose of teachers by the way is to help you get from point a to point b the technique it's about What techniques really work and what ones don't and how you practice them to get those techniques.

00:16:43.620 --> 00:16:54.504
It's saving the player time because the teacher has gone down the route beforehand and figured out how you get this technique or that technique doesn't

00:16:54.605 --> 00:16:54.846
work.

00:16:55.265 --> 00:16:56.187
Yeah.

00:16:56.246 --> 00:17:00.450
Another comment that you said is that the harmonica is America's instrument.

00:17:00.691 --> 00:17:00.990
That's

00:17:01.051 --> 00:17:10.318
an interesting thing, because when you think of the harmonica, obviously you're thinking of some cowboy out on the prairie all by himself.

00:17:10.538 --> 00:17:13.382
It gives this eerie, lonely feeling.

00:17:13.582 --> 00:17:17.605
And that's why it's so effective emotionally.

00:17:17.905 --> 00:17:21.188
As harmonica players, a lot of times got to use that.

00:17:21.388 --> 00:17:55.845
We have to use that ability to be lonely and eerie and you know chills go up when you hear a voice you know doing that kind of thing on the harmonica and it has a specific sound we are so lucky in order to be a soloist with an orchestra you've got to have a sound which sings all instruments are imitating the voice so if your instrument doesn't sing very well it has a problem playing as a soloist with an orchestra when tubas and double basses play with orchestras they try to play in the high register where they can sing.

00:17:55.884 --> 00:18:05.474
Of course, it's a lot easier for a trumpet than the tuba, so the trumpet actually can play with the orchestra much more readily, and violins much more readily than the double bass.

00:18:05.795 --> 00:18:11.821
So the harmonica has a sound which can imitate the human voice in a singular way.

00:18:11.862 --> 00:18:15.385
It is emotionally very, very satisfying.

00:18:15.566 --> 00:18:19.549
It is the closest instrument other than the voice that you play to your brain.

00:18:19.809 --> 00:18:28.180
Can you imagine if you could take your nine-foot Steinway and you could cup it with your hands so So that it was possible to go from a sound which was...

00:18:28.220 --> 00:18:34.048
And change it without doing anything by just muting the sound.

00:18:34.489 --> 00:18:39.236
And you can add vibrato and you can get tonal colours and all different kinds of stuff.

00:18:39.517 --> 00:18:42.780
This really makes it an emotional instrument.

00:18:43.422 --> 00:18:45.746
Going back again a little bit to your development.

00:18:45.786 --> 00:18:48.068
So I believe you went to Trottingham in 1970.

00:18:48.169 --> 00:18:50.211
Is that where you met Chamberwine?

00:18:50.412 --> 00:18:51.334
Yes, I...

00:18:51.746 --> 00:18:55.671
Just after I got out of the Army, I was drafted in 68 to 70.

00:18:55.750 --> 00:18:57.394
I went and studied with Chamber Wong.

00:18:57.594 --> 00:18:58.915
And then I came back.

00:18:59.256 --> 00:19:04.782
After studying for a few years with him, I went to Manist College of Music and went to Manhattan School of Music.

00:19:05.144 --> 00:19:07.727
And, you know, then I started playing all the studio stuff.

00:19:07.867 --> 00:19:11.412
Cat food and dog food commercials, movies, everything like this.

00:19:11.772 --> 00:19:12.993
Making my living in the studio.

00:19:13.315 --> 00:19:16.419
Tina Turner came out with a song called What's Love Got to Do With It.

00:19:16.679 --> 00:19:19.722
And it had a DX7 synthesizer playing the harmonica.

00:19:20.023 --> 00:19:21.685
And right after that, we lost our gig.

00:19:21.794 --> 00:19:29.000
So in 1986, I did the world premiere of the Henry Cowell Harmonica Concerto with Brooklyn Philharmonic.

00:19:29.220 --> 00:19:31.122
Then I played it with the Milwaukee Symphony.

00:19:31.541 --> 00:19:35.445
Then I played it at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

00:19:35.486 --> 00:19:44.413
So what ended up happening is all of a sudden, my life became what I was trained to do, which was play harmonica concertos.

00:19:44.554 --> 00:19:47.435
So was this the first time you'd performed fully with an orchestra?

00:19:47.576 --> 00:19:48.017
Well, yes.

00:19:48.416 --> 00:19:51.660
That was the first time I'd ever played a concerto with an orchestra.

00:19:51.759 --> 00:19:56.105
I had been asked to play harmonica parts, which is not the same thing.

00:19:56.285 --> 00:19:59.929
You know, sit in with the violins or whatever in an opera or something.

00:20:00.169 --> 00:20:01.450
They were more like studio gigs.

00:20:01.631 --> 00:20:11.000
But then by 1988, I got signed to RCA, and we recorded Villa Lobos Harmonica Concerto on RCA.

00:20:11.161 --> 00:20:13.242
I was signed to an eight-record deal.

00:20:13.643 --> 00:20:21.711
And then since then, I've played the Villa Lobos Concerto about 440 times with over 200 orchestras around.

00:20:21.711 --> 00:20:22.473
around the world.

00:21:21.153 --> 00:21:23.169
And this was written for harmonica.

00:21:23.209 --> 00:21:25.325
This was written for the harmonica.

00:21:25.730 --> 00:21:27.952
as was the Henry Cowell one that you mentioned.

00:21:28.212 --> 00:21:31.096
Yes, it was written for the harmonica.

00:21:31.396 --> 00:21:34.922
So the Henry Cowell one was written for John Sebastian Senior originally, wasn't it?

00:21:34.942 --> 00:21:35.221
Yes.

00:21:35.481 --> 00:21:38.506
Unfortunately, he died before he had a chance to do the piece.

00:21:38.767 --> 00:21:42.551
And it was interesting because Cowell was not able to...

00:21:42.612 --> 00:21:45.035
He died before the piece was premiered.

00:21:45.295 --> 00:21:48.819
And when I premiered it, Sidney Cowell came, Henry Cowell's wife.

00:21:48.980 --> 00:21:53.424
But also there was Ming Cherpman, who was Alexander Cherpman's wife.

00:21:53.526 --> 00:21:53.766
And I...

00:21:54.018 --> 00:21:56.623
you know, play the Cherpnin Harmonica Concerto.

00:21:57.144 --> 00:22:00.089
Those are the major works for harmonica and concerto.

00:22:00.109 --> 00:22:05.821
Villa Lobos, Cherpnin, the Arthur Benjamin Concerto, which I've played several times, the Mio Suite.

00:22:06.021 --> 00:22:07.625
I have a nice connection to Mio.

00:22:08.001 --> 00:22:09.462
There was a Mio scholarship.

00:22:09.522 --> 00:22:10.544
Mio died in 74.

00:22:10.884 --> 00:22:19.751
In 1975, when I was at Manus College of Music, I won the first Mio scholarship to study composition with Aaron Copland at Aspen.

00:22:19.971 --> 00:22:25.817
So Aaron Copland, a famous composer, was one of my composition teachers.

00:22:25.836 --> 00:22:28.200
Also the Henry Cowell we mentioned and the Vaughn Williams.

00:22:28.380 --> 00:22:29.740
Probably those are the pieces.

00:22:30.060 --> 00:22:33.703
These are the major works for harmonic and orchestra.

00:22:34.025 --> 00:22:40.451
All the rest are not by monster big composers and therefore they don't get asked

00:22:40.550 --> 00:22:40.770
for.

00:22:41.191 --> 00:22:47.417
So were you selected as a harmonica player to play on these, you know, these harmonica concertos, or was it the other way around?

00:22:47.458 --> 00:22:51.221
Did you learn them and then get the, you know, the sort of gig to play with an orchestra?

00:22:51.823 --> 00:22:53.684
Yes, I was selected to play.

00:22:53.704 --> 00:22:55.105
I already knew them.

00:22:55.446 --> 00:23:01.833
I'd gone over how to play with harmonica, all the harmonica concerti with Andrew Lillian.

00:23:02.374 --> 00:23:06.178
I was first asked to do the Cowell concerto, looked at it and said, I can perform it.

00:23:06.538 --> 00:23:12.845
Then after that, they started started asking me for, after I recorded the Villa Lobos, they would just ask for pieces.

00:23:13.306 --> 00:23:18.230
I started to do several performances of harmonica concertos a year.

00:23:18.791 --> 00:23:22.134
And so what about, you know, these are written specifically for the harmonica.

00:23:22.194 --> 00:23:25.499
What is it about these pieces that, you know, suit the harmonic?

00:23:25.739 --> 00:23:26.559
In classical

00:23:26.640 --> 00:23:27.121
music,

00:23:27.421 --> 00:23:32.486
they are interested in pieces that are written for your instrument.

00:23:32.586 --> 00:23:34.909
That's what I'm talking about it being snooty.

00:23:35.209 --> 00:23:42.477
You can play, let's say, Flight of the Bumblebee on the harmonica and everybody's going to, that's like shtick to classical musicians.

00:23:42.537 --> 00:23:46.882
They want to hear the piece that was written for your instrument because that's the repertoire.

00:23:47.082 --> 00:23:52.688
The only people who get away with other stuff are people who have so goddamn many concertos, it doesn't make any difference.

00:23:52.768 --> 00:24:00.736
Like violinists can play whatever he wants because they already know that there's, you know, 5,000 violin concertos and 5,000 piano concertos.

00:24:01.017 --> 00:24:12.548
But even then, if you look at, let's say, Yo-Yo Ma's a cellist, they're going to say, okay, Dvorak concerto would be the number one piece that this person would play, because that's the number one cello concerto.

00:24:12.809 --> 00:24:16.693
So for me, Villa Lobos is Brazil's number one composer.

00:24:17.013 --> 00:24:17.894
So

00:24:17.914 --> 00:24:23.501
would you recommend people who are interested in playing classical harmonica then to seek out these pieces which are written from a harmonica?

00:24:23.521 --> 00:24:28.047
Because a lot of people will try and play flute pieces or violin pieces.

00:24:28.307 --> 00:24:30.148
Well, it depends on where your level is.

00:24:30.189 --> 00:24:32.250
Everybody plays Bach.

00:24:32.451 --> 00:24:34.394
I actually have a Bach gig.

00:25:33.442 --> 00:25:37.866
Bach is kind of like how music is put together, even for jazz.

00:25:38.166 --> 00:25:41.171
I mean, you said technique, classical.

00:25:41.191 --> 00:25:43.093
I mean, you listen to some of these jazz pianists.

00:25:43.453 --> 00:25:44.193
That's a Bach lick.

00:25:44.454 --> 00:25:45.476
Okay, that's a Bach lick.

00:25:45.695 --> 00:25:48.759
It's the diddle diddle of classical music.

00:25:49.039 --> 00:25:49.661
That's Bach.

00:25:50.040 --> 00:25:54.405
And it's very sophisticated and harmonically very interesting, great music.

00:25:54.566 --> 00:25:56.588
You're going to take one composer to an island.

00:25:56.969 --> 00:25:57.609
It'll be Bach.

00:25:58.050 --> 00:26:01.054
But after that, you know, you play duets, right?

00:26:01.250 --> 00:26:02.752
I played a lot of Telemann duets.

00:26:02.814 --> 00:26:04.297
I teach a lot of Telemann duets.

00:26:04.436 --> 00:26:07.964
It's not what you're going to be playing for your gig.

00:26:08.185 --> 00:26:18.328
My gigs are all classical harmonica concerti, except if I'm trying to get something that just gets me in with the symphony.

00:26:18.368 --> 00:26:19.171
Then there's pops.

00:26:19.531 --> 00:26:20.073
Gershwin.

00:26:42.178 --> 00:26:46.923
I have an Elvis medley, but those are only to get me to the point to where I can play.

00:26:47.223 --> 00:26:48.424
That would be like the second date.

00:26:48.464 --> 00:26:52.169
I'll play the Villa Lobos with somebody and then they'll say, come back and play the Elvis with us.

00:26:52.630 --> 00:26:55.732
Oh, the audience loved you, you know, and then you do the same thing.

00:26:55.813 --> 00:27:00.719
And those things are basically just to get you the gigs.

00:27:01.078 --> 00:27:03.281
So that's what I use the blues harmonica for.

00:27:32.289 --> 00:27:34.451
So yeah, it's okay to play flute duets.

00:27:34.511 --> 00:27:36.594
It's okay to play transcribed pieces.

00:27:36.854 --> 00:27:38.955
Transcription is a noble art.

00:27:39.195 --> 00:27:44.401
I did the Thais meditation, and I think it sounds as good as the violin.

00:27:44.861 --> 00:27:48.463
Part of it is because the harmonica can play in a high register.

00:27:48.624 --> 00:27:56.270
Beautiful high notes that are pure and just singular, you know, in a way that even the violin can't with harmonics.

00:27:56.750 --> 00:27:58.653
But everybody did transcriptions.

00:27:58.893 --> 00:28:04.240
Bach transcribed so much Vivaldi, I don't know whether you could call transcribing, probably stealing.

00:28:05.218 --> 00:28:05.738
Yeah, great.

00:28:05.778 --> 00:28:08.861
So, yeah, you've done concertos all around the world.

00:28:08.881 --> 00:28:12.104
You've been to so many countries, yeah, and so well received.

00:28:12.183 --> 00:28:13.825
And so, you know, how do you get these gigs?

00:28:13.865 --> 00:28:18.009
You got yourself a name as the number one classical player and that follows.

00:28:18.028 --> 00:28:20.932
Does it get in the gigs with these orchestras and these great composers you've worked with?

00:28:21.251 --> 00:28:23.993
Well, it's that and then it's networking.

00:28:24.434 --> 00:28:31.119
Just before I was on, I was on the phone with a conductor from Florida in the Punta Gorda Symphony.

00:28:31.780 --> 00:28:35.183
It's one guy recommends you, somebody else recommends you.

00:28:35.183 --> 00:28:38.227
It's the fact that you have recordings in RCA.

00:28:38.267 --> 00:28:39.868
Somebody hears it on the recording.

00:28:40.410 --> 00:28:42.592
I run a music festival at the Grand Canyon.

00:28:42.892 --> 00:28:47.037
I have some of the finest soloists in the world come in and make chamber music.

00:28:47.237 --> 00:28:50.079
So it's part of a classical music business.

00:28:50.539 --> 00:28:55.125
It has very, very little to do, actually, with the harmonica.

00:28:55.546 --> 00:28:58.209
It has to do with this music business.

00:28:58.409 --> 00:29:00.191
And then sometimes it just happens.

00:29:00.330 --> 00:29:10.240
I got called to do this Cherpinin concerto with the Atlanta Ballet We did it just before the pandemic, and I'm hoping that we get to do it again.

00:29:10.280 --> 00:29:21.913
And it's a gorgeous piece, and I played it before, and then all of a sudden I get the call, and next thing you know, we're playing this for six different concerts in a row.

00:29:22.134 --> 00:29:26.759
I tell you, the Wednesday matinee in the afternoon and the evening, God, that's a hard Sunday.

00:29:27.140 --> 00:29:29.761
It's hard to do matinee and play a concerto twice.

00:29:29.781 --> 00:29:35.087
It's interesting, isn't it, how classical music concerts, you know, they're very well attended, aren't they?

00:29:35.087 --> 00:29:38.912
Well,

00:29:40.834 --> 00:29:42.776
it has to do with something else.

00:29:43.136 --> 00:29:44.897
First of all, they build their audiences.

00:29:45.318 --> 00:29:53.508
So if you are looking at a classical music concert, you might have, let's say you have a 1500 to 2800 seat hall.

00:29:53.827 --> 00:29:59.693
And if they come pretty close to filling it because they have subscription series, you're playing for a lot of people.

00:30:00.115 --> 00:30:05.039
You have to compare it to something that's established where lots of people are.

00:30:05.039 --> 00:30:06.761
come on a regular basis.

00:30:07.201 --> 00:30:08.222
And it's been developed.

00:30:08.262 --> 00:30:09.964
The audience development has happened.

00:30:10.306 --> 00:30:19.055
It's also live music classically is really much more exciting than listening to something on a recording.

00:30:19.434 --> 00:30:19.515
Yeah.

00:30:19.535 --> 00:30:21.017
Big sound of that orchestra, don't

00:30:21.076 --> 00:30:21.617
you?

00:30:21.917 --> 00:30:21.998
Yes.

00:30:22.459 --> 00:30:23.259
You're in the hall.

00:30:23.579 --> 00:30:27.423
You can't believe that people can play that loud and play that fast.

00:30:27.483 --> 00:30:28.144
And you're going like,

00:30:28.444 --> 00:30:28.825
wow.

00:30:29.246 --> 00:30:34.991
So as well as playing classical music, which is your main thing, you've touched on that you play a bit of pop.

00:30:34.991 --> 00:30:36.633
a bit of Elvis, a bit of Gershwin.

00:30:36.993 --> 00:30:39.316
You've made some recordings which are a bit more mainstream.

00:30:39.476 --> 00:30:42.858
I think, as you've told me yourself, to pay the bills a little bit.

00:30:43.459 --> 00:30:48.663
I know you made up this Bonfilio group, this Through the Raindrops album that you came up with, which did very well.

00:30:48.743 --> 00:30:51.286
It was eight weeks on the Billboard charts in America there.

00:30:51.326 --> 00:30:51.507
So...

00:31:07.105 --> 00:31:07.741
Thank you.

00:31:11.842 --> 00:31:13.042
I was signed to RCA.

00:31:13.343 --> 00:31:16.105
I had a personal manager, got me signed to RCA.

00:31:16.546 --> 00:31:29.917
I recorded the Villa Lobos, and I had done this recording called the Romances, which included all these romantic classical pieces that were real pretty, including the Vaughn Williams Romance, which is what I really wanted to record.

00:31:30.238 --> 00:31:33.641
The idea was to cross over into pop.

00:31:34.141 --> 00:31:40.926
I was working with this guy named Tommy West, who had produced all of Jim Croce's records.

00:31:41.186 --> 00:31:47.153
And after Croce died, he went down and ran Mary Tyler Moore's record company down in Nashville.

00:31:47.334 --> 00:31:50.576
And so he worked with all these Nashville artists, all these country guys.

00:31:51.137 --> 00:32:00.688
And one of these violists named Kristen Wilkinson had a song called Through the Raindrops on her answering machine.

00:32:01.269 --> 00:32:07.935
And Tommy heard it and said, geez, would you be upset if I introduced this to the harmonica?

00:32:08.576 --> 00:32:13.000
You where it happened.

00:32:13.161 --> 00:32:13.902
I put it down.

00:32:13.922 --> 00:32:17.346
The next thing you know, we started getting airtime.

00:32:17.665 --> 00:32:20.849
And at the same time, RCA blew up.

00:32:20.930 --> 00:32:23.152
Basically, they closed the Victor division.

00:32:23.451 --> 00:32:38.729
The place where I recorded the romances recording and the Villa Lobos, which is Studio A, RCA, where nobody famous had recorded like Ella Fitzgerald or Elvis or, you know, all Sinatra, you name it, had been in this room.

00:32:39.108 --> 00:32:40.830
And they just sold the building.

00:32:41.230 --> 00:33:14.082
And high end real estate and closed shop that's when we put out Through the Raindrop and it caught on you know so we started being on the billboard charts and you know somebody said geez you're down in Austin and you're one ahead of Michael Bolton and one behind Whitney Houston it was what it was as a small record company and we had stuff it paid the bills and we then went on QVC and sold a whole bunch of recordings doing everything from Christmas recordings to songs that every song you ever wanted to fall asleep to.

00:33:29.473 --> 00:33:35.839
You know, what we were doing is adding the sound of classical harmonica to these pretty sound

00:33:36.259 --> 00:33:38.342
and easy to recognize melodies.

00:33:38.701 --> 00:33:49.070
You made this comparison, didn't you, with Toots Tillmans and saying that some of his albums are the same, you know, the kind of popular music, which brought him some income so he could carry on being a gigging jazz player.

00:33:49.310 --> 00:33:49.771
Exactly.

00:33:49.791 --> 00:33:53.474
I mean, I met with Toots, you know, and he did a lot of stuff like that.

00:33:53.674 --> 00:33:55.636
I mean, he was doing studio music, everything.

00:33:55.696 --> 00:33:59.440
I mean, I went up to his place once and he said, bring all your classical stuff up.

00:33:59.440 --> 00:34:00.980
I said, why?

00:34:01.461 --> 00:34:02.863
I got to play at the Belgian Symphony.

00:34:03.123 --> 00:34:04.544
So he goes up, you know, and I'm going to play.

00:34:04.984 --> 00:34:06.105
And he puts a recording on.

00:34:06.165 --> 00:34:08.047
It's him playing with the symphony orchestra.

00:34:08.208 --> 00:34:10.389
And he said, hey, you know, you're the classical cat.

00:34:10.409 --> 00:34:12.251
I mean, this ain't happening, you know.

00:34:12.811 --> 00:34:16.695
And I said, well, Toots, the problem is you kind of got a Frank Sinatra sound.

00:34:16.755 --> 00:34:19.858
In order to play classical music, you really need a Pavarotti sound.

00:34:20.277 --> 00:34:21.818
And he said, oh, yeah, you could teach me.

00:34:21.858 --> 00:34:24.201
And I said, yeah, and you could show me how to play jazz.

00:34:24.501 --> 00:34:26.123
And we both need another lifetime.

00:34:26.422 --> 00:34:27.864
I said, they don't want to hear that.

00:34:28.105 --> 00:34:29.166
Go to the symphony.

00:34:29.409 --> 00:34:37.177
Play your foray piece or whatever they want you to play and start improvising on it and blow it like you're Frank Sinatra playing this.

00:34:37.396 --> 00:34:38.958
How would Frank sing Puccini?

00:34:39.057 --> 00:34:40.360
You know, do it that way.

00:34:40.659 --> 00:34:41.360
And Toots did it.

00:34:41.380 --> 00:34:42.221
He had Polidori.

00:34:42.260 --> 00:34:44.963
He had like, it's like Muzak almost, you know, stuff.

00:34:45.063 --> 00:34:48.547
But I knew, he knew, everybody knew that, knew him.

00:34:48.567 --> 00:34:48.606
So

00:34:49.166 --> 00:34:50.407
what about improvising?

00:34:50.447 --> 00:34:53.831
Obviously, Toots is, you know, the master of the jazz improvisation.

00:34:53.871 --> 00:34:58.375
You know, can you improvise yourself in the chromatic or with classical, obviously reading more?

00:34:58.434 --> 00:34:59.376
Is that something you don't do?

00:34:59.376 --> 00:34:59.896
so much?

00:35:00.117 --> 00:35:02.278
Depends on what you mean by improvising.

00:35:02.318 --> 00:35:04.320
We have classical improvising.

00:35:04.621 --> 00:35:06.563
In Baroque music, you do it all the time.

00:35:06.764 --> 00:35:10.827
You know, it has to do with all your trills and turns and ornaments and stuff.

00:35:10.967 --> 00:35:12.030
That's improvisation.

00:35:12.230 --> 00:35:13.791
You can either have them or not have them.

00:35:13.972 --> 00:35:15.472
And I'm very good at that.

00:35:15.713 --> 00:35:22.800
As far as improvising in a chromatic piece, sometimes I will add something.

00:35:23.221 --> 00:35:28.547
I just finished playing the recording, the Hovanis Greek folk dances.

00:35:29.188 --> 00:35:35.094
I added some chordal and octave stuff to it, and the second to the last movement.

00:35:35.353 --> 00:35:38.318
But I actually had done that while Hovhannes was alive.

00:35:38.637 --> 00:35:43.722
I did an orchestration of it using kind of like the Bartok Romanian folk dances.

00:35:43.802 --> 00:35:49.028
I did a folk dance orchestration for that with string orchestra, and he okayed it, said it was great.

00:35:49.289 --> 00:35:55.115
When I say improvisation, it's the same kind of notes, except all of a sudden we have chords.

00:35:56.856 --> 00:35:57.737
That kind of sound.

00:35:58.079 --> 00:36:01.161
This seems to be kind of two fields of chromatic playing, doesn't it?

00:36:01.262 --> 00:36:02.864
There's classical and then jazz.

00:36:02.884 --> 00:36:05.806
That seems to be the two main genres the instrument's used for, isn't it?

00:36:05.887 --> 00:36:06.768
Would you agree with that?

00:36:06.827 --> 00:36:10.771
And, you know, what's the advantage and various strengths of those two genres on the chromatic?

00:36:10.992 --> 00:36:12.213
No, no, not really.

00:36:12.753 --> 00:36:14.036
Same as the diatonic.

00:36:14.356 --> 00:36:22.224
Most everybody thinks of diatonic than they think of blues, but blues isn't the only music you could play on a diatonic or on a chromatic, for that matter.

00:36:22.385 --> 00:36:29.211
The nice thing about the harmonica is it basically fits into just about every genre of music.

00:36:29.231 --> 00:36:31.974
depends on what you want to use it for.

00:36:32.255 --> 00:36:49.313
As a solo instrument, maybe then, well, I don't know if you would consider in blues whether the harmonica is a solo instrument or not, because most all blues harmonica playing, you know, there's a few pieces that are just harmonica plus as a soloist, but most of them involve singing.

00:36:49.534 --> 00:36:57.541
And same with chromatic, if you added singing to it, I mean, I've played on lots of recordings, pop stars, you know, the singing stuff.

00:36:57.762 --> 00:37:07.052
I remember when we did Bernadette Peters and I did Shenandoah with just harmonica and voice at Lincoln Center, you know, at Avery Fisher Hall.

00:37:07.313 --> 00:37:10.275
And it was just the two of us, you know, and I was to accompany her.

00:37:10.556 --> 00:37:13.679
So yeah, you put it into those settings, the harmonica.

00:37:13.840 --> 00:37:20.005
Basically, there are harmonica solos in tons of records, and they aren't all jazz.

00:37:20.025 --> 00:37:22.929
I mean, I'm talking about kind of pop stuff.

00:37:23.110 --> 00:37:26.713
And then you have a whole other genre of harmonica playing.

00:37:27.054 --> 00:37:32.822
There was a hit called Peg of My Heart which was this whole harmonica trio stuff or groups.

00:37:33.081 --> 00:37:34.425
They came out of vaudeville.

00:37:34.744 --> 00:37:37.068
Yeah, I think it fits into rock.

00:37:37.449 --> 00:37:39.072
I think it fits into jazz.

00:37:39.552 --> 00:37:41.335
I think it fits into classical music.

00:37:41.576 --> 00:37:42.757
I think it fits into pop.

00:37:43.018 --> 00:37:44.420
I mean, what do you call Stevie Wonder?

00:37:44.721 --> 00:37:47.005
Not everything is funky that Stevie plays.

00:37:47.304 --> 00:37:52.574
I remember I had to play on Chaka Khan's first solo album.

00:38:06.690 --> 00:38:11.653
And Harif Martin says to me, OK, what I want you to do is I want you to play like Stevie Wonder.

00:38:11.673 --> 00:38:12.635
I said, I looked at him.

00:38:12.695 --> 00:38:15.137
I said, if you want Stevie Wonder, hire him.

00:38:15.538 --> 00:38:18.360
And of course, he did come in and play on her next album.

00:38:18.619 --> 00:38:20.262
I think he played on Feel For You.

00:38:20.322 --> 00:38:22.182
And he just, it's Stevie.

00:38:22.543 --> 00:38:29.429
You know, every time somebody says, yeah, well, it only fits into this, you know, I don't think it's as funky as the diatonic, the chromatic.

00:38:29.469 --> 00:38:30.630
And I go, well, what about Stevie?

00:38:30.911 --> 00:38:31.672
Oh, well, that's different.

00:38:31.952 --> 00:38:35.815
Then you go, is there only one funky saxophone player in the world?

00:38:36.115 --> 00:38:36.655
Come on, why?

00:38:36.655 --> 00:38:41.521
Lots of people play funk sax, so there can be a lot of people that play funk harmonica.

00:38:41.702 --> 00:38:45.244
So yeah, I can't think of a genre that the harmonica doesn't fit into.

00:38:45.286 --> 00:38:50.530
And so you play in lots of great venues in the Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Ball, Lincoln Center.

00:38:50.550 --> 00:38:52.773
So have you got a favorite venue in all these places?

00:38:53.193 --> 00:38:55.076
The recording from the Gavandhaus.

00:38:55.356 --> 00:38:59.420
That's me playing with a 60-piece orchestra, no amplification.

00:39:13.346 --> 00:39:18.523
You know, I came out and I get on stage and I tried, you know, just to see what the acoustics were.

00:39:18.945 --> 00:39:22.177
It's only a 1500 seat hall, but still it just...

00:39:22.530 --> 00:39:23.791
gorgeous acoustics.

00:39:24.090 --> 00:39:32.858
A little freaky to be playing at the Gavon house because, you know, you look on the wall and there's a program and it said, Schumann will play a Brahms concerto this afternoon.

00:39:33.378 --> 00:39:37.603
And there's a program and you go, uh-oh, the history of who's played there.

00:39:38.224 --> 00:39:43.568
I played in Carnegie Hall before they fixed it and the sound quality was amazing.

00:39:44.009 --> 00:39:48.032
You have played in a Grammy, you've received a Grammy for the Ragtime musical.

00:39:48.152 --> 00:39:49.172
That was a studio gig.

00:39:49.313 --> 00:40:05.965
I came in, they had, you know, Ragtime, they had the sound We'll see you next time.

00:40:08.769 --> 00:40:13.273
never got the gig, I just, but I got the Grammy when the soundtrack album went

00:40:13.373 --> 00:40:13.434
up.

00:40:13.853 --> 00:40:21.601
And you appeared, so Spar's obviously the main harmonica festival in the US there, and is that something you've appeared at numerous times, yeah?

00:40:21.960 --> 00:40:22.302
Yeah.

00:40:22.621 --> 00:40:25.824
Initially, Spar was really a kind of chromatic festival, wasn't it?

00:40:26.105 --> 00:40:32.971
Well, it was based, really was based on the harmonic cats, you know, I mean, Jerry Murad and his

00:40:33.010 --> 00:40:34.391
group, those guys can play.

00:40:34.773 --> 00:40:45.804
So what about other chromatic players who are around today, you know, who you're rating as good chromatic players i know you met philip asheel who's a uk player when he was younger in 2003 in dallas

00:40:46.364 --> 00:41:10.210
i saw him play on the tv with the proms he sounded great i thought that was going to be enough to get him out and playing with orchestras one of the problems that happened i mean you have to understand i was signed to rca we recorded some stuff it came out i was on every single talk show and all of a sudden the whole record business went south there was was no more RCA.

00:41:10.469 --> 00:41:13.934
He told my manager, classical music, I don't want to hear about it.

00:41:14.193 --> 00:41:23.503
So it was not only classical music, it was jazz, it was everything that was music other than pop, but everything else just went the way of the dinosaur.

00:41:23.884 --> 00:41:34.476
And I think that that's one of the problems of Philip Head, that he came in at a time where he should have skyrocketed, but the music business was, you know, it was a circle.

00:41:34.615 --> 00:41:36.277
The basic circle was this.

00:41:36.637 --> 00:41:47.309
You did recordings, the recordings got you press, the press put butts in the seat, you know, at the symphony, and then you did more recordings, and then you went around.

00:41:47.889 --> 00:41:51.974
And all of a sudden, one portion of that circle was missing.

00:41:52.255 --> 00:42:03.907
And without the cachet of, you know, RCA having recorded this piece for you, you know, doing one recording, it should have led to a classical recording contract form.

00:42:04.306 --> 00:42:05.869
You asked about other players.

00:42:06.309 --> 00:42:11.454
The thing that's missing from most classical playing that I hear is power.

00:42:11.635 --> 00:42:15.199
And when I say that, I'm talking about it's the sound.

00:42:15.398 --> 00:42:23.268
It's the separation between somebody who's like an amateur player or an orchestral player and somebody who's a soloist.

00:42:23.467 --> 00:42:25.250
The soloists have power.

00:42:25.369 --> 00:42:26.331
They have sound.

00:42:26.590 --> 00:42:36.942
Now, people look at me because I'm playing a CBH 2016 Hohner, and that's a discontinued harmonica, but it's the only one that I know of that responds to power.

00:42:37.143 --> 00:42:38.543
I'm going to play something here for you.

00:42:38.543 --> 00:42:40.248
This is the opening to the Villa Lobos.

00:42:40.710 --> 00:42:42.414
Generally, when I hear it, people are like...

00:42:49.311 --> 00:42:50.253
It sounds like that.

00:42:50.293 --> 00:42:52.639
Now you will hear me crank...

00:43:15.938 --> 00:43:18.059
That's the opening to the Villa Lobos.

00:43:18.320 --> 00:43:19.280
It's a concerto.

00:43:19.380 --> 00:43:20.382
You're the soloist.

00:43:21.163 --> 00:43:22.463
And I just don't hear it.

00:43:22.684 --> 00:43:23.784
I don't hear it in the playing.

00:43:23.905 --> 00:43:27.847
First of all, there's a whole bunch of articulation that's not being presented.

00:43:28.168 --> 00:43:33.592
A whole bunch of knowledge of where you are, how you play, what the first note's supposed to sound like.

00:43:33.974 --> 00:43:37.396
Classically, I'm not talking about, I'm not talking about Toots.

00:43:37.597 --> 00:43:39.117
Toots, he had a sound.

00:43:39.378 --> 00:43:40.338
And it's a jazz sound.

00:43:40.498 --> 00:43:41.679
This is not a jazz sound.

00:43:41.840 --> 00:43:43.621
You don't want to sound like this when you're playing jazz.

00:43:43.661 --> 00:43:45.083
You sound like this when you're playing jazz.

00:43:45.123 --> 00:43:46.505
It's whale over the top.

00:43:46.664 --> 00:43:47.965
It's not meant to be.

00:43:48.166 --> 00:43:51.469
And toots has a specific sound which matches the genre.

00:43:51.568 --> 00:43:52.530
So how do you do this?

00:43:52.829 --> 00:44:02.518
If you practice your scales and arpeggios and keep getting louder and faster over a period of about 10 years, your sound will start to open up.

00:44:02.739 --> 00:44:04.800
You will start to get more and more power.

00:44:05.081 --> 00:44:11.065
What you do is you bring the note just up to the point where it's going to balk and then you back off.

00:44:11.385 --> 00:44:12.847
And it's like going up a ladder.

00:44:12.987 --> 00:44:15.670
You get louder and louder and louder.

00:44:15.873 --> 00:44:18.556
Every time you get louder, the sound gets diffuse.

00:44:18.896 --> 00:44:20.378
It spreads out like shouting.

00:44:20.577 --> 00:44:25.322
So then you learn how to focus that top sound, that the new louder sound.

00:44:25.481 --> 00:44:28.405
Now you have that sound focused and then you get louder again.

00:44:28.465 --> 00:44:29.246
It's unfocused.

00:44:29.365 --> 00:44:33.628
And then you learn how to focus that sound so that it carries to the back of the hall.

00:44:33.869 --> 00:44:39.974
And so the whole object is trying to get louder and focused and louder and focused up the ladder.

00:44:40.255 --> 00:44:42.097
And it's not an easy process.

00:44:42.416 --> 00:44:45.018
If you really do the work, it will happen.

00:44:45.480 --> 00:44:45.840
I've read about it.

00:44:45.840 --> 00:44:51.009
Are you being very keen on not using microphones to play with the harmonica linked to the subject?

00:44:51.269 --> 00:44:51.990
Nobody else is

00:44:52.070 --> 00:44:53.253
playing the harmonica.

00:44:53.333 --> 00:44:55.376
They're playing the amplified harmonica.

00:44:55.617 --> 00:45:00.987
You give me a mic and I turn that sucker up and then I EQ the thing and I put in an echo and everything.

00:45:01.327 --> 00:45:04.213
I can sound loud as hell and I'm only playing like...

00:45:05.250 --> 00:45:05.690
this.

00:45:05.911 --> 00:45:07.891
And you go like, I can barely hear that.

00:45:07.972 --> 00:45:09.454
Yeah, of course you can barely hear that.

00:45:09.753 --> 00:45:13.396
But when I turn that up to 11, I'm going to get some massive sound.

00:45:13.597 --> 00:45:16.260
As a matter of fact, mics don't like my sound.

00:45:16.460 --> 00:45:17.860
Pavarotti had the sound.

00:45:18.021 --> 00:45:22.405
You ask him to sing loud, he can sing enough to bury an orchestra.

00:45:22.625 --> 00:45:26.228
But you mic him, and it's going to sound really strained.

00:45:26.427 --> 00:45:32.534
Because that sound has to be brought down in volume to the point where the mic can hear it without distorting.

00:45:32.634 --> 00:45:34.034
Especially if you close mic it.

00:45:34.114 --> 00:45:38.940
So then in order to mic that really sounds like Pavarotti, you got to mic him from far away.

00:45:39.119 --> 00:45:43.123
And when you mic somebody from far away, it sounds like they're singing in a closet far away.

00:45:43.304 --> 00:45:49.931
So they had to learn a micing technique that was close mic, but had a specific sound to it.

00:45:50.311 --> 00:45:54.697
And Pavarotti had to learn that type of singing for the studio.

00:45:54.876 --> 00:45:56.498
It's not the same as the opera.

00:45:56.619 --> 00:45:57.260
Same as me.

00:45:57.380 --> 00:46:03.405
You know, I mean, you get a lot of extraneous sounds when you're playing in a studio that you don't hear outside.

00:46:03.746 --> 00:46:07.050
Grunts and sniffs and and air and all kinds of stuff.

00:46:07.190 --> 00:46:13.016
When I played the Villa Lobos and recorded it, I had to learn how to play down a little bit some places.

00:46:13.137 --> 00:46:16.039
So we wouldn't be hearing breath regulation.

00:46:16.300 --> 00:46:22.465
So a question I ask each time, Robert, is if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

00:46:22.487 --> 00:46:23.286
10 minutes?

00:46:24.047 --> 00:46:29.853
I practiced maybe two to three hours for the last 40, 50 years.

00:46:29.914 --> 00:46:30.835
I don't know, 40 years.

00:46:31.315 --> 00:46:33.617
At some point, I was practicing 12 hours a day.

00:46:33.637 --> 00:46:34.920
So what would it do?

00:46:35.119 --> 00:46:36.561
This is classical, okay?

00:46:36.842 --> 00:46:39.684
I set my practice times up this way with student.

00:46:39.824 --> 00:46:42.807
You're going to practice one quarter of your time on scales and arpeggios.

00:46:43.309 --> 00:46:46.251
Then you're going to practice to some kind of etude.

00:46:46.472 --> 00:46:51.436
An etude might be something like if I'm using a biting technique as an articulation.

00:46:51.637 --> 00:46:54.079
So biting is where you bring the mouth down.

00:46:54.340 --> 00:47:02.208
It gives you a definite percussive sound when you start a note and is using the air from the diaphragm to give you that support.

00:47:02.409 --> 00:47:04.791
But it doesn't really require support.

00:47:04.952 --> 00:47:07.155
It's Just means that you're going to force that air out.

00:47:07.456 --> 00:47:11.481
All

00:47:11.882 --> 00:47:13.204
right, so there's a bite sound.

00:47:13.284 --> 00:47:18.152
What I might do for the second thing would be some kind of etude.

00:47:18.411 --> 00:47:19.813
All

00:47:31.452 --> 00:47:32.893
right, so that's a bite etude.

00:47:33.057 --> 00:47:38.702
So an etude, to explain, is a piece of music to practice a particular technique.

00:47:38.742 --> 00:47:39.284
Technique.

00:47:39.443 --> 00:47:44.007
So if it's a tonguing etude, you're tonguing for the one quarter of the tongue.

00:47:44.188 --> 00:47:46.610
So there are corner switch etudes.

00:47:46.791 --> 00:47:49.673
There are etudes which involve biting.

00:47:49.713 --> 00:47:55.179
There are etudes which involve some kind of octave etude or octave leap etude.

00:47:55.478 --> 00:47:57.061
You know what I mean by an octave leap.

00:47:57.400 --> 00:47:58.362
It's where you would go...

00:48:04.097 --> 00:48:05.119
That's an octave leap.

00:48:05.298 --> 00:48:06.739
And what you're doing is corner switching.

00:48:07.081 --> 00:48:11.123
And it might be the whole, you know, you might play scales in octave leaps.

00:48:11.184 --> 00:48:13.405
All right, that's an A2.

00:48:13.626 --> 00:48:17.590
So it's just involving one technique and beating it to death.

00:48:17.750 --> 00:48:18.630
That's the second thing.

00:48:18.731 --> 00:48:20.032
First, scales, arpeggios.

00:48:20.231 --> 00:48:22.213
Second thing, some kind of technical A2.

00:48:22.454 --> 00:48:23.614
Third thing, duet.

00:48:23.914 --> 00:48:28.599
A duet is a piece that you're going to play with another live musician, not with your computer.

00:48:28.679 --> 00:48:34.063
You're going to play with another live musician because live musicians, if they're really good, they use time.

00:48:34.063 --> 00:48:35.985
as a way of emotion.

00:48:36.146 --> 00:48:42.132
So they speed things up and slow it down and you have to be able to follow them and then they have to follow you and you speed up and slow down.

00:48:42.432 --> 00:48:45.635
So duets give you the ability to play with another person.

00:48:45.876 --> 00:48:48.458
And then the fourth thing you're going to do is work on a piece.

00:48:48.860 --> 00:48:58.971
So you split your things up into scales and arpeggios, technical, etude, duet of some kind or another, so you're playing with somebody, and fourth thing is a piece.

00:48:59.371 --> 00:49:13.226
Let's say that's a harmonica concerto or a Bach piece or whatever, something that's going to require you to practice a long time, but the satisfaction will be at the end of it, you'll be playing something that you can actually play for other people.

00:49:13.565 --> 00:49:15.628
Those are the way I split four things up.

00:49:15.648 --> 00:49:17.389
We'll talk a little bit about gear now.

00:49:17.409 --> 00:49:19.211
So you mentioned the chromatic, your choice.

00:49:19.391 --> 00:49:20.574
CBH 2016.

00:49:20.653 --> 00:49:23.297
So you say that harmonica isn't available anymore?

00:49:23.536 --> 00:49:23.697
No.

00:49:23.856 --> 00:49:29.302
I mean, basically what happened was this chromatic was designed so that all the air went into each chamber.

00:49:29.663 --> 00:49:36.150
If you play other chromatics, you can look at them and about a quarter of the hole is is where the air goes into the slide.

00:49:36.289 --> 00:49:39.514
So you get resistance at the mouthpiece, and that means the mouthpiece leaks.

00:49:39.833 --> 00:49:45.780
This actually is where the mouthpiece gives you full bore into each chamber.

00:49:46.021 --> 00:49:51.085
And then there are also, each chamber is separated from the other chambers.

00:49:51.266 --> 00:49:58.835
So what you end up with is an instrument that if you cup it in the high register, you don't have air leakage down in the low register.

00:49:58.855 --> 00:50:02.318
And if you cup it in the low register, you don't have air leakage in the high register.

00:50:02.498 --> 00:50:10.206
So you can actually play cup to open and close muted and use hand vibrato any place you want without losing the hand vibrato.

00:50:10.485 --> 00:50:17.954
And the reason I also play 2016 is the only instrument that has power and where I can really crank it, especially in the low register.

00:50:18.014 --> 00:50:18.534
If I'm a...

00:50:22.217 --> 00:50:25.420
You play these notes on a regular...

00:50:25.460 --> 00:50:29.045
They're not going to come out.

00:50:29.865 --> 00:50:30.365
You know?

00:50:30.818 --> 00:50:32.626
It's

00:50:32.706 --> 00:50:34.253
just the power that you can get.

00:50:34.293 --> 00:50:37.887
So a lot of times when I hear the regular harmonicas, they sound like...

00:50:39.554 --> 00:50:42.076
You know, like this, when you want to hear

00:50:45.018 --> 00:50:45.278
that.

00:50:45.518 --> 00:50:47.360
So how do you get these harmonicas now they're not available?

00:50:47.380 --> 00:50:49.382
Have you got lots of them or are you getting them repaired?

00:50:49.782 --> 00:50:51.083
I have the bodies and

00:50:51.103 --> 00:50:55.327
then they're just screwing in our plates and they're now going to discontinue the plate.

00:50:55.507 --> 00:50:57.208
So I bought a bunch of them.

00:50:57.650 --> 00:50:59.590
I don't know whether they'll last the rest of my life.

00:50:59.690 --> 00:51:01.932
If they don't, then I start replacing reeds on.

00:51:02.253 --> 00:51:03.974
I have maybe two, three hundred sets of plates.

00:51:04.295 --> 00:51:07.077
I break reeds a lot because I play the hell out of the instrument.

00:51:07.338 --> 00:51:08.458
And so you break reeds.

00:51:08.918 --> 00:51:09.000
Yeah.

00:51:09.019 --> 00:51:10.780
And these are all 16 holes that you're playing?

00:51:11.001 --> 00:51:14.746
16 hole because in the Villa Lobos you have this...

00:51:14.985 --> 00:51:31.445
And then it

00:51:31.485 --> 00:51:39.293
goes...

00:51:41.250 --> 00:51:45.213
Well, you had to play that run down to the whole end of that cadenza.

00:51:52.420 --> 00:51:53.461
Into the low C.

00:51:54.163 --> 00:51:55.043
What about embouchure?

00:51:55.143 --> 00:51:58.266
I think you use a few different types of embouchure, don't you, to get your different sounds?

00:51:58.967 --> 00:52:00.789
This whole discussion of,

00:52:01.090 --> 00:52:03.172
do you play pucker or do you play tongue block?

00:52:03.432 --> 00:52:08.657
It's like saying, well, do you play pizzicato or can you play full bow on a violin?

00:52:09.057 --> 00:52:14.876
If you play in pucker position, then your tongue is free behind your teeth to say tuh.

00:52:16.884 --> 00:52:20.315
You know, you can't do that, well I can, in tongue block.

00:52:20.596 --> 00:52:21.960
I've actually developed a way to...

00:52:23.842 --> 00:52:26.545
tongue out of both sides of my mouth.

00:52:26.865 --> 00:52:37.199
If you play in pucker position, especially if you're playing a chord, you can use ta or a whole bunch of other syllables to get articulations.

00:52:37.501 --> 00:52:39.443
On the other hand, you can't switch corners.

00:52:40.804 --> 00:52:45.210
That's going left-right, so the switch corner thing is not available.

00:52:45.791 --> 00:52:49.958
And how are you going to play passages which have octaves or octaves with a third?

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

00:53:09.217 --> 00:53:12.702
So there's a whole bunch of tongue block things that are necessary.

00:53:13.061 --> 00:53:14.684
Of course, any kind of vamping.

00:53:15.043 --> 00:53:16.505
The cherp and you come down and...

00:53:16.565 --> 00:53:29.039
All right.

00:53:29.059 --> 00:53:32.943
So right there, I've gone from playing a tongue block with a vamp.

00:53:33.125 --> 00:53:33.885
And then when I play...

00:53:35.329 --> 00:53:40.315
That's just pucker position with chords, and I'm actually using a bite or tongue to do that.

00:53:40.496 --> 00:53:44.240
So you have to be able to play pucker, and you have to be able to play.

00:53:44.380 --> 00:53:45.682
You get different sounds.

00:53:45.842 --> 00:53:47.585
Pucker is a more pinch sound.

00:53:47.625 --> 00:53:52.190
When you play the harmonica, whatever sound your face makes is what comes out of the instrument.

00:53:52.431 --> 00:53:56.936
If I say hello, hello comes out of the instrument.

00:53:57.077 --> 00:54:03.284
So when you're playing in pucker position, just like if you talked in pucker position, all of a sudden that's the tonal color.

00:54:04.186 --> 00:54:04.286
Hello.

00:54:04.865 --> 00:54:07.496
If you go O and play in tongue...

00:54:10.407 --> 00:54:12.335
So you get a different sound between the two.

00:54:12.516 --> 00:54:14.322
And the further up the register...

00:54:15.297 --> 00:54:18.019
the more pinched that the pucker position is going to sound.

00:54:18.201 --> 00:54:21.342
But if that's the sound you want, toots use it the whole time.

00:54:21.543 --> 00:54:24.666
So if you're playing jazz, I would not suggest using tongue block.

00:54:24.925 --> 00:54:29.550
And then you have the tongue free to go, you know, ta-ta-ta-ta-ta or ta-ka-ta-ka-ta-ka or whatever.

00:54:29.831 --> 00:54:31.092
So that is pucker.

00:54:31.251 --> 00:54:32.893
Some people play in U-block.

00:54:33.213 --> 00:54:34.454
It's not one I would teach.

00:54:34.695 --> 00:54:37.297
I teach right away how to play right side, then left side.

00:54:37.737 --> 00:54:38.858
That said, I can play it.

00:54:38.898 --> 00:54:46.244
The problem is if you use a U-block, you can hear just drawing in, you get a very pinch sound.

00:54:46.585 --> 00:54:48.827
It can sound really great if that's the sound you want.

00:54:49.007 --> 00:54:50.869
I think it's kind of what Stevie Wonder does.

00:54:51.269 --> 00:54:52.331
He plays puckered or you...

00:54:52.831 --> 00:54:54.793
Using the embouchures to suit what sound you get.

00:54:55.074 --> 00:54:57.297
And to suit what kind of music you gotta play.

00:54:58.057 --> 00:55:00.721
It's the same as chromatic and diatonic.

00:55:01.061 --> 00:55:02.521
Use the axe, it works.

00:55:02.882 --> 00:55:07.487
I can't believe when these people try to play classical music on a diatonic bending note.

00:55:07.708 --> 00:55:08.829
It's out of tune.

00:55:09.190 --> 00:55:15.215
And intonation, you know, you listen to a Toots concert, the whole concert, there's not one stinking note out of the harmonica.

00:55:15.215 --> 00:55:16.476
that's out of tune.

00:55:16.978 --> 00:55:19.280
Final question then, let's talk about the future plans.

00:55:19.360 --> 00:55:22.963
Hopefully things are opening up now and you're able to get out doing concerts.

00:55:22.983 --> 00:55:24.085
So have you got anything lined up?

00:55:24.326 --> 00:55:25.286
We're all starting.

00:55:25.507 --> 00:55:27.009
I have a sneaking suspicion.

00:55:27.048 --> 00:55:29.851
There are a lot of summer festival things.

00:55:30.152 --> 00:55:32.393
I might be doing stuff outdoors.

00:55:32.715 --> 00:55:33.516
Do you want to know the truth?

00:55:33.675 --> 00:55:34.556
Nobody knows.

00:55:35.016 --> 00:55:35.878
Are we going to be playing?

00:55:36.157 --> 00:55:37.500
How far apart are we going to have to?

00:55:37.519 --> 00:55:40.043
I will say I'm on the other side of the fence now.

00:55:40.302 --> 00:55:41.704
I've had both my vaccine.

00:55:41.905 --> 00:55:43.126
So I'm done too.

00:55:43.465 --> 00:55:45.128
COVID upended the whole world.

00:55:45.168 --> 00:55:53.516
All I can say is that I think, I hope that we do that concerto harmonica, which was with the Atlanta Ballet, the Cherpinin Concerto.

00:55:53.697 --> 00:55:54.797
I love that piece.

00:55:54.998 --> 00:55:56.179
I love playing that piece.

00:55:56.440 --> 00:55:57.260
That would be great.

00:55:57.340 --> 00:55:58.101
And it's danced.

00:55:58.541 --> 00:55:59.463
It's a work of art.

00:55:59.804 --> 00:56:01.065
Yeah, that's my job.

00:56:01.344 --> 00:56:03.507
When somebody says, well, what do you do in the harmonica?

00:56:03.688 --> 00:56:04.628
It's art music.

00:56:05.068 --> 00:56:06.411
That's what the audience wants.

00:56:06.971 --> 00:56:07.952
But I will say this.

00:56:08.193 --> 00:56:09.153
I really love doing it.

00:56:09.494 --> 00:56:11.996
I still love practicing and playing the harmonica every

00:56:12.016 --> 00:56:12.197
day.

00:56:12.356 --> 00:56:15.119
Great to hear you've still got that passion to practice hours every day.

00:56:15.119 --> 00:56:16.460
Yeah, it's who I am.

00:56:16.481 --> 00:56:16.521
So

00:56:16.902 --> 00:56:23.228
have you been using the time over the last year during the lockdowns to, you know, you've been working on anything particular or practicing lots?

00:56:23.668 --> 00:56:28.795
A lot of practice, thousands of hours on the Cherpnin Harmonica Concerto.

00:56:28.855 --> 00:56:36.643
Then I did record the Hovhannes Harmonica Concerto and I did record Hovhannes folk dances and I recorded a Natalie song and dance.

00:56:36.902 --> 00:56:38.445
We have to add the strings to that.

00:56:38.485 --> 00:56:41.088
It's the first time I've ever done anything isolated.

00:56:41.288 --> 00:56:44.831
It was a bit of a challenge, but it turned out great.

00:56:45.012 --> 00:56:46.172
You You've got a home studio there.

00:56:46.434 --> 00:56:46.653
Yeah.

00:56:46.934 --> 00:56:50.559
I knocked out a couple of closets in an apartment in New York City.

00:56:51.179 --> 00:56:53.041
So what microphone are you using to record yourself?

00:56:53.282 --> 00:56:57.547
I have a Neumann TLM-103 to record.

00:56:57.847 --> 00:57:02.894
The best recording mics for classical harmonica, if you ask me, are still the U87.

00:57:03.375 --> 00:57:07.139
When I did all of those recordings, we did a stereo, a pair of U87s.

00:57:07.280 --> 00:57:09.563
That's what they recorded me at the Gewandhaus with.

00:57:10.003 --> 00:57:11.304
Neumann U87.

00:57:12.130 --> 00:57:15.893
If you get a good microphone, it's unbelievable.

00:57:16.112 --> 00:57:20.878
I am now recording just so I can, an Apogee Duet USB interface.

00:57:21.077 --> 00:57:28.423
But if you want a great mic, the Blue SETI is a USB mic that plugs right into your computer.

00:57:28.744 --> 00:57:33.347
It's a great sound and you can probably get one for about$100,$110.

00:57:33.909 --> 00:57:44.257
When I am playing out, anytime, like if we do any trio gigs or where I play any kind of, Greg Hoyman built me a Shure Sure 58, which is small.

00:57:44.297 --> 00:57:46.119
He has one which has a volume pedal.

00:57:46.360 --> 00:57:50.144
Outdoors, you know, Sure 58 or 57, you can't beat them.

00:57:50.184 --> 00:57:51.885
And I know there are some imitations of them.

00:57:51.947 --> 00:57:53.208
They probably work just as well.

00:57:53.809 --> 00:57:58.534
I can't remember which ones there are, but that Sure 58 from him is just fantastic.

00:57:58.634 --> 00:58:02.378
It sounds like you're in the studio and you're outdoors, you know, so that's a great mic.

00:58:02.697 --> 00:58:10.226
On the blue side, when on the Elvis, I have a Valco Supra amp, I think 1951.

00:58:10.465 --> 00:58:11.246
I have two of them.

00:58:11.728 --> 00:58:15.452
One is is actually a six-volt Jensen speaker DC.

00:58:15.612 --> 00:58:17.753
But the other one is the Bantham.

00:58:18.094 --> 00:58:20.376
It has three tubes, weighs about five pounds.

00:58:20.456 --> 00:58:27.565
Great just to bring and then use a mic to mic the amp because you can put it in the overhead on a plane and you can carry it with your little finger.

00:58:28.105 --> 00:58:33.110
I have a bullet mic that's handmade and it has a volume pedal on it.

00:58:33.371 --> 00:58:33.951
Great sound.

00:58:34.391 --> 00:58:41.719
Thanks so much, Robert Bonfilio, for speaking to us today and giving a great insight into the world of classical music on the harmonica as well as other forms of music, of course.

00:58:41.739 --> 00:58:42.000
So thank you.

00:58:42.000 --> 00:58:42.460
Thanks very much.

00:58:43.001 --> 00:58:44.061
You're more than welcome.

00:58:44.422 --> 00:58:45.384
It was a blast.

00:58:45.603 --> 00:58:46.204
Thanks, Neil.

00:58:47.246 --> 00:58:49.128
That's it for episode 35, everybody.

00:58:49.568 --> 00:58:55.034
Thanks so much to Robert Bonfilio for giving us a fascinating insight into the world of classical chromatic harmonica.

00:58:55.434 --> 00:59:00.059
And thanks once again to Roger Trowbridge helping me out with some of the research material for the episode.

00:59:00.320 --> 00:59:01.902
Doing a great job out there still, Roger.

00:59:01.942 --> 00:59:02.302
Thank you.

00:59:02.702 --> 00:59:04.965
Robert, play us out with those beautiful sounds.

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

00:59:39.617 --> 00:59:42.365
Thank you.