Sept. 1, 2021

Tony Eyers interview

Tony Eyers interview
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Season 1 Diatonic Harmonica Blues Harmonica Group Harmonica Irish Harmonica

Tony Eyers joins me on episode 45.
Tony is an Australian who first picked up the harmonica while studying at Yale in the US. Returning from America he started a successful blues band in Adelaide.
He also plays baroque recorder, and has been part of an ensemble for 25 years, which has helped shape his sound on harmonica.
In the mid-90s he became interested in playing fiddle music and developed the Major Cross tuning for the diatonic, now available through Seydel.
Tony has several successful harmonica teaching websites, including the Harmonica Academy.
And also has his own harmonica trio for which he has released numerous YouTube videos, where he maintains the great tradition of comedy in the harmonica ensemble.


Links:

Teaching website:
https://www.harmonicaacademy.com

Spanish version:
https://armonica.com.es

Harmonica Tunes website:
http://harmonicatunes.com/

Recorder teaching site:
https://learnrecorder.com

Major Cross Harp Tuning:
https://www.seydel1847.de/major-cross

Taiwan tour in 2010:
http://harmonicatunes.com/tony-eyers-taiwan-harmonica-tour/

Tony Eyers trio formation story:
http://harmonicatunes.com/tony-eyers-harmonica-trio/


Videos:
Jim Fitting:
https://youtu.be/sGpBxepQx7Q

Tony Eyers Trio - Jerusalem Ridge:
https://youtu.be/cEWJtrPAtLw

Tremolo playing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWr2qusnfu8

Tony Eyers Trio with button accordions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYhG5FnjRGA

Tony’s Fifties Busking trio:
http://thefifties.com.au/watch/

Tony explains Major Cross tuning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Fn6nfMAbuA


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

01:04 - Tony is Australian, and the harmonica scene there, including Jim Conway

01:58 - First time when heard harmonicas was going to see Sonny Terry play in the 1970s

02:41 - Was a competitive swimmer, which took up his time as a teenager

03:21 - Tony started playing harmonica when he met Jim Flitting at Yale in the US

04:57 - First started learning playing at a festival after someone explained how to play in different keys

06:11 - Formed a blues band when returned to Australia, inspired by Al Smith playing with Hollywood Fats

08:45 - Tony started out as a blues player and was influenced by the classic players

09:46 - Also plays baroque recorder, inspired by classical guitarist Andres Segovia playing Bach

10:55 - Has played in a baroque ensemble for 25 years

12:18 - How recorder playing has influenced approach to harmonica

13:16 - Doesn’t play any chromatic harmonica but plays the baroque pieces on recorder as duets with chromatic players

15:07 - In the 1990s took a break from music while completing PhD

16:30 - Picked up the harmonica again to learn fiddle tunes after going to a Bluegrass festival

18:11 - Brendan Power provided inspiration that fiddle tunes can be played on harmonica

19:20 - Tony developed the Major Cross tuning

21:47 - How he uses the Major Cross tuning for tunes and comparison with Paddy Richter tuning

25:56 - How Major Cross tuning was taken on by Seydel as part of their Session Steel range, with Tony’s name on it

28:37 - Tony also plays some tremolo harmonica

29:49 - Releases regular videos of the Tony Eyers trio (consisting of three Tony Eyers!), including a comedy element in the great tradition of harmonica bands

31:00 - Ran a teaching website in China which led on to Tony becoming a judge at Asia Pacific Harmonica festival

33:54 - Black Mountain Harmonica album

37:09 - Another album is in the pipeline

38:38 - Played in an Australian Bluegrass band called The Lawnmowers

39:19 - Likes to get out onto the street busking with a trio that he is in

40:08 - Plays some harmonica on a rack with guitar and button accordion

40:55 - Some good racks to use with the harmonica

41:56 - Tony’s harmonica teaching websites, starting in China, then English Harmonica Academy

45:09 - Also has a Spanish, Portuguese and German language version of his teaching websites

45:54 - Runs a playing recorder website teaching site too

47:35 - Put a lot of effort into creating his harmonica teaching websites

48:28 - 10 minute question

49:07 - Approach to learning tunes

51:00 - Playing with fantastic overblow players at SPAH who can read baroque scores on diatonic

52:26 - Overblows

52:53 - What harmonicas Tony plays

54:04 - Favourite keys of diatonic to play tunes

54:15 - Mic of choice is the Audix Fireball

54:31 - RackIt harmonica holder and mic from Blows Me Away

55:20 - Tony builds his own amps

56:02 - AER amp used for clean sound

57:09 - Mics used for recording

57:42 - Future plans

WEBVTT

00:00:00.130 --> 00:00:02.072
Tony Urs joins me on episode 45.

00:00:03.012 --> 00:00:07.338
Tony is an Australian who first picked up the harmonica while studying at Yale in the US.

00:00:07.878 --> 00:00:11.342
Returning from America, he started a successful blues band in Adelaide.

00:00:12.064 --> 00:00:19.172
Tony also plays baroque recorder and has been part of an ensemble for 25 years, which has helped shaped his sound and harmonica.

00:00:19.972 --> 00:00:27.602
In the mid-90s, he became interested in playing fiddle music and developed the major cross-tuning for the diatonic, now available through Seidel.

00:00:28.385 --> 00:00:33.030
Tony has several successful harmonica teaching websites including the Harmonica Academy.

00:00:33.810 --> 00:00:42.780
Tony has his own harmonica trio for which he has released numerous YouTube videos and maintains the great tradition of comedy in the harmonica ensemble.

00:00:53.250 --> 00:00:55.072
Hello Tony Errs and welcome to the podcast.

00:00:55.652 --> 00:00:57.073
Hello Neil, nice to be here.

00:00:57.442 --> 00:00:59.365
You're joining us from Sydney, Australia today.

00:00:59.384 --> 00:01:00.485
That's right.

00:01:00.786 --> 00:01:04.251
Spring's about to start here and it's 6pm in the evening.

00:01:04.831 --> 00:01:05.253
So what's the

00:01:05.393 --> 00:01:06.834
harmonica scene like in Australia?

00:01:07.536 --> 00:01:10.198
Fairly widely spread, as Australia is.

00:01:10.218 --> 00:01:14.665
So there are good players, but we don't run into each other very much.

00:01:15.585 --> 00:01:17.468
Most of them are in Melbourne and I'm in Sydney.

00:01:17.509 --> 00:01:25.019
I'm fortunate in that I live around the corner from Jim Conway, who's probably Australia's best love player.

00:01:27.001 --> 00:01:27.102
MUSIC

00:01:42.242 --> 00:01:55.272
80s he toured with brownie mcgee and had his own bands which got gold records uh jim's had ms since the late 1980s so he doesn't play anymore but he's a national treasure and i'm very glad to know jim

00:01:55.894 --> 00:02:01.058
great and so you mentioned brownie mcgee there so you you saw sonny terry play in the 1970s i understand

00:02:01.138 --> 00:02:14.311
yeah uh 74 maybe it was 1975 they came to australia and toured they were on the news as soon as you heard them on the tv and i remember hearing them they were so wonderful that we had to see them play.

00:02:14.350 --> 00:02:16.693
So we went to see them in the Adelaide Town Hall.

00:02:16.954 --> 00:02:20.117
That's the first time that I can remember hearing the harmonica played.

00:02:20.157 --> 00:02:24.143
And did that inspire you to go and dig out other blues harmonica records?

00:02:24.704 --> 00:02:25.264
No, it didn't.

00:02:25.525 --> 00:02:30.611
So at that stage, I was very much, I guess, in the glam rock phase of my life.

00:02:30.632 --> 00:02:36.560
I listened to Slade and Elton John and Australian bands like Sherbert.

00:02:36.580 --> 00:02:38.162
So no, not at all.

00:02:38.282 --> 00:02:40.849
I In fact, I probably didn't even know what blues was.

00:02:40.990 --> 00:02:46.960
And, you know, at that stage, sort of as a 16-year-old, music wasn't in my life, or at least not as a player.

00:02:47.099 --> 00:02:48.643
You know, I was a competitive swimmer.

00:02:48.782 --> 00:02:50.986
That's sort of what my life revolved around.

00:02:51.687 --> 00:02:52.449
I wanted to play.

00:02:52.490 --> 00:02:54.753
I remember that clearly, but at that stage I didn't.

00:02:55.105 --> 00:02:59.631
Yeah, competitive swimming, that involves getting up ridiculously early in the morning, doesn't it?

00:02:59.651 --> 00:03:01.973
And swimming for several hours, as I understand.

00:03:01.992 --> 00:03:03.335
It did, yeah.

00:03:03.694 --> 00:03:05.717
So I'd train 13 times a week.

00:03:05.837 --> 00:03:09.540
And in peak training, I'd swim 16 kilometers a day.

00:03:09.581 --> 00:03:12.405
So I won an Australian title when I was 16.

00:03:12.664 --> 00:03:14.205
So I was serious about it.

00:03:14.586 --> 00:03:16.929
I didn't leave room for many other things, really.

00:03:16.949 --> 00:03:21.213
I'm sure it put your lungs in good shape for playing the harmonica later.

00:03:21.253 --> 00:03:24.037
So when did you start picking up the harmonica?

00:03:24.518 --> 00:03:24.737
Well...

00:03:25.090 --> 00:03:25.811
The swimming

00:03:25.850 --> 00:03:30.399
got me a kind of a scholarship to Yale University.

00:03:30.419 --> 00:03:38.133
So in 1975, I showed up there as an undergraduate, which is the experience of a lifetime for any young person.

00:03:38.173 --> 00:03:40.497
And the thing about Yale is...

00:03:41.409 --> 00:03:42.771
that it changes you.

00:03:42.951 --> 00:03:45.215
And it changes you because of the people that you meet.

00:03:45.496 --> 00:03:47.397
And when I was there, I met Jim Fitting.

00:03:47.718 --> 00:03:50.401
He was a classmate and became a friend.

00:03:50.421 --> 00:03:53.967
A wonderful, wonderful player back then and now.

00:03:54.467 --> 00:03:56.670
You know, he plays with Session Americana.

00:03:57.072 --> 00:03:58.954
Prior to that, he played with Trita Wright.

00:04:01.657 --> 00:04:01.758
MUSIC

00:04:11.169 --> 00:04:16.899
Jim was just so wonderful that, you know, you'd watch him and just want to do what he did.

00:04:16.939 --> 00:04:20.504
It's just the sound that he had, the physicality of how he played.

00:04:20.663 --> 00:04:22.166
That, I guess, got me interested.

00:04:22.187 --> 00:04:26.894
It wasn't until the end of my second year at Yale when I'd finished swimming.

00:04:26.913 --> 00:04:35.867
I actually took a year off and went feral, you know, groomed my hair and hitchhiked around the place and did all those young person things.

00:04:36.208 --> 00:04:39.392
And that's when I actually started playing the harmonica.

00:04:40.225 --> 00:04:43.091
Did you take a harmonica on the road when you were hitchhiking around?

00:04:43.572 --> 00:04:43.971
I did.

00:04:44.213 --> 00:04:55.411
And I can't remember when I got one, but I remember being able to play Click Go The Shears, which is an Australian folk tune, which takes a bit of mobility around the harmonica.

00:04:55.430 --> 00:04:58.115
But I remember going to music festivals.

00:04:58.175 --> 00:05:01.341
At that stage, I was 19 and I was desperate to be able to play.

00:05:01.661 --> 00:05:06.629
And I remember trying to sit around campfires and trying to play and just sounding horrible.

00:05:06.882 --> 00:05:09.697
And being convinced that I didn't have any music in me.

00:05:10.098 --> 00:05:12.028
And then I went to a festival in New Zealand.

00:05:12.069 --> 00:05:13.274
I hitchhiked around New Zealand.

00:05:13.536 --> 00:05:14.098
And there was a...

00:05:14.786 --> 00:05:16.827
A moment there which changed my life.

00:05:16.968 --> 00:05:33.482
I was hanging around a campsite with people playing and someone had a cigar box full of harmonicas and they explained the thing of music keys and the thing of second position and the fact that if you played in the key of E, I didn't know what a key was, you had to have a harmonica in the key of A.

00:05:33.762 --> 00:05:38.125
And the thing which changed my life is they gave me harmonicas to play and I could play.

00:05:38.165 --> 00:05:44.091
And it was like this huge light bulb went on and there was a stage there which we got on.

00:05:44.110 --> 00:05:45.694
There's a festival at about a thousand people.

00:05:46.096 --> 00:05:51.857
So literally the day or the day after I started playing, I was on stage and I sort of, in a sense, I haven't gotten off.

00:05:52.639 --> 00:05:53.903
My life changed in that day.

00:05:54.754 --> 00:05:58.317
I was immediately obsessed, even though I had no money whatsoever.

00:05:58.336 --> 00:06:02.261
I went out and bought myself a set of harmonicas and played them continuously.

00:06:02.300 --> 00:06:11.327
Immediately decided that I was wonderful, as young people do, and was probably a thorough pest.

00:06:11.788 --> 00:06:14.810
I was very fortunate, though, that I got back to Australia.

00:06:15.112 --> 00:06:17.213
I'm from Adelaide, even though I live in Sydney now.

00:06:17.874 --> 00:06:21.396
And very early on, I fell in with fine players.

00:06:21.516 --> 00:06:23.218
So my brother is a fine musician.

00:06:23.918 --> 00:06:31.389
And then a few years later i formed a blues band so really the people that i played with taught me how to play just through osmosis

00:06:32.370 --> 00:06:34.432
you were the harmonica player in this band

00:06:35.052 --> 00:06:57.896
so i sort of progressed i actually went back to yale and finished my degree i studied electronics and worked in dc for a year as a programmer but i fell in with some good musicians there as well and so i just experienced the joy of music and i guess i was good enough so that people like what i did and then i In my early 20s, I got done with the United States because it was too cold.

00:06:58.437 --> 00:07:00.701
So I came back to Australia.

00:07:01.483 --> 00:07:06.653
And then someone gave me a cassette tape of the Hollywood Fats Band.

00:07:07.293 --> 00:07:15.589
It's just every now and then, and everyone's had this experience, you get a recording that changes your life, and that did.

00:07:15.610 --> 00:07:15.709
MUSIC

00:07:24.353 --> 00:07:37.730
So I just had to form a blues band, and I was lucky to have this friend, James Tysard, who was already a bass player.

00:07:37.750 --> 00:07:39.793
So we had sort of the makings of a rhythm section.

00:07:40.593 --> 00:07:46.802
And the thing which I was good at, and I'm still, I guess, good at it, was organising things and running around.

00:07:46.841 --> 00:07:53.069
So I got us a gig and then got us another one, which turned into a three- or four-year residency.

00:07:53.730 --> 00:07:59.026
So through that, because I had regular money each week, I was able to hire the best players in town.

00:07:59.065 --> 00:08:00.891
We called ourselves the Full House Blues Band.

00:08:01.211 --> 00:08:07.069
You know, when I played and particularly when I sang, people enjoyed watching really just because I enjoy it so much.

00:08:07.521 --> 00:08:09.723
So you were the main singer with this band?

00:08:10.144 --> 00:08:11.245
Yeah, well, I was the singer.

00:08:11.504 --> 00:08:14.867
And, you know, I was the band leader because, I mean, the singer generally is.

00:08:14.887 --> 00:08:18.271
And, you know, we played, I don't know, we had 150 people each week.

00:08:18.391 --> 00:08:22.254
Bikeys used to come to our gigs, which I loved because back then they loved blues.

00:08:22.314 --> 00:08:23.576
I mean, I don't know what they listen to now.

00:08:24.096 --> 00:08:29.040
Yeah, and the 1980s, particularly in Australia, was the golden age of pub rock.

00:08:29.641 --> 00:08:34.164
You know, music was played in pubs and if you went out, you'd go to somewhere where there was live music.

00:08:34.485 --> 00:08:39.799
Yeah, back then, finding a place to play and getting a residency, so much harder now.

00:08:39.820 --> 00:08:44.445
But back then it could be done and the whole music scene grew out of it and I was part of it.

00:08:44.865 --> 00:08:46.967
So obviously this is a blues band, you mentioned that.

00:08:46.988 --> 00:08:48.950
So was blues your inspiration?

00:08:49.289 --> 00:08:52.993
We'll get on to, it's not, you know, you play other sorts of music now.

00:08:53.312 --> 00:09:07.566
Back then it was, you know, I was a blues player and fortunately there was a guy in Adelaide called Greg Baker who was older than me, a very experienced player, and he took me under his wing and introduced me to Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters.

00:09:07.946 --> 00:09:09.486
I didn't know who any of these people were.

00:09:10.008 --> 00:09:26.745
And I remember at that stage, so we're talking, I guess, early, late 70s, early 80s, you could buy these double albums which were essentially reissues of chess and they're on the chess label of, you know, the classic Little Walter cuts, the classic Sonny Boy Williamson II cuts.

00:09:27.645 --> 00:09:33.792
I had the classic Muddy Waters record, which everyone gets, you know, from the 1950s, A Howling Wolf.

00:09:34.413 --> 00:09:37.015
And I listened to that stuff and listened and listened and listened.

00:09:37.515 --> 00:09:40.659
You know, I listened to a lot of blues and I guess absorbed it.

00:09:40.899 --> 00:09:46.105
Looking back, I mean, you don't get your time back, but I wish I'd actually studied a bit more of how these people actually played.

00:09:46.666 --> 00:09:51.431
And around this as well, shortly after you started playing the harmonica, you started playing the Baroque recorder.

00:09:51.451 --> 00:09:51.471
I

00:09:52.111 --> 00:09:57.538
actually played recorder in primary school and then gave it up, but always had one around and I could play green sleeves.

00:09:57.597 --> 00:10:00.159
I think even when I backpacked, I might've had one in my bag.

00:10:00.380 --> 00:10:10.071
But then when I was still in America, living in Washington, DC, I went to a secondhand record store and got this album of Andreas Segovia, you know, the classical guitar player.

00:10:10.311 --> 00:10:11.613
And it just blew my mind.

00:10:11.913 --> 00:10:13.554
So it's him playing Bach.

00:10:13.914 --> 00:10:46.611
And so I spent the night six months just listening to Bach played by him over and over and over part he sort of redid the cello suites and the violin partitas for classical guitar and he was the first classical guitarist and the greatest so I had to play that music and you know I figured I couldn't play guitar or get up to his step but I figured I had a head start and recorder so I started playing recorder and started listening to Baroque music started listening to Telemann who sort of hit me in a always been part of what I do.

00:10:46.631 --> 00:10:49.798
At some stages I studied it and I did grades.

00:10:49.859 --> 00:10:51.342
I did grade seven recorder.

00:10:51.383 --> 00:10:55.532
So that's always been part of my makeup and what I do and how I think about music.

00:10:55.711 --> 00:10:59.360
And you've been in an ensemble playing baroque for I think 25 years or so.

00:11:17.409 --> 00:11:22.193
You took this up a little bit later, performing in recorder, but yeah, you were always serious into

00:11:22.474 --> 00:11:22.553
that.

00:11:22.573 --> 00:11:29.299
I mean, the thing with recorder and sort of classical instruments, you can jam, although classical players don't tend to.

00:11:29.740 --> 00:11:34.585
But I was lucky to find music partners, particularly in the 1980s, this lady, Jane Elliott.

00:11:34.845 --> 00:11:38.148
She was a really good flute player and she took me under her wing.

00:11:38.168 --> 00:11:39.428
So we played duets together.

00:11:39.469 --> 00:11:46.315
Then I moved to Sydney in 1988 and met my Baroque soulmate, Amanda Muir.

00:11:46.615 --> 00:11:48.636
She went to the Royal College of Music in London.

00:11:49.217 --> 00:11:54.583
I met her at sort of an open music day and plucked up the courage to ask her if she wanted to do duets, and she did.

00:11:55.004 --> 00:11:58.528
And we've played together ever since, and she's a wonderful player.

00:11:58.567 --> 00:11:59.668
She plays Baroque flute.

00:11:59.908 --> 00:12:00.850
She's a soprano.

00:12:00.870 --> 00:12:04.995
So in 1995, we formed our Baroque band.

00:12:05.434 --> 00:12:11.241
Yeah, we own a harpsichord, and, you know, the players are conservatorium graduates, and we've had people coming and going over the years.

00:12:11.282 --> 00:12:18.313
But, yeah, that's what I've done sort of as almost a separate room for It's one of my music rooms, I guess you could describe it like that.

00:12:18.495 --> 00:12:23.261
Yeah, so how do you think your recorder is playing as an influence, your harmonica playing?

00:12:23.623 --> 00:12:29.631
Probably in the way that I do recordings, the way that I do arrangements.

00:12:30.833 --> 00:12:36.062
In terms of, I guess, precision, with Baroque music, you have to be precise.

00:12:36.225 --> 00:12:37.347
totally precise.

00:12:38.028 --> 00:12:41.615
You know, I mean, obviously with the recorder playing in Baroque band, I read music.

00:12:41.797 --> 00:12:43.019
I mean, I don't for the harmonica.

00:12:43.539 --> 00:12:46.144
And yeah, I'm playing with conservatorium graduates.

00:12:46.725 --> 00:12:48.009
So it's got to be right.

00:12:48.509 --> 00:12:51.315
And it's very complex, intricate music.

00:12:51.916 --> 00:12:58.347
And so through that, so that's sort of filtered into my harmonica playing.

00:12:58.649 --> 00:13:00.703
I mean, I don't play like a Baroque player.

00:13:00.724 --> 00:13:03.126
I don't sound like a Baroque player, I don't think.

00:13:03.768 --> 00:13:11.216
But the recorder sensibility and the training I've got through that side of the music life, I think has had quite an influence on the way that I play.

00:13:11.537 --> 00:13:16.143
So you don't read music on the harmonica, so you don't play these pieces on chromatic harmonica yourself?

00:13:16.423 --> 00:13:16.844
No, no.

00:13:16.884 --> 00:13:18.725
So I don't play chromatic harmonica at all.

00:13:18.765 --> 00:13:26.167
Over the years, whenever I meet a really good, and they have to be really, really good chromatic sight reader.

00:13:27.048 --> 00:13:42.746
I get out my Baroque recorders and do duets, and we don't have anyone in Australia, at least as far as I know, and I'm pretty sure I'm right about this, who could do this, but people like Susan Sauter and Rocky Locke from Hong Kong, you know, the Judy Harmonica Ensemble people who I've met over the years.

00:13:43.346 --> 00:13:52.077
So playing Baroque recorder with chromatic harmonica is something I've done from time to time, and it sounds wonderful, but I don't get to do it all that much.

00:13:52.481 --> 00:13:56.294
You have a book of Baroque scores, which is available on your website, yeah?

00:13:56.998 --> 00:14:02.878
Yeah, yeah, that came out of being actually at Spa, and I guess we could get to talking about Spa at some stage, but...

00:14:02.977 --> 00:14:08.663
You know, I bring my scores and put them in front of players and, you know, they read them for better or worse.

00:14:09.182 --> 00:14:17.610
And so after Spar in 2017, I think I got back to Australia and thought, well, look, not a lot of the chromatic players know about this music.

00:14:17.951 --> 00:14:24.397
So I went online and found sort of the classic Baroque duets and put them together in a PDF.

00:14:24.736 --> 00:14:27.860
You know, if you Google Baroque chromatic harmonica, you'll find it.

00:14:28.100 --> 00:14:29.181
Yeah, I'll put a link onto that.

00:14:29.240 --> 00:14:29.880
It'll be interesting.

00:14:30.381 --> 00:14:42.698
The Baroque period, and we're talking about the early 18th, century, particularly in places like London, but also Paris, I guess there was this really strong movement of good amateur players, particularly playing recorders and flutes.

00:14:43.019 --> 00:14:45.462
So there was this tremendous market for music for them.

00:14:45.703 --> 00:14:50.730
And people like Telemann, Guamortier met that market and made a lot of money from it.

00:14:50.932 --> 00:14:56.379
So there's, I guess, a canon is the classical word of good quality Baroque duets.

00:14:56.480 --> 00:15:01.620
So, you know, I got the best ones and put them together and that's what's in this pdf book that i made

00:15:02.062 --> 00:15:17.375
so good stuff yeah so we'll we'll move on from the baroque recorder then so uh back to your harmonica so so as you say you played with this full house blues band as you got to the 90s you started getting uh you know work started uh taking over a little bit and you um you took a little break from playing

00:15:17.695 --> 00:16:01.904
well i guess a better way of describing is i had a break imposed upon me so i started a phd in 1990 had kids my marriage came apart you know in the early 90s and it often does when you're a PhD student and you know the stuff that I had going on in the early 90s meant that I could not run a band so I really had to put the harmonica to one side and I remember feeling really resentful that there was this thing that I loved so much that I couldn't do because this PhD and anyone who's done a PhD knows that it's this long black cloud which hangs over your life for about four or five years and until you finish it and it goes away and you can call yourself Dr.

00:16:01.924 --> 00:16:01.966
S.

00:16:02.426 --> 00:16:04.167
I mean, I kept playing recorder through that.

00:16:04.226 --> 00:16:08.191
And I play harmonica a bit, but I finished that in 1995.

00:16:08.250 --> 00:16:13.394
And that's, I guess, when I really emerged as a player and sort of re-engaged with the harmonica.

00:16:13.655 --> 00:16:17.578
You heard Brandon Power playing some fiddle tunes and that inspired you to pick up.

00:16:17.678 --> 00:16:20.020
Well, that sort of, that came a bit later.

00:16:20.041 --> 00:16:22.764
So, you know, I wanted to play harmonica.

00:16:22.783 --> 00:16:27.888
I'd sort of been hanging around blues bands and weaseling my way onto stage.

00:16:27.888 --> 00:16:59.160
and I mean harmonica players are good at that but I remember one night in particular I was at this there was this gig and there's a guy that I knew it was his show so I figured he'd give me a spot and he did but I remember there were a couple of other harmonica players exactly the same as me and I remember one guy got on stage and I looked at him and I thought you know what he's better than I am I mean when you get older I mean I'm in my 60s now you don't care about that stuff but I was in my 30s and that didn't sit well with me so you You know, I wanted to get better.

00:16:59.461 --> 00:17:04.968
I knew that I couldn't run a band because I still, I mean, I was a single dad half the time and I had a job.

00:17:05.008 --> 00:17:06.108
I was a university lecturer.

00:17:06.308 --> 00:17:16.180
So I went to a bluegrass festival and suddenly there was this door opened of music that I could engage with in that with bluegrass, it's a jamming culture.

00:17:16.240 --> 00:17:21.684
And I know you interviewed David Nadich a while back and I listened to your podcast and David talks about this a lot.

00:17:21.726 --> 00:17:28.932
In fact, you go to festivals and there are excellent, excellent people there just standing around playing bluegrass and acoustic music.

00:17:28.952 --> 00:17:29.993
And I'd played it before.

00:17:30.213 --> 00:17:32.036
I'd lived in America 15 years before.

00:17:32.316 --> 00:17:34.057
So I saw a way forward.

00:17:34.096 --> 00:17:35.238
I didn't have to run a band.

00:17:35.278 --> 00:17:37.000
All I had to do was show up to festivals.

00:17:37.339 --> 00:17:40.903
And, you know, there are good festivals in Australia, not as many as in America, but good ones.

00:17:41.243 --> 00:17:42.265
And I could play again.

00:17:42.505 --> 00:17:45.166
And I loved the music and particularly loved the fiddle tunes.

00:17:45.227 --> 00:17:48.789
So I sort of was on a mission to engage with this music.

00:17:48.869 --> 00:17:52.773
And it became clear very early on that I had to learn the tunes.

00:17:52.913 --> 00:17:56.237
And Bluegrass has got a core repertoire of about 30 tunes.

00:17:56.517 --> 00:17:57.597
And I had to learn them.

00:17:57.761 --> 00:17:59.804
and had to really nail them.

00:17:59.983 --> 00:18:11.213
And actually the guitar player from the blues band, who was actually a bluegrass player, I remember, he was staying with me in 95, he left me a tape of the classic bluegrass tunes and I started learning from them.

00:18:11.453 --> 00:18:15.557
And that's where Brendan Power came in because someone said we should listen to him.

00:18:15.596 --> 00:18:27.728
And anyway, I remember sitting in my office, University of Wollongong one night, supposedly working but not, early days of the internet, and I searched him and I found an MP3 of the Drunken Landlady from his New Irish Harmonica set.

00:18:27.728 --> 00:18:46.127
I didn't know if you could actually play this music on harmonica.

00:18:46.627 --> 00:18:48.589
And it was just so wonderful.

00:18:49.330 --> 00:18:52.673
I remember just punching the air just as the sound came through.

00:18:52.693 --> 00:18:55.857
And it was, yes, this music, it could be done.

00:18:56.130 --> 00:18:57.271
Here's someone doing it.

00:18:57.451 --> 00:19:02.319
So, and I got to know Brendan and actually I met him in Australia not long after.

00:19:02.359 --> 00:19:04.924
I've been in touch with Brendan over the years.

00:19:04.964 --> 00:19:09.972
We actually shared a hotel room some years later at the Asia Pacific Harmonica Festival.

00:19:09.992 --> 00:19:14.800
So, you know, Brendan has been part of the musical life and, you know, I've gotten to know him.

00:19:14.820 --> 00:19:15.823
I'm very glad for that.

00:19:16.443 --> 00:19:20.130
So then you were introduced into the world of fiddle tunes, as you say, and bluegrass and...

00:19:20.609 --> 00:19:25.417
So you're well known for the invention of the major cross tuning.

00:19:25.438 --> 00:19:26.819
At what stage did this come out?

00:19:26.980 --> 00:19:29.604
Well, this came sort of fairly early on.

00:19:29.724 --> 00:19:34.132
So the thing with bluegrass, it's kind of like a bluegrass festival.

00:19:34.311 --> 00:19:35.974
It's kind of like a school playground.

00:19:36.335 --> 00:19:40.020
You get to play with the group that matches your level.

00:19:40.481 --> 00:19:45.329
And there are fairly strict unwritten rules about who you can play with and who you can't.

00:19:45.670 --> 00:19:47.874
And I wanted to play with the very best people.

00:19:48.226 --> 00:19:54.431
I was ambitious, but I had this double bind because firstly, I had to get good enough and I had to learn the repertoire.

00:19:54.652 --> 00:20:08.443
But I also then had to overcome the natural, and I've got to say in some cases, justified resistance that bluegrass players have to harmonicas just because so many blues players have wrecked their jams and not known what they're doing.

00:20:08.644 --> 00:20:10.005
So I had to work doubly hard.

00:20:10.204 --> 00:20:13.887
I was trying to learn these fast tunes and bending and it wasn't really working out.

00:20:13.948 --> 00:20:23.257
And I remember being at the National Folk Festival and watching the button accordion players And I just sort of had this, I guess, epiphany, I suppose, for this tuning called Major Cross.

00:20:23.317 --> 00:20:32.047
And it's quite similar to the Lee Oscar Melody Maker Tuning, where essentially you play in second position, but the whole harmonica is tuned to a major scale.

00:20:32.067 --> 00:20:35.250
And my innovation was to apply it across all the holes.

00:20:35.329 --> 00:20:38.534
So Lee Oscar applies to eight holes, I apply it to all ten.

00:20:38.693 --> 00:20:42.617
And so I came home and I tuned one up and just this light went on.

00:20:42.938 --> 00:20:44.819
Suddenly I could play all these tunes.

00:20:45.280 --> 00:21:29.823
And so I made myself a set of these harmonicas and it's myself to work you know i remember you know sitting with a metronome you know for months learning the scales essentially applying the techniques that i've done for baroque recorder to become fluent with this tuning because i mean the thing with the tuning is people come up with tunings and you know some they give them names but it really doesn't matter at all unless you create music with it So it's not coming up with a configuration.

00:21:30.144 --> 00:21:33.968
Well, that's part of it, but it's actually putting it to work and saying, hey, this is what it sounds like.

00:21:34.498 --> 00:21:37.381
So it's sort of been my thing for the last 20 years.

00:21:37.681 --> 00:21:42.605
I mean, I play the regular diatonics as well, you know, for blues, because they work better than major cross.

00:21:42.664 --> 00:21:46.929
But, you know, for fiddle tunes, major cross works really well, all for me at least.

00:21:47.669 --> 00:21:50.112
So do you bend any notes on this one, Monica?

00:21:50.132 --> 00:21:51.212
Do you play all the notes straight?

00:21:51.452 --> 00:21:55.997
I play almost all of the notes straight, which is the whole idea of it.

00:21:56.636 --> 00:21:57.897
I do bend one note.

00:21:58.239 --> 00:21:59.700
I mean, I bend notes for expression.

00:21:59.980 --> 00:22:02.501
The thing with the major cross tuning is the major scale.

00:22:02.883 --> 00:22:33.255
So to get a flat seventh it's a bit like country tuning the draw five is raised to semitone so you can bend it down to get that note I use that one fairly often but the rest of the time I don't which means that you know I can play you know again referring to David Nadege he said he plays chromatic harmonica for bluegrass because of the evenness of the tone for myself it's the same thing you know all of the notes have the same timbre I guess with major cross you don't get that different sound that you get with bending

00:22:33.634 --> 00:22:35.998
so I play you I like to play tunes myself.

00:22:36.038 --> 00:22:38.140
So I use a Paddy Richter tuning to do that.

00:22:38.359 --> 00:22:39.520
And it's what I'm used to.

00:22:39.622 --> 00:22:43.705
So yeah, looking into, you know, yourself and I haven't tried this major cross.

00:22:43.746 --> 00:22:45.667
So yeah, it'd be interesting to give that a go.

00:22:45.807 --> 00:22:48.451
Well, Paddy Richter is a wonderful innovation.

00:22:48.490 --> 00:22:49.432
That's one of Brendan's.

00:22:49.893 --> 00:22:56.098
And it's because that's designed for first position, which is something I've actually gotten into just in recent years.

00:22:56.179 --> 00:22:57.441
And I really, really like it.

00:22:57.621 --> 00:23:02.066
And if I'd been playing first position back then in the 90s, I probably would have adopted Paddy Richter.

00:23:02.185 --> 00:23:03.606
But it's sort of the same idea.

00:23:03.686 --> 00:23:07.570
So, you know, you can wail up and down these tunes without having to bend notes.

00:23:08.051 --> 00:23:10.674
Just play the notes in the way that other players do.

00:23:10.914 --> 00:23:20.986
Yeah, and I think you made that important distinction there, don't you, that Paddy Richter's really mainly first position, whereas your major cross is the second position, isn't it, which is obviously what most people are used to playing blues.

00:23:21.205 --> 00:23:30.556
Well, actually, it turns out I came up with a tuning, and a lot of the time I play it in second position, but a number of things popped out of it which I hadn't really planned on.

00:23:30.816 --> 00:23:32.758
One is there's three other positions.

00:23:33.179 --> 00:23:34.259
So third position...

00:23:34.319 --> 00:23:58.839
is because of the retuning a major position for in the bluegrass world are called modal tunes like redhead boy and salt creek essentially where you go from an a down to a g that kind of thing so And then there are two minor positions.

00:23:59.420 --> 00:24:04.304
I guess, what, fourth position and fifth position, which lie different.

00:24:04.364 --> 00:24:05.986
And both of them are very powerful.

00:24:06.226 --> 00:24:14.894
And you can roar through tunes like, for those of you who know the bluegrass repertoire at all, things like Jerusalem Ridge in, I guess, what would be fifth position.

00:24:15.213 --> 00:24:17.375
But, you know, the notes sit in different places.

00:24:17.556 --> 00:24:20.739
So, yeah, I've become, yeah, I'm fluent with major cross.

00:24:20.798 --> 00:24:21.920
I've been at it for 20 years.

00:24:21.940 --> 00:24:22.779
I should be.

00:24:23.300 --> 00:24:24.521
And I use four positions.

00:24:25.122 --> 00:24:30.067
The other thing about it, and I actually did realize this until quite a few years after I'd come up with it.

00:24:30.327 --> 00:24:33.851
It's got all of the triads for all chords.

00:24:34.231 --> 00:24:37.776
So if you think of the seven scale degrees, there's a triad for every chord.

00:24:37.796 --> 00:24:42.901
They don't sound that great on the higher harmonicas, but on the lower harmonicas, they sound wonderful.

00:24:43.121 --> 00:24:46.003
So that's, yeah, just something else which falls out of Major Cross.

00:24:46.464 --> 00:24:49.127
So do you mainly play the tunes in second position or?

00:24:49.888 --> 00:24:50.509
It depends.

00:24:50.890 --> 00:24:56.415
If for the minor tunes, I'll play either fourth or, hang on, fourth or fifth position.

00:24:56.476 --> 00:24:59.578
Yeah, So, no, I use the other position quite a lot.

00:25:00.019 --> 00:25:03.182
So this is now a harmonica which Seidel produced.

00:25:03.423 --> 00:25:04.604
So how did all that come about?

00:25:05.164 --> 00:25:14.795
I guess one of the things is sort of backpedalling a little is that I became known because of a recording that I did back in 2003.

00:25:15.756 --> 00:25:23.403
Using this tuning and a lot of help from a brother who runs a recording studio, you know, he got me to put the work in so that it came out right.

00:25:23.463 --> 00:25:26.488
And by that stage, I'd gotten quite a few miles under the belt.

00:25:26.708 --> 00:25:26.768
Wow.

00:25:26.768 --> 00:25:32.156
I've sent this CD around because there aren't many in this style, you know, sort of bluegrass Irish style.

00:25:32.176 --> 00:25:32.798
It became known.

00:25:32.817 --> 00:25:33.638
It's called Black Mountain

00:25:33.680 --> 00:25:51.849
Harmonica.

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

00:25:54.721 --> 00:25:58.346
So I became known on the scene and I introduced myself to P.T.

00:25:58.386 --> 00:25:59.929
Gazelle and got to know him.

00:26:00.009 --> 00:26:06.538
And actually through various things, I'd become a judge at the Asia Pacific Harmonica Festival and got to know P.T.

00:26:06.578 --> 00:26:06.838
there.

00:26:07.240 --> 00:26:11.987
And he's a Seidel endorser and his, you know, his Gazelle method harmonicas.

00:26:12.047 --> 00:26:14.049
And he, a lot of ways, he's the face of Seidel.

00:26:14.433 --> 00:26:17.836
I write for the Harmonica World magazine.

00:26:17.896 --> 00:26:19.317
I started doing that in 2008.

00:26:20.019 --> 00:26:24.343
And I did a profile on PT about his harmonica, and not a profile on him.

00:26:24.403 --> 00:26:26.765
I'd made myself a set of his harmonicas, that's right.

00:26:27.065 --> 00:26:27.865
So I talked about him.

00:26:28.105 --> 00:26:33.450
And so he contacted me and said, hey, look, would you be interested in hooking up with Seidel?

00:26:33.730 --> 00:26:37.894
I'd been in touch with Seidel, but hadn't really thought about how we could, so I did.

00:26:37.933 --> 00:26:41.517
And I had a long talk with Lars, the president.

00:26:41.837 --> 00:26:42.878
Seidel's a small company.

00:26:42.898 --> 00:26:44.000
He's only about 35 people.

00:26:44.400 --> 00:26:49.285
And what he wanted was to link my teaching site to Seidel, which I did.

00:26:49.505 --> 00:26:57.273
The thing with Seidel is that they have something called the Harmonica Configurator or Harp Configurator, where you can come up with your own custom tuning.

00:26:57.453 --> 00:27:03.140
So Seidel is the company that produces custom tunings much more than any other company does.

00:27:03.601 --> 00:27:06.624
So I thought, well, look, I've got this major cross-tuning.

00:27:06.644 --> 00:27:07.625
It's a big change.

00:27:07.644 --> 00:27:08.945
You've got to change seven reeds.

00:27:09.527 --> 00:27:15.292
And so people have expressed interest, but unless they could retune it themselves or get a customizer which is expensive.

00:27:15.594 --> 00:27:19.480
So I suggested this to Seidel and they said, yeah, sure.

00:27:19.519 --> 00:27:24.006
And then I said, well, maybe we could make a separate page for it on your site.

00:27:24.426 --> 00:27:26.569
And they said, well, look, we'll do more than that.

00:27:26.750 --> 00:27:30.095
We'll create a major cross model and give it its own comb.

00:27:30.154 --> 00:27:31.557
So it was a light blue comb.

00:27:31.577 --> 00:27:32.659
So this is in 2017.

00:27:32.679 --> 00:27:36.724
And I've got to say that's the proudest day of my life because there's a harmonica with my name on it.

00:27:36.805 --> 00:27:37.566
I've got my own model.

00:27:38.587 --> 00:27:39.249
Fantastic, yeah.

00:27:39.509 --> 00:27:42.153
I'll probably mention this two or three times before we're done, but...

00:27:42.817 --> 00:27:48.923
And it's based on the Session Steel, which is sort of their intermediate model, but it works very well.

00:27:49.403 --> 00:27:57.671
And the thing I really like about the Session Steel Major Cross is that it responds very quickly to light breath pressures.

00:27:58.290 --> 00:28:08.299
So I guess it's a very well-sealed harmonica, which means that I can play at the speeds that I want to with this Session Steel Major Cross model, and it responds in the way I like.

00:28:08.339 --> 00:28:09.981
So yeah, I'm very happy with it.

00:28:10.281 --> 00:28:12.243
So yeah, I'm part of the Seidel family.

00:28:12.263 --> 00:28:17.548
They kid me out with Seidel Harmonicas because I was going to a festival, I think Spa.

00:28:17.929 --> 00:28:21.532
And, you know, Lars said it when I said, was there anything you need?

00:28:21.913 --> 00:28:24.316
I said, well, look, Lars, I'm going to this festival.

00:28:24.696 --> 00:28:25.857
I'm going to be a Seidel guy.

00:28:25.877 --> 00:28:28.160
I guess I should have a bag full of Seidel Harmonicas.

00:28:28.260 --> 00:28:29.501
And he said, yeah.

00:28:29.541 --> 00:28:31.022
So, yeah, I've got a bag full of Seidel.

00:28:31.163 --> 00:28:31.824
Yeah, I love them.

00:28:32.125 --> 00:28:35.288
The 1847, which is their premium band.

00:28:35.307 --> 00:28:37.309
It's a very strong and wonderful instrument.

00:28:37.490 --> 00:28:38.832
I play tremolo as well.

00:28:39.352 --> 00:28:41.434
And they make a very nice Asian tremolo.

00:28:41.535 --> 00:28:42.736
They call it the skydive.

00:28:42.736 --> 00:28:57.777
So that's

00:28:59.179 --> 00:29:01.162
sort of a longish answer about how...

00:29:01.473 --> 00:29:02.115
I got into.

00:29:02.494 --> 00:29:03.154
No, fantastic.

00:29:03.194 --> 00:29:07.019
Yeah, like you say, very proud to have your name in the harmonica.

00:29:07.940 --> 00:29:10.382
So the Session Steals are really good harmonicas as well.

00:29:10.781 --> 00:29:14.925
So do you know how well it's, any idea how well it sold this tuning through Seidel?

00:29:15.185 --> 00:29:16.146
Oh, they're pleased with it.

00:29:16.366 --> 00:29:17.107
Let's put it that way.

00:29:17.907 --> 00:29:21.912
I mean, it hasn't turned anyone into millionaires, but they're pleased with it.

00:29:22.372 --> 00:29:25.694
So I'm a Seidel endorser, but, you know, having my own model.

00:29:25.994 --> 00:29:27.115
So I'm part of the family.

00:29:27.336 --> 00:30:09.299
And being part of the family means essentially you get what you're put into it and so when i i've been to spa you know 2017 to 2019 you know and they have a stand there and they're very well organized in this way so i get this little patch on the stand with my harmonics and i stand next to pt gazelle which is a great honor in itself and so i i take the trouble to put out videos with the major cross tuning so i've got this group i guess you could call it the tony ellis trio and you know i'll make a point of putting up you know fairly regular regularly just demonstrating what the major cross sounds like you know sort of played in my style just this traditional american tunes mostly

00:30:09.500 --> 00:30:27.920
well whilst we're on the subject of the tony earth trio this is a uh a great thing i'll put some uh some links on to the podcast page so this trio consists of three dubious looking characters in in different disguises yes yes just and just to make this clear for people who haven't seen it yet this is all you yes

00:30:28.280 --> 00:30:35.587
well look now we can we can run this either two ways I could maintain the pretense that it's myself in the middle and these two clowns on either side.

00:30:35.627 --> 00:30:36.209
Yes, yes.

00:31:00.001 --> 00:31:01.394
The way that I got into this...

00:31:02.049 --> 00:31:04.392
was sort of a bit of a backstory.

00:31:04.412 --> 00:31:09.476
I was a judge at the Asia Pacific Harmonica Festival from 2008 to 2014.

00:31:09.496 --> 00:31:14.961
And that didn't come about because one day someone in Asia thought we've got to get Tony Ayres.

00:31:15.040 --> 00:31:19.765
I was running a teaching website in China at that stage, which was doing quite well.

00:31:19.845 --> 00:31:20.846
So I was known.

00:31:20.865 --> 00:31:24.269
And so I basically contacted the committee and was invited.

00:31:24.308 --> 00:31:25.990
So I did it four times.

00:31:26.070 --> 00:31:28.153
And it's really the experience of a lifetime.

00:31:28.272 --> 00:31:30.054
It's the world's biggest harmonica festival.

00:31:30.074 --> 00:31:31.855
It's about 2,000 contestants.

00:31:31.955 --> 00:31:35.640
And And it's all competitions and a wonderful sort of feeling.

00:31:36.059 --> 00:31:38.623
And the standard of playing is phenomenal.

00:31:38.903 --> 00:31:40.724
And it's mostly harmonica groups.

00:31:40.986 --> 00:31:42.547
I've never heard a harmonica group before.

00:31:42.606 --> 00:31:43.688
And, you know, trios.

00:31:44.148 --> 00:31:50.875
So there's one time when I judged the junior trios, that's like up to age 18 or something, and there were 43 entrants.

00:31:51.376 --> 00:31:54.480
So, you know, this idea of harmonica trios was in my head.

00:31:54.779 --> 00:31:58.324
So I got myself this instrument called a Juan Cordet.

00:31:58.564 --> 00:31:59.244
I've got it here.

00:31:59.285 --> 00:32:00.767
It's sort of got this sort of sound.

00:32:00.807 --> 00:32:01.968
I don't know how this will come out of it.

00:32:01.968 --> 00:33:03.032
you sort of get the bass and the chord at the same time so i got myself one of those actually retuned it to the way i wanted so that was sort of the the rhythm part and which then had two other lead voices and so the way that i do recording sort of came about from the cd black mountain harmonica which i did where i created these harmonica arrangements and i haven't heard too many other people doing i think charlie mccoy's did it a bit where you have two harmonicas playing either in unison or playing harmony parts throughout the whole recording and so it's a style which I wouldn't say I've invented it but it's one that I've used a lot and sort of because I'm in Australia and don't have the players at hand that you would in other places yeah this has sort of become my thing so the Tony Ayres Trio is recordings of these arrangements which I guess come out of my Baroque background playing trio sonatas and so you know we make these videos and I've been doing them for about 10 years I think it was about 30 of them.

00:33:03.334 --> 00:33:06.777
You know, some of them have had 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 views.

00:33:07.178 --> 00:33:08.759
And I put them up every month or so.

00:33:09.119 --> 00:33:11.662
There are some serious harmonica players who watch them.

00:33:11.702 --> 00:33:14.105
You know, Paul Davies, a previous spa president.

00:33:14.144 --> 00:33:14.885
I think P.T.

00:33:14.925 --> 00:33:16.428
Gazelle said he watches them.

00:33:16.488 --> 00:33:19.191
So I put a lot of care into recording them.

00:33:19.371 --> 00:33:25.317
But there's also a thing of harmonica comedy, which is a thing of the American trios from the 1950s.

00:33:25.656 --> 00:33:26.959
So, yeah, there's a bit of that as well.

00:33:27.259 --> 00:33:27.819
No, they're great.

00:33:27.839 --> 00:33:28.420
They're a great watch.

00:33:28.440 --> 00:33:29.361
And I love that.

00:33:29.582 --> 00:34:00.833
I love the fact that you're doing these because, you know you want to produce this music in a harmonica trio on an ensemble but you know you can't find a place so you just do it yourself yeah i like that approach tony i think that's that's the way to do it i tried to get a uh an ensemble together which happened for a little while but it kind of you know commitments it kind of it fell apart so yeah that's fantastic so yeah they put a i said put the links up it's a it's a great thing to watch and it's a lot of fun as you say so So yeah, talking a little bit more through your recording career, you mentioned this Black Mountain Harmonica, which is your first album.

00:34:01.073 --> 00:34:09.005
This is an album of tunes and you've got various bluegrass classics on there, Billy in the Low Ground and Alabama Jubilee and Whiskey Before Breakfast.

00:34:09.447 --> 00:34:09.567
Yeah,

00:34:09.907 --> 00:34:14.635
that sort of came about through sort of thinking, can I do a CD?

00:34:14.815 --> 00:34:15.637
Am I good enough?

00:34:16.353 --> 00:34:18.755
I was doing a lot of busking at that stage, and I still do.

00:34:18.815 --> 00:34:20.478
So I thought, yeah, having something I could sell.

00:34:20.918 --> 00:34:30.887
And so one of the things that's worth mentioning, it's sort of a big part of my development, is this program called Band in a Box, which I got into in the late 90s, and I still use it a lot.

00:34:31.246 --> 00:34:37.713
It's, as the name says, a piece of software which produces a band of pretty much any style.

00:34:37.733 --> 00:34:41.396
You just type in chord charts, choose the band, the speed, the key, and off you go.

00:34:41.556 --> 00:34:43.416
And the bands are fantastic.

00:34:43.777 --> 00:34:53.206
So I've been practicing with Band in a Box for the last two So when I did this CD, I'd sort of done a bit of recording before that, and it was pretty rough.

00:34:53.648 --> 00:34:55.469
But I thought, look, I'll give it another go.

00:34:55.510 --> 00:34:59.393
And my partner, who's now my wife, was in England for six weeks.

00:34:59.514 --> 00:35:01.436
So I thought, well, here's a chance to do something.

00:35:01.817 --> 00:35:04.338
You know, I'm putting in a lot of time without ignoring my partner.

00:35:04.579 --> 00:35:11.626
So I did these backings and chose these tunes, you know, the ones you mentioned, the bluegrass and Irish stuff, which is the stuff I've been playing.

00:35:11.786 --> 00:35:16.271
Also some slow ones by O'Carroll and the Irish sort of 18th century composer.

00:35:16.271 --> 00:35:21.639
Thank you.

00:35:36.418 --> 00:35:43.367
So I did the band in the box settings, recorded these things, and then took it all to Adelaide, where my brother runs a recording studio.

00:35:44.248 --> 00:35:51.637
He gave me a day where I brought in my friend John Bridgeland, who has actually introduced me to bluegrass and played in a blues band from the 1980s.

00:35:51.677 --> 00:35:52.860
He laid down some tracks.

00:35:53.420 --> 00:35:56.304
My brother laid down some more, played some piano.

00:35:56.324 --> 00:35:58.347
A guy called Darren Mullins played piano.

00:35:58.427 --> 00:35:59.547
My brother did some percussion.

00:35:59.568 --> 00:36:00.849
He even did a banjo solo.

00:36:01.550 --> 00:36:03.494
I don't think he took it all that seriously.

00:36:04.001 --> 00:36:05.103
just because it was me.

00:36:05.143 --> 00:36:08.829
But what he did do was he said, look, listen to your cuts.

00:36:09.030 --> 00:36:11.735
Even though there weren't any mistakes, they're really not good enough.

00:36:12.295 --> 00:36:13.137
It's not interesting.

00:36:13.438 --> 00:36:15.221
You're not saying anything with the notes.

00:36:15.641 --> 00:36:16.922
And I really thought about that.

00:36:17.184 --> 00:36:19.146
So he produced the backing from it.

00:36:19.166 --> 00:36:21.490
I went back to Sydney and recorded the whole thing again.

00:36:21.510 --> 00:36:23.414
And this is how I record now.

00:36:23.655 --> 00:36:27.780
Quite often, the first take, I'll have 50 goes at it until I'm happy with it.

00:36:27.942 --> 00:36:30.365
Because every note has to say something.

00:36:30.626 --> 00:36:34.353
And, yeah, you can put expression on and things like articulation.

00:36:34.413 --> 00:36:41.447
So when I record stuff, I put an enormous amount of effort into getting it just right and that's what my brother taught me.

00:36:41.907 --> 00:36:46.476
So anyway, I redid the tracks and he mixed it and he's got a full-on studio.

00:36:46.516 --> 00:36:48.139
We've got it professionally mastered.

00:36:48.179 --> 00:36:49.342
I've got a friend in Australia.

00:36:49.505 --> 00:37:23.056
tokyo who's an architect and he did an album cover for me so i had a professional looking product and sent it out around the world and got very positive responses around the world so that put me on the map as you know someone who's you know one of the players to be considered for this style and so the you know the tony is trio went on from there and actually i haven't done another cd except we're in lockdown now so i'm actually then this time i'll do it i i've chosen a dozen of the tony is trio tracks and i'm re-recording them and that that will be a cd you're the first to hear it now but hopefully it'll be out by the end of the year

00:37:23.356 --> 00:37:36.289
an exclusive that's what we like to hear on the podcast yeah there we go you make a good point though that's really showing the value of recording doesn't it and going through that pain of getting something really right and that you know how it really wants it to sound and showing the value of that doesn't it

00:37:36.429 --> 00:37:51.025
well i guess also the thing is and you know there's stuff that you can do in terms of articulation about it's really a thing of every note the way he said is every note has to tell a story so i'll do a track and i'll listen to it and think look, is there any emotion in that?

00:37:51.226 --> 00:37:52.067
Is that interesting?

00:37:52.106 --> 00:37:56.851
And even if all the notes are correct, I can tell that, no, I don't like it.

00:37:56.992 --> 00:37:57.833
So I've got to keep at it.

00:37:57.873 --> 00:38:03.639
So over the years, I've gotten better, I think, at doing the arrangements and doing the harmonies.

00:38:03.699 --> 00:38:09.405
And when I do the harmonies, I use sort of my Baroque skills of just playing them until they're right.

00:38:09.646 --> 00:38:15.751
Another thing, back in the 1980s, I spent a number of years in singing groups, classical singing groups.

00:38:16.132 --> 00:38:21.079
And there, there's a thing of when you're in a section as a tenor, There's this thing of voice blending.

00:38:21.239 --> 00:38:23.681
So your voices have to sound like one voice.

00:38:24.123 --> 00:38:25.505
So your voice can't stand out.

00:38:25.545 --> 00:38:31.273
And I remember drawing upon that when I did my recordings, and I still do, because I do a lot of unison parts.

00:38:31.673 --> 00:38:37.202
And the unison parts, if you put the effort into and know what you're looking for, they sound like one part.

00:38:38.244 --> 00:38:39.346
So, yeah, so you've got this album.

00:38:39.525 --> 00:38:42.090
You've also played in another Australian band called The Lawnmowers.

00:38:42.130 --> 00:38:45.054
So we were...

00:38:55.266 --> 00:38:57.108
The cutting hedge of bluegrass we were.

00:38:57.148 --> 00:38:58.769
They got going about 2003.

00:38:58.809 --> 00:39:01.994
They were friends of mine.

00:39:02.014 --> 00:39:04.597
I just got on stage with them one day and never left.

00:39:04.958 --> 00:39:08.081
We did some big festivals, the National Folk Festival, the Port Ferry Festival.

00:39:08.101 --> 00:39:09.083
We did a couple of CDs.

00:39:09.123 --> 00:39:11.385
We would just go like the clappers.

00:39:12.065 --> 00:39:14.548
Yeah, we played bluegrass and other stuff as well.

00:39:14.588 --> 00:39:18.253
So, yeah, I was with them for five years and just loved every minute of it.

00:39:18.626 --> 00:39:21.032
So you mentioned that you're out there busking.

00:39:21.072 --> 00:39:22.355
So you've got a busking trio now.

00:39:22.394 --> 00:39:24.059
You like to get out and play on the street busking.

00:39:24.159 --> 00:39:24.981
Yeah, yeah.

00:39:25.302 --> 00:39:28.648
So what I started doing to practice was sitting out in the streets.

00:39:29.231 --> 00:39:30.313
And I'd make a bit of money and...

00:39:30.849 --> 00:39:32.972
When I had my CD, I'd sell a few CDs.

00:39:33.331 --> 00:39:33.913
And I like it.

00:39:34.293 --> 00:39:35.733
So I've been doing that.

00:39:35.753 --> 00:39:38.976
And that's how I've practiced for the last 20 years or more than 20 years.

00:39:39.376 --> 00:39:42.420
You know, I'll go out a couple of times a week, play for a couple of hours.

00:39:42.460 --> 00:39:45.322
So that's really a good way of running through his repertoire.

00:39:45.342 --> 00:39:48.684
And, you know, to be honest, I'm not going to get too many gigs playing old time tunes.

00:39:49.266 --> 00:39:57.893
Then, yeah, in the last year, because of COVID, you know, the only place you can play in the streets, I've started up a blues trio, which sort of returned that music after 30 years.

00:39:58.434 --> 00:40:00.735
When you're playing the tunes, Busking, are you using backing tracks?

00:40:00.815 --> 00:40:01.617
I

00:40:01.657 --> 00:40:03.000
did for a number of years.

00:40:03.019 --> 00:40:08.170
And then I went through for a few years, I'd use a loop pedal and use my rhythm harmonica.

00:40:08.530 --> 00:40:12.878
And just in the last four or five years, I've started playing guitar with a rack.

00:40:12.958 --> 00:40:14.641
And I'm really, really enjoying that.

00:40:15.001 --> 00:40:18.248
So I've gotten good enough on guitar so that, you know, it stands up.

00:40:18.449 --> 00:40:19.510
So that's what I do now.

00:40:19.851 --> 00:40:21.134
I also play button accordion.

00:40:21.934 --> 00:40:23.277
So I do that as well.

00:40:23.777 --> 00:40:25.458
You're playing harmonica on a rack with that as well.

00:40:25.760 --> 00:40:26.019
Yes.

00:40:26.960 --> 00:40:29.822
It's actually one of my harmonica students put me onto that.

00:40:30.123 --> 00:40:34.166
He said, look, can you play the accordion and harmonica on the rack at the same time?

00:40:34.206 --> 00:40:35.228
I said, no.

00:40:35.628 --> 00:40:37.130
Then after the lesson, I thought, well, can you?

00:40:37.409 --> 00:40:38.271
It turns out that you can.

00:40:38.311 --> 00:40:40.371
So you have to play first position.

00:40:40.391 --> 00:40:42.693
I can't use my fancy major cross tuning.

00:40:42.713 --> 00:40:45.637
But yeah, because the accordion's laid out the same as the harmonica.

00:40:45.717 --> 00:40:48.960
So yeah, that's something I do, which I enjoy an awful lot.

00:40:49.619 --> 00:40:52.083
So talking a little bit about playing harmonica on a rack.

00:40:52.202 --> 00:40:54.744
So, I mean, how do you approach doing that?

00:40:55.005 --> 00:40:56.327
Firstly, you've got to have a good rack.

00:40:56.666 --> 00:40:58.869
And Seidel have come up with a great one.

00:40:59.329 --> 00:41:05.135
It's called the Gecko, designed by a guy called Peter Farmer in the US.

00:41:05.175 --> 00:41:06.538
And then Seidel sort of took it on.

00:41:06.797 --> 00:41:09.460
And it's just head and shoulders above anything else.

00:41:09.501 --> 00:41:11.623
I mean, Hohner have got a good one called the Flex Rack.

00:41:11.862 --> 00:41:14.065
But the Seidel one, it's got a magnetic holder.

00:41:14.106 --> 00:41:15.907
So you just pop the hammer and take it off.

00:41:16.148 --> 00:41:16.889
You can adjust it.

00:41:16.909 --> 00:41:18.269
It sits exactly where you put it.

00:41:18.550 --> 00:41:20.572
You take it off, it goes back exactly where it was.

00:41:21.012 --> 00:41:22.153
That makes a big difference.

00:41:22.514 --> 00:41:31.543
I mean, you've got to have some skills on guitar but you know just playing basic rhythm just sort of keep at it and to start with keep the harmonica very very basic

00:41:31.664 --> 00:41:36.449
yeah but it's that skill of doing the two things at the same time isn't it patting your head and rubbing your stomach

00:41:36.909 --> 00:41:55.423
so I've gotten to be quite fluent so these days and for a number of years I've played the fiddle tunes with the harmonica so I mean the fiddle tunes I mean they're complex tunes but because I've been playing them so long you know I can sort of switch my brain off and concentrate on the guitar and yeah that's a very satisfying thing to do.

00:41:56.034 --> 00:42:13.128
so we'll move on now to talking about your teaching we've touched a little bit on on the website so you've had a very successful teaching website for some years started out by creating the harmonica website in in china which has some success and that went on to become uh the harmonica academy website which you still run now yeah

00:42:13.309 --> 00:42:30.744
well that's right so so my career has been teaching and my first degree was engineering uh and i worked as an engineer for a few years yeah but teaching is my thing so that's been my career teaching engineering telecoms so So teaching and putting together curriculum is something which I've had a lot of experience with.

00:42:31.166 --> 00:42:36.530
In, I think, 2005, I had an assignment in China teaching engineering at Zhengzhou University.

00:42:36.710 --> 00:42:43.858
And I hit on the idea of setting up a Chinese language harmonica website and got a partner who did translations.

00:42:43.938 --> 00:42:45.960
And we worked very closely together for a number of years.

00:42:46.061 --> 00:42:47.782
We actually called it Harmonica University.

00:42:48.043 --> 00:42:49.664
And for a number of years, it did well.

00:42:49.985 --> 00:42:52.088
We had our own harmonica brand and stuff.

00:42:52.387 --> 00:42:55.952
Then out of that came Harmonica Academy, which I launched.

00:42:55.952 --> 00:43:27.105
in 2008 and back then there wasn't very much around I mean there's a lot now you know Dave Barrett's got his wonderful sites and others as well and so the thing that I was able to do it's an involved site there's 80 lessons it's a big site you know it's a paid subscription but I was able to create these lessons and I mean my business back then and to an extent still is is writing you know I mean I supervise PhD students so you learn how to write you know and doing one yourself likewise so I can write well so you You know, my lessons are clear.

00:43:27.346 --> 00:43:34.213
And also because of my teaching background, I was able to break it into chunks so that you're not hit by a lesson which just blows you away.

00:43:34.393 --> 00:43:43.382
And so I guess the innovation then still is, I suppose, is to have what's basically a textbook harmonica book like you could buy in a shop.

00:43:43.443 --> 00:43:48.827
But instead of the CD, the sound samples are right there with online players.

00:43:48.909 --> 00:43:51.130
So Harmonica Academy's got a thousand players.

00:43:51.371 --> 00:43:54.914
So it's like I'm sitting next to you and you press the player and go.

00:43:54.974 --> 00:43:57.699
And so that form has worked quite well.

00:43:58.018 --> 00:44:01.023
So it's been going for 13 years now, and it still does quite well.

00:44:01.262 --> 00:44:08.152
So yeah, the approach is that you have clips of the songs that you're teaching, for example, Ode to Joy, and then you're sort of broken down into sections.

00:44:18.367 --> 00:44:18.427
Ode

00:44:20.550 --> 00:44:20.974
to Joy That's

00:44:20.994 --> 00:44:21.838
how you learn, isn't it?

00:44:22.260 --> 00:44:24.994
Yeah, and I divided the side up.

00:44:25.155 --> 00:44:29.215
So half of it's blues because most people want to learn blues, but the other half is tunes.

00:44:29.793 --> 00:44:35.378
And quite, you know, 40 lessons on how to play tunes, and I don't think anyone else does that.

00:44:35.619 --> 00:44:38.981
I could be wrong, and I'd be quite happy to be shown wrong, but I don't think.

00:44:39.282 --> 00:44:45.047
You know, most of the teaching is for blues, and as I've said, there's wonderful blues stuff with Dave Barrett and others as well.

00:44:45.367 --> 00:44:50.831
So, you know, I guess it's like two courses, well, actually three courses because there's tremolo lessons there as well.

00:44:51.032 --> 00:44:53.393
I don't think anyone's got any online tremolo lessons.

00:44:54.135 --> 00:44:59.619
But anyway, but the idea is that when you teach harmonica, you show a little bit, like a little bit of a riff.

00:44:59.760 --> 00:45:01.969
or tongue doctives or something like that.

00:45:02.028 --> 00:45:06.467
So I'll describe it, but then immediately you press a button, you hear what it sounds like.

00:45:06.507 --> 00:45:07.952
So that's sort of the idea.

00:45:08.289 --> 00:45:09.070
Yeah, fantastic.

00:45:09.090 --> 00:45:09.190
Yeah.

00:45:09.231 --> 00:45:11.193
And you've also got a Spanish version, is it?

00:45:11.813 --> 00:45:12.032
Yeah.

00:45:12.132 --> 00:45:18.958
So I had Spanish friends and they, I remember one day, this is 12 years ago, they said, why don't you do a Spanish version?

00:45:19.018 --> 00:45:19.880
So I thought, why not?

00:45:20.119 --> 00:45:21.581
So I hired a translator.

00:45:22.001 --> 00:45:24.143
So it's harmonica.com.es.

00:45:24.664 --> 00:45:29.128
And then what I, I've got this site called Harmonica Tunes, which is my first site.

00:45:29.148 --> 00:45:30.088
It's been up since 2003.

00:45:30.108 --> 00:45:35.052
And it's, but it's a whole bunch of articles about harmonica, you know, what harmonica keys are.

00:45:35.273 --> 00:45:36.134
It's got the music.

00:45:36.193 --> 00:45:41.309
It's got, you know, some things for harmonica tabs and So it's sort of a harmonica information site.

00:45:41.442 --> 00:45:48.867
And so I've got a German version of that, mundharmonikalearning.com, a Spanish version, and a Portuguese version.

00:45:49.009 --> 00:45:53.492
So I hired the respective translators to create these different language versions.

00:45:54.012 --> 00:45:57.096
And also you have a playing recorder teaching website as well.

00:45:57.335 --> 00:46:01.079
Yeah, so that's something which I've not taught recorder.

00:46:01.139 --> 00:46:16.201
I mean, I've studied with this teacher, Hans-Dieter Nikats, in Sydney back in the 90s, and he is so good and made me realize– this immense gap between what I could do and what he could do and what he knew.

00:46:16.221 --> 00:46:20.030
And that's something that in the harmonica world you don't often get.

00:46:20.050 --> 00:46:23.862
I mean, you do if you attend any event where Howard Levy's playing.

00:46:24.001 --> 00:46:25.164
But this thing of being...

00:46:25.538 --> 00:46:27.739
shown just how little you know.

00:46:27.780 --> 00:46:30.342
Not in an unpleasant way, it's just part of the process.

00:46:30.902 --> 00:46:33.023
So I'd never taught recording.

00:46:33.125 --> 00:46:38.829
But then in 2014, my eldest son said, Dad, why don't you make a recorder version of your harmonica?

00:46:38.849 --> 00:46:40.090
I said, I'd never taught recording.

00:46:40.371 --> 00:46:42.833
But then I googled and there was nothing.

00:46:43.052 --> 00:46:44.034
And there's still nothing.

00:46:44.173 --> 00:46:47.016
For some reason, the recorder world hasn't cottoned on.

00:46:47.257 --> 00:46:51.521
There's this lady, Sarah Jeffries, who's put together this great YouTube series.

00:46:52.001 --> 00:46:54.762
But no one seems to have an online course.

00:46:55.103 --> 00:47:26.833
So backing in 2014 I was able to buy learnrecorder.com so I applied the same principle I kept it just to intermediate stage so the idea is to take a beginner up to intermediate stage it runs on an iPad so the idea and it's music scores because record that's what you do but the innovation there is you get the music score on your iPad or computer screen and then underneath it there are once again these online tracks that you can press to hear in this case how the recorder goes so that site by was along quite nicely.

00:47:27.362 --> 00:47:34.869
you felt that you know teaching is often a great way to learn as well so you felt you've got a lot of benefit from your own playing from doing these teaching websites

00:47:35.168 --> 00:48:28.221
yeah well certainly when i did harmonica academy that for that one i mean the recorder one i stopped at intermediate stage but with a harmonica one when i put it together i've been playing for 25 years and i i'd made a name for myself of sorts as a bluegrass player so you know i put pretty much everything i could do into that i've yet to put anything in major cross harmonicas and that's something which i should do so it was all sort of first position and you know second position third position you know standard harmonica so that because i thought well look someone who can really play might look at this site one day and i think anyone who creates a seat teaching site has the same kind of thing you know i i did the best i possibly could which meant that it was ended up being a huge huge job putting it together you know it reminded me of when i finished my phd thesis you know the final things of getting harmonica academy together but it came together and you know it It's done okay.

00:48:28.420 --> 00:48:35.047
So talking about all this teaching, then a question I ask each time is if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

00:48:35.329 --> 00:48:38.231
I guess I'd spend the 10 minutes learning a new tune.

00:48:38.592 --> 00:48:41.614
So in recent years, I've gravitated to old time music.

00:48:41.856 --> 00:48:43.336
Your strength is your repertoire.

00:48:43.556 --> 00:48:45.139
So building the repertoire.

00:48:45.219 --> 00:48:48.362
So if I had 10 minutes, I guess that's what I'd do.

00:48:48.382 --> 00:48:53.688
I guess one other thing I do, and I'm actually doing this now because I'm preparing myself to do this recording.

00:48:53.969 --> 00:48:56.731
There's a scale exercise I learned from a recorder teacher.

00:48:56.751 --> 00:48:57.853
It's called the Han scale.

00:48:58.112 --> 00:49:03.378
It's basically a major scale exercise, and I do that to a metronome.

00:49:03.498 --> 00:49:06.960
So yeah, a scale exercise to a metronome or learning a new tune.

00:49:07.641 --> 00:49:09.423
And how do you approach learning tunes?

00:49:09.764 --> 00:49:17.030
So for me, learning a tune is mostly playing old-time tunes now, which is sort of a particularly American music form.

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

00:49:30.561 --> 00:49:35.514
So I'll find a recording of it.

00:49:35.793 --> 00:49:39.623
And quite often these recordings are on YouTube of just videos from festivals.

00:49:40.103 --> 00:49:42.690
And YouTube's got this wonderful slowdown function.

00:49:43.010 --> 00:49:45.016
You just hit settings, you can slow it down to halfway.

00:49:45.036 --> 00:49:47.601
So I'll just learn it bit by bit.

00:49:47.905 --> 00:49:52.438
Because I've done this a lot, you know, I've become good at figuring out what's happening.

00:49:52.918 --> 00:49:57.811
I'll learn them either on the major cross-harmonica or sometimes I do it on accordion.

00:49:58.112 --> 00:49:59.757
All these tunes have a structure.

00:49:59.777 --> 00:50:01.661
It's called an A-A-B-B structure.

00:50:01.722 --> 00:50:06.891
So you learn the A part and then you find quite often that a big part of the A part is in the B part.

00:50:07.152 --> 00:50:18.181
So yeah, there's learning the tune and then takes quite a while to assimilate it in that you can sort of play it at will or play it when there's a group of players and you're leading the tune.

00:50:18.242 --> 00:50:20.623
And in order to do that, you have to know it really well.

00:50:20.744 --> 00:50:23.706
And you just do it by playing the tune over and over and over.

00:50:23.885 --> 00:50:25.288
And this is where my busking comes in.

00:50:25.507 --> 00:50:33.795
So, you know, I'll just go into the street next day and with this new tune and run it and then put it into my practice and I'll be playing it a few times a week.

00:50:33.875 --> 00:50:36.978
So after a month so the tune becomes sort of second nature.

00:50:37.277 --> 00:50:41.222
So you're definitely an advocate of learning tunes by ear rather than using the dots.

00:50:41.621 --> 00:50:42.422
Absolutely, yeah.

00:50:42.762 --> 00:50:55.074
So my Harmonica Academy course, you know, there is a notation that I use, and you only have to have that, but I make the point, I mean, you never see a harmonica player with a music sound and a piece of paper, at least not for diatonic players.

00:50:55.894 --> 00:50:59.398
A little bit of a side thing, but this is something I did want to mention.

00:51:00.038 --> 00:51:08.128
I said that when I was at Spa, I played Baroque duets, with my recorder, with chromatic players who could sight read.

00:51:08.369 --> 00:51:15.259
But last time I went, I had this extraordinary experience with firstly, Jason Rosenblatt.

00:51:19.847 --> 00:51:20.266
So

00:51:31.329 --> 00:51:33.411
And then after that with Boaz Kim.

00:51:33.692 --> 00:51:36.474
So Jason, he's a Canadian player, Boaz is an American.

00:51:36.594 --> 00:51:42.780
These guys played diatonic harmonicas with overblows and they read Baroque scores.

00:51:43.139 --> 00:51:46.742
They sight read Baroque scores and played them beautifully.

00:51:47.083 --> 00:51:49.565
I mean, you know, people say overblows, they don't sound.

00:51:50.025 --> 00:51:50.907
Not these guys.

00:51:50.947 --> 00:51:53.909
They sound like oboe players and good oboe players.

00:51:55.150 --> 00:52:01.295
So I just wanted to get that in and a shout out to Jason and Boaz, you know, just what fine players they are.

00:52:01.295 --> 00:52:03.998
and just what a unique experience it is playing.

00:52:04.378 --> 00:52:06.001
Yeah, because I'm a good recorder player.

00:52:06.300 --> 00:52:07.822
Yeah, and I know these pieces well.

00:52:08.182 --> 00:52:16.512
So to be able to sit down with diatonic players who sight-read them and just play them beautifully was, you know, it's why I go to these big American festivals and meet players like that.

00:52:17.012 --> 00:52:18.014
Yeah, it's great, isn't it?

00:52:18.054 --> 00:52:22.237
Like you say, overblows, you know, quite often accused of not kind of sounding that great.

00:52:22.297 --> 00:52:24.179
But yeah, it's getting to that level now, I think, isn't it?

00:52:24.199 --> 00:52:25.802
Some of these players are able to get it.

00:52:25.981 --> 00:52:28.344
Well, look, I mean, I can't even do overblows.

00:52:28.445 --> 00:52:33.010
And I guess because of the alternate tunings you know, I mean, that's the path I've trodden.

00:52:33.329 --> 00:52:35.512
So, I mean, I admire anyone who can do them.

00:52:36.012 --> 00:52:40.237
And, you know, there are people, I mean, last time I was at Spa, Carlos Del Junco was there.

00:52:40.398 --> 00:52:43.240
No, but he's phenomenal.

00:52:43.300 --> 00:52:45.563
You know, like someone from Mars, good.

00:52:45.682 --> 00:52:46.443
He's that good.

00:52:47.085 --> 00:52:50.327
You know, you see, I mean, Howard Levy, of course, and, you know, others as well.

00:52:51.009 --> 00:52:51.369
Okay.

00:52:51.449 --> 00:52:52.710
So, yeah, we'll talk through gear now.

00:52:52.771 --> 00:52:56.894
So, talking about what harmonica you play, we've already said you're a Seidel endorser.

00:52:57.275 --> 00:53:00.378
You just play the Seidels and you're playing, obviously, the major cross.

00:53:00.438 --> 00:53:02.521
You're playing stand the tuned diatonics as well?

00:53:02.862 --> 00:53:03.483
Yeah, I do.

00:53:03.804 --> 00:53:11.534
So any blues stuff, and so this blues tree I've got going, I use the Seidel 1847s, just, you know, standard tuning and Richter tuning.

00:53:12.235 --> 00:53:13.998
And you also play tremolos, of course.

00:53:14.458 --> 00:53:14.898
Yeah, yeah.

00:53:14.958 --> 00:53:22.068
So I play the tremolos and play the Asian style tremolo, which is tuned somewhat differently to...

00:53:23.010 --> 00:53:25.012
Actually, I think the Irish players play them as well.

00:53:25.632 --> 00:53:27.594
And the idea with the tremolos, you have two reeds.

00:53:27.934 --> 00:53:31.396
And with the Asian tremolos, they're tuned basically exactly together.

00:53:31.436 --> 00:53:33.878
And as I said, Seidel make a nice one.

00:53:34.260 --> 00:53:35.260
They call it the skydiver.

00:53:35.380 --> 00:53:36.802
Does that take a lot of re-tuning?

00:53:36.902 --> 00:53:39.623
Because I mentioned one of those reeds slightly goes out of tune.

00:53:39.945 --> 00:53:43.106
For some reason, the tremolos don't go out of tune.

00:53:43.568 --> 00:53:46.690
With tremolo, each slot has its own, just a single reed.

00:53:46.951 --> 00:53:49.552
So I've actually never had a reed fail on a tremolo.

00:53:49.952 --> 00:53:52.335
Remember, they just don't seem to in the way that...

00:53:52.976 --> 00:54:04.208
eventually a diatonical fail could take several years you know harmonica manufacturing has moved on I mean I think with my siders I've had them for about five years and I think I've done one reading or maybe two

00:54:04.568 --> 00:54:09.614
and as the keys because you're playing tunes a lot on these you're sticking to the sort of tune friendly keys

00:54:09.873 --> 00:55:02.590
well that's right yeah so D and G and A and occasionally C just while we're on gear a shout out the Audix Fireball 5 that's my go-to mic quite PT because uses one as well and quite a few other players but yeah for an acoustic player who cups the mic in their hand which I do so most of the time I want to clean so I'm playing blues now which is a wonderful return to something I did 30 years ago and playing guitar in the rack which means that the harmonic has to be in a rack I want that Chicago sound so I'm using Greg Hyman's racket which I actually bought from Greg himself at Spa and it's his bulletini mic which is you know being recognised as one of the mics in the bullet style and It's a smaller size, but it's incorporated into this plastic holder, which you put the harmonica into, slide the harmonica in, and then you get the equivalent of cupping your hands.

00:55:02.791 --> 00:55:07.996
There's a magnetic strip on the bottom, which Greg supplies, which then sits on my Seidel stand.

00:55:08.275 --> 00:55:11.760
And so, yeah, I can get that Chicago sound using.

00:55:11.800 --> 00:55:13.902
So this is definitely a piece of gear that I use.

00:55:13.963 --> 00:55:20.108
I mentioned the Seidel Gecko rack, but Greg Hoyman's racket harmonica holder, definitely a piece of gear that I recommend.

00:55:20.670 --> 00:55:22.771
So my first career was electronics.

00:55:22.831 --> 00:55:26.775
You know, I worked as an electronics engineer for a couple of years and then went on to other things.

00:55:26.836 --> 00:55:49.161
But just this year, because I'm playing in this band where I need valve amplifiers, I've started making them from kits first and then from– so I've made myself a 1957 Fender Deluxe, but also I've made– so Randy Landry from Lone Wolf, he came up with a design which I think is now the Harp Trainer, but there's a precursor to that.

00:55:49.442 --> 00:55:52.509
12 watt single ended harmonic line.

00:55:52.728 --> 00:55:57.259
And I've made myself one of those and it sounds fantastic.

00:55:57.820 --> 00:55:58.101
Great.

00:55:58.121 --> 00:55:58.380
Yeah.

00:55:58.460 --> 00:56:00.405
So you're making your own tube amps as well.

00:56:00.445 --> 00:56:02.429
Superb.

00:56:02.722 --> 00:56:07.545
When you're going for a clean sound, then I take it you're playing through the Audix Vibe or what, into a PA?

00:56:07.987 --> 00:56:14.692
Yeah, so say if I'm on stage somewhere, I'll just, I mean, sometimes I just plug straight DI with this mic.

00:56:15.032 --> 00:56:26.483
An amplifier, which I started using and highly recommend for acoustic, I mean, I play my guitar through it and sing through it, the AER series of amplifiers, but fantastic acoustic amps.

00:56:26.503 --> 00:56:27.282
They're expensive.

00:56:27.704 --> 00:56:30.666
I've got mine secondhand, mine's the Alpha, which is the bottom of it.

00:56:31.166 --> 00:56:32.688
It's this 40 watt amp, very cool.

00:56:32.688 --> 00:56:33.989
compact and just wonderful.

00:56:34.150 --> 00:56:36.771
Yeah, so that's a terrific, terrific Acousticamp.

00:56:37.333 --> 00:56:42.539
When I use it, because I run my guitar through it and it's fantastic with guitar, as you'd expect.

00:56:42.818 --> 00:56:52.268
And so then when I plug the harmonica into the other channel, the second channel, because I got the cheaper version with only one set of tone controls, there's actually too much treble.

00:56:52.628 --> 00:56:55.211
And so it got this slightly gritty sound.

00:56:55.833 --> 00:57:02.639
And so I use a separate EQ pedal and just wind off some of the tops and then I get the sound I want.

00:57:02.639 --> 00:57:05.342
an amp which is designed for acoustic guitars.

00:57:05.422 --> 00:57:08.947
And whenever we get harmonicas, we're sort of pushing the boundary, I guess.

00:57:09.407 --> 00:57:10.949
And final question on gear.

00:57:10.969 --> 00:57:15.954
So when you're recording in the studio, do you have any preference for which microphones you use to record

00:57:16.315 --> 00:57:16.434
with?

00:57:16.494 --> 00:57:19.097
Yeah, so I use my Audix Fireball.

00:57:19.177 --> 00:57:19.617
I cup it.

00:57:19.858 --> 00:57:23.802
I've also got this mic which my brother got me to get.

00:57:23.822 --> 00:57:24.623
I'm looking at it now.

00:57:24.643 --> 00:57:25.925
It's called an MXL.

00:57:26.525 --> 00:57:28.007
I think it's a Chinese mic.

00:57:28.027 --> 00:57:28.907
Wasn't that expensive?

00:57:29.068 --> 00:57:39.239
But it's one of these big phantom-powered cardioid mics And then I use a Focusrite 2i2, which converts it to a USB thing.

00:57:39.278 --> 00:57:41.722
And yeah, they're a fairly standard bit of gear.

00:57:41.961 --> 00:57:43.242
So final question then, Tony.

00:57:43.302 --> 00:57:45.266
So what about your future plans now?

00:57:45.286 --> 00:57:48.889
What are you planning to do with, I think Australia is still in lockdown, isn't it?

00:57:48.949 --> 00:57:51.052
But hopefully that'll be ending soon.

00:57:51.371 --> 00:57:52.954
These days, I just want to play.

00:57:53.313 --> 00:57:57.858
So I said I'm creating this CD, which is essentially the Tony Ayers Trio.

00:57:58.059 --> 00:58:04.686
And actually, yeah, one of the things I want to do is there are a number of around not many recordings.

00:58:05.106 --> 00:58:06.929
So I want to create this thing.

00:58:06.989 --> 00:58:13.518
I mean, it's just my stuff, but I want to contact the various trios around the world, basically, or larger groups.

00:58:13.559 --> 00:58:16.143
And I know a number of them and just send it to them.

00:58:16.262 --> 00:58:21.570
So I don't know if they'll like it or not, but I guess to make some contact and sort of do that.

00:58:21.889 --> 00:58:24.313
But really these days, I just want to play.

00:58:24.673 --> 00:58:26.795
You know, I'm in the 60s now.

00:58:27.195 --> 00:58:28.396
I'll go to as many as I can.

00:58:28.697 --> 00:58:39.086
When this COVID thing ends, because I was going to America every year for spa and actually going to another festival called Galax, one of the great bluegrass old time festivals because it's the week before spa.

00:58:39.327 --> 00:58:42.690
So, yeah, going to festivals, playing, in short, playing music.

00:58:42.789 --> 00:58:43.309
That's what I want to

00:58:43.469 --> 00:58:43.510
do.

00:58:43.530 --> 00:58:44.090
Fantastic.

00:58:44.110 --> 00:58:51.657
Well, great to talk to you, Tony, and all the great stuff you've done and getting out there and doing it yourself, your own tuning, building your own amplifiers, recording your own trio.

00:58:51.677 --> 00:58:57.003
You know, it really shows that you want to get out there and play and, you know, like you're saying, enjoy yourself and get yourself heard.

00:58:57.304 --> 00:58:58.567
Thanks for having me on.

00:58:58.586 --> 00:58:59.648
Yeah, I mean, it's a real honour.

00:59:00.050 --> 00:59:01.693
And thanks all for listening again.

00:59:01.733 --> 00:59:03.135
That was episode 45.

00:59:03.195 --> 00:59:07.202
And just over to Tony to play us out with his trio playing Great

00:59:07.382 --> 00:59:13.373
Out.

00:59:14.978 --> 00:59:46.581
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