Harping On: Charlie Musselwhite

How did you first start playing the harmonica?
I DON’T REALLY REMEMBER A SPECIFIC TIME. IT SEEMS THAT THERE WERE ALWAYS HARPS AROUND. MY DAD HAD PLAYED AND I COULD HAVE HIS OLD ONES. AS A LITTLE KID I LIKED TO GO OUT IN THE WOODS AND JUST MAKE UP STUFF - JUST LITTLE KID STUFF. LATER WHEN I GOT INTERESTED IN BLUES I'D STILL HEAD FOR THE WOODS TO BE ALONE AND PLAY AND JUST MAKE UP MY OWN BLUES. I THOUGHT THAT WAS WHAT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO DO - MAKE UP YOUR OWN BLUES.

What is your harp of choice and why?
FOR ME, THE BEST COMMERCIAL HARMONICA MADE TODAY IS THE SEYDEL. I LIKE ALL THE MODELS, BUT THE ONE I LIKE THE BEST IS THE 1847 SILVER. OF COURSE, JOE FILISKO HARMONICAS ARE IN A CLASS BY THEMSELVES, BUT THAT IS A CUSTOM HARMONICA.

What would you say are the most important techniques to practice?
FINDING YOUR TONE.

What about the harmonica do you love most?
IT IS SO VOICE LIKE. FOR IT'S LIKE SINGING THE BLUES WITHOUT WORDS.

Are you often approached by fans?
SURE AND I'M ALWAYS HAPPY TO MEET THEM.

Your control over the harmonica is legendary. How did you develop that?
I DON'T KNOW. I JUST ALWAYS WORKED AT PLAYING WHAT I WANTED TO HEAR. YOU CAN'T PLEASE EVERYBODY, BUT IF YOU CAN PLEASE YOURSELF THERE'S GOING TO BE SOME PEOPLE THAT WILL LIKE WHAT YOU'RE DOING.

Many of your fans are very fond of your Christo Redemptor. What can you tell us about that song?
I FIRST HEARD IT IN CHICAGO. THE FIRST TIME I HEARD IT I KNEW IT WOULD BE PERFECT FOR HARMONICA. I RECORDED IT FOR MY FIRST ALBUM. SEVERAL TIMES I'VE TRIED TO STOP PLAYING IT BECAUSE I WAS AFRAID OF BORING PEOPLE WITH IT. I WOULD BE AFRAID THEY WOULD BE OUT THERE THINKING, "ENOUGH", OR "OH, NO, NOT THAT TUNE AGAIN", BUT PEOPLE KEEP REQUESTING IT AND INSISTING THAT I PLAY IT. I'M SURE THERE'S SOME PEOLE THAT ARE TIRED OF IT BUT AS LONG AS PEOPLE KEEP ASKING FOR IT I'LL KEEP PLAYING IT FOR THEM. I NEVER GET TIRED OF IT BECAUSE FOR SOME REASON, SOMEHOW, IT ALWAYS SEEMS A LITTLE DIFFERENT EACH TIME I PLAY IT. THE TUNE ITSELF SEEMS TO LEAD ME WHERE IT WANTS TO GO.

In your musical career, what has been your proudest moment?
QUITTING DRINKING. HA HA. I DON'T REALLY HAVE A SINGLE ONE PROUD MOMENT. THERE HAVE BEEN MANY AND I HOPE THERE'LL BE PLENTY MORE. IT HAS BEEN QUITE AN ADVENTURE.

Which harmonica players do you admire most, living or dead?
OH, ALL OF THEM. I THINK EVERYBODY HAS SOMETHING TO OFFER. I ALWAYS FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE NAMING NAMES BECAUSE I KNOW I'M GOING TO FORGET SOMEBODY THAT I REALLY WOULD LIKE TO NAME. FOR THIS TIME, I WON'T NAME ALL THE OBVIOUS ONES THAT EVERYBODY LOVES LIKE THE WALTERS AND THE SONNYBOYS, ETC. SOME OF THE MORE OBSCURE ONES WOULD BE RHYTHM WILLIE, WILL SHADE, JAZZ GILLUM, LITTLE WILLIE FOSTER, JOHN WRENCHER, BULLET WILLIAMS, PAPA LIGHTFOOT, NOAH LEWIS AND PALMER MCABEE. LATER AND PRESENT DAY WOULD BE WILLIAM CLARKE, JAMES COTTON, KIM WILSON, MARK HUMMEL, CURTIS SALGADO, ROBERT BONFIGLIO, HOWARD LEVY, RICK ESTRIN, OH, I HAVE A LONG LONG LIST THAT WON'T FIT ON THIS PAGE. I KNOW I'M FORGETTING A WHOLE BUNCH OF REALLY GREAT HARP PLAYERS. AND I HOPE IF THEY DON'T SEE THEIR NAMES HERE THEY'LL FORGIVE ME. TWO MORE: PETE PEDERSEN AND STAN HARPER. AND LOTS AND LOTS MORE.

Last words to members of HOOT?
"I-IV-V"!!! SERIOUSLY: ALWAYS FOLLOW YOUR HEART.

Harping On: Winslow Yerxa

What is your background as a harmonica player? I started as a teenager after hearing blues harp on British rock records in the 1960s. That led me to Charlie Musselwhite, Paul Butterfield, and John Mayall, who led me back to the Sonny Boys, Little Walter, and all the great classic blues players. Meanwhile I was playing country music, pop tunes, and just about anything that came along. Along the way I started playing chromatic and discovered jazz and Toots Thielemans. In music school I started playing baroque sonatas on chromatic, while also writing for and playing with the school’s big band. Later I went through a period of arranging and playing keyboards in a Caribbean dance band, playing almost no harp at all. Then I started transcribing Toots Thielemans’ solos, which I may publish someday. Later I transcribed John Popper’s harmonica solos for the songbook to the Blues Traveler CD four. In the mid-1990s I started re-examining my roots in Canadian traditional music while also exploring Django Reinhardt and French musette. Lately I’ve been returning to jazz while nibbling at the edges of tango and Finnish music. What can I say – I’m terminally curious!

When I started playing the harmonica, I couldn’t find any useful information. I guess I’ve never gotten over that and still feel the need to produce clearly written, high-quality information and then get it out to anyone who’s interested. Besides, I like to write, and the harmonica is such a fascinating subject! Since the early 1990s, I’ve written about the harmonica for magazines, for harp-l, for other people’s books, and recently, for HarmonicaSessions.com. Now, Harmonica For Dummies has given me the best opportunity so far to share that fascination.

What made you decide to write the book?
The publisher approached me. I decided that getting to write Harmonica For Dummies was a good opportunity, as Dummies books are very well distributed and have a reputation for editorial integrity, clarity and – as their tag line says – making everything easier. Deciding to write a book on my favorite subject, to give it in-depth coverage, to get it in front of a wide public (and, hopefully, make some money) was not a hard decision.

Has the book done well?
So far so good. In its first six weeks of release – and before the Christmas season had started – the book had already sold over 4,000 copies. (I’ll get the next installment of the story in a couple of months.) Meanwhile, on Amazon.com, Harmonica For Dummies is always in the top ten among woodwind books. Oddly, it also places in the music theory and composition category, while in the overall top 20,000 (out of several million books) it seems to be holding its own. Recently the publisher has given the book a new vote of confidence – they’re going to bring out a French-language edition.

What kind of feedback have you received?
The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Knowledgeable reviewers and authors like Richard Hunter have given it a solid recommendation, but what I value most is that people new to the harmonica find the book to be a clear and helpful guide, while intermediate players find it gives them a whole new outlook on the instrument. I deliberately wrote it so that it would offer valuable information not just to beginners, but also to more advanced players, so it seems to be succeeding on that level.

How did you decide what would be included in the book?
The editors had topics they wanted to include, and of course so did I. Each needed to convince the other of the importance of their topic list, and the end, I think we arrived at a solid core of useful information. Early on I realized that focusing on the diatonic would allow me to give it deeper and broader coverage, even though I initially hoped to include chromatic harmonica. And while the first job was to get new players on a solid footing, I felt it was equally important to help intermediate players.

Anyone who plays an instrument needs to choose a good instrument and learn the basics. But a musician always deals with many additional topics, such as choosing good accessories like carrying cases, making simple repairs, finding good tunes to play, listening to great players, playing with other people, and even being in a band, performing for audiences, and dealing with amplification. I made sure to give good basic coverage to all these topics in Harmonica For Dummies.
Did you write very much that ended up not being in the book?
There wasn’t time to write more than what we ended up agreeing on. However, late in the editing process I had to do some slimming to keep the book within the agreed page count. Most of the cuts came from the chapters on players to know about and CDs to listen to. I regretted having to omit mention of so many fine players, many of whom I count as friends.

I also had to slim down the chapter on amplification. It would have been nice to go into more detail about how to get the distorted amplified blues sound. However, amplification is used in all kinds of music – pop, bluegrass, folk, you name it – so I had to convey the most essential and general information on amplification within the available space.

I did manage to include at least basic descriptions and photographs of chromatic and tremolo harmonicas, with demo tracks on the CD, but it would been nice to go into greater depth. I did have to cut out pictures and information about bass and chord harmonicas.

Will those sections ever be made available to the public?
Well, the information on players and CDs will come out in some form. I have another book in the works that may go into more about amplification, but it’s too early to say any more about that.

Was it very difficult to have the book published?
It wasn’t difficult to find a publisher – they came to me. Though I did have to convince them that I was the right author for them. Happily, they agreed. The writing and editing process were grueling, though. I had to produce a 360-page book in only four months, with heavy editorial input and the resulting rewrites, and then turn around and fully produce a 98-track CD in less than a month. But despite the time pressures, it turned out very well.

What did you take into consideration when deciding on how much should be explained, and how it should be explained?
If you’re casually browsing in a bookstore, and you randomly open a book on an unfamiliar subject, does it make sense? If it’s my book, I want the answer to be “Yes.” That ideal, along with space limitations (you have to be able to at least lift the book) influenced how much I included and how I explained it.

The question of “how to explain things” is a matter of putting yourself in the shoes of someone having a new experience. Most skills include several steps and processes that an experienced player doesn’t normally think about. When I explain something to a new player, I take it slow and break a skill down into all those steps. When I do that, I give the learner only as much information as they need at that point – why snow them under with pointless detail? Meanwhile, I try to anticipate the questions that would come up for the person who’s never done this before. The editors were very helpful in coming up with questions, because they’re not harmonica players. If an explanation made sense to them, then it would also make sense to the casual reader

Casual language and humor also play important parts in how I explain things. I feel that putting my readers at ease helps them digest new information.

Last words to members of HOOT?
Stay curious. Seek to understand the things you love, and dig deep. And, at every opportunity, make sweet music!

Harping On: Cheryl Arena

1. When and how did you first start playing harmonica?
1987...I wanted to learn how to play harmonica so I looked for a job that I would have downtime to practice...and I found it! I drove limosines for 4 years and while I was sitting in the car waiting for people I would practice..it was perfect.
2. Your singing is fantastic.
THANK YOU!!!

Were you trained professionally, or is it a natural talent?
No, I'm self-taught, but I wouldn't call it natural because I think of the voice as an instrument like any other, that hopefully gets better with lots of practice :)

3. What would you say are your strong points on the harp?
My tone...and the main reason I say that is because that's what people have always said to me since I first started playing.

As far as what I think..I know I play from my heart and deep down in my soul and I think that shows.
4. Are there any techinques you'd like to improve on?
Yeah, just about everything! There's always more to learn and you can always get better that's what I love about playing music!
5. You are a regular instructor at John Gindick's Harmonica Jam Camp.Can you tell us a bit about that?
Sure,I could go on and on...I LOVE teaching at Jon's camps. I learn so much myself and it's so rewarding to see people's progress in just 5 days.


It's pretty intense...we start at 3pm the first day and go till 5pm the 5th day with barely any time to sleep in between.


Jam Camp is the perfect name for them because the campers do get to jam ALOT! Whether it's group classes, one on ones, jamming with an in house band or just a guitar player or going out on the town to a local jam..it's a pretty hands on experience for everyone.


And it's all ages...teenagers to over 65 retirees...for some reason folks hear the word "camp" and think its just for kids.


We usually have at least 7 seasoned instructors with their own unique talents to share...each camp has a different flavor. In 2008 we did our first camp in Clarksdale Mississippi and it went over so well that we do 2 a year there now..September and March. It's the perfect setting for learning harmonica..being in the Delta...where the Blues began. There's so much history there..you can feel it!

6. As a female harmonica player, do you get different reactions from audiences, or from other harp players?

Yes...the standard comment is "wow I've never heard a woman play harmonica like that" and my standard answer is usually "wow, nobody's ever said that to me before"...then we both laugh.
7. What harps do you prefer, and why?
I play Marine Bands right out of the box. I prefer the wood combs. I would prefer customized harps (if I could afford them). Several years ago, I use to get my harps customized by Richard Sleigh until he got too busy. It was hard to go back to harps right out of the box...

This past July when my good friend, Jason Ricci, was in Dallas he reworked, (with Richard's permission), a few of my old Sleigh harps and he was telling me about his new B-Radical harp that he's been working on with Brad Harrison. I know what a pefectionist Jason is and how meticulous he is about working on harps so I'm really looking forward to his new


B-Radical and I have no doubt they'll be my new favorite harmonicas!
8. What are some of your likes/dislikes about the harmonica community?
I like that there IS a harmonica community! Anybody that gets together to celebrate and/or promote the coolest instrument on the planet is ok with me!
9.What advice would you give to someone who is learning, or hoping to improve on the harmonica?
Listening is key! Listen to whatever you're trying to learn and really absorb it before you even put the harp in your mouth.

And when you play consider all the elements of your playing... your timing, your tone, your attack, and have patience with yourself to learn it right...now I didn't say exact...you don't have to copy someone else's licks note for note..just make every note YOU play,count.

Absorb yourself in listening to music and listen to all the instruments not just harmonica..then play what you feel,feel what you play and above all enjoy the journey of making music!

10. Any last words for HOOT?
So glad y'all give a HOOT!

Harping On: Pat Missin

1. What is your background in harmonica?
I wanted to be a pop star when I was in my teens. I was never much of a singer, so I tried to compensate by becoming a multi-instrumentalist. Guitar was my first instrument, then keyboards, saxophone, trumpet, various ethnic instruments, etc., but harmonica just seemed to take over. I really don't have the time to keep in practice on all of them, but somehow I can never bring myself to give them all up in favour of the harmonica.
   
My first harmonica was a Hohner American Ace that I bought mostly because it was a very cheap way to add another instrument to my arsenal, rather than because I really wanted to play the harmonica.


However, I recall listening to the John Peel radio show one night at 11.45 and he played Little Walter's "Quarter to Twelve" and I thought it sounded pretty cool. I remember thinking "Well, there are only ten holes on this thing - how hard can it be to learn to do that??" It turns out that it wasn't quite so easy as I first thought...


As well as the usual blues harp influences, I was also trying to make my harp sound like Junior Walker's sax, Ernie Isley's guitar, Clifton Chenier's accordion, Booker T.'s Hammond organ and so on. I later added a bunch of more eclectic influences such as Eddie Harris, Basil Kirchin, Brian Eno, Adrian Belew and the entire contents of my local library's "World Music" section.


I was also fortunate enough to get to know a bunch of musicians who didn't have too many preconceived notions of how the harmonica should sound, so they would routinely expect me to play material that most people would not immediately associate with the harmonica.
2. Your website is a wealth of information. How did you decide to get that started?
I originally started the site so I could give my customers ideas of how various tuning options actually sounded. Then people would find my site, figure out that I probably knew a thing or two about the harmonica and email me their questions. I soon noticed that certain questions were very common, so I started putting the answers up on my site to save me from having to type them over and over again. It just kind of grew from there.

When I first started with the harmonica, I was amazed at how hard it was to find useful information about it. Things are a lot better these days, but there's still a lot of misinformation about. Especially when it comes to writing about the instrument's history, it seems like most people simply repeat what they've read elsewhere else, mistakes and all. I hope my website goes some way to fixing that situation.

3. How important is maintenance and customization to you?
Very important indeed. When I was living the life of the typical penniless musician, I simply couldn't have afforded to keep buying new harps when my old ones went out of tune, so learning to tune was extremely empowering. Then as well as maintenance and repairs, I got into alternative tunings and all sorts of other modifications which enabled me to do things that are simply not possible on standard harps.
4. What is the most important modification technique one should learn?
Learning how to adjust the reeds to suit your own personal playing style is probably the most useful skill. Harmonica players are often complaining about how many harps they have to buy just to find one that really suits their style. It's much better, not to mention much cheaper, to learn the basics of reed adjustment and make them play the way you want them to. Any decent guitarist knows how to adjust the action of their instrument - a harmonica player should be able to do the same. It's probably worth pointing out that I prefer to use the term "reed adjustment", as I feel that the term "gapping" tends to lead people to focus on just the tip of the reed, rather than its full length.

A very close second to reed adjustment is tuning - it makes your harps last longer and sound better. Both reed adjustment and tuning put the


player in control of the harp, rather than the other way around.

5. What common bad habits would you have harmonica students avoid?

Playing too hard. There's only so much volume you can get out of a harmonica by simply blowing and drawing harder. It's better to learn how to project and use your hands and vocal tract to support your tone - if nothing else, your reeds will stay in tune for longer. If you still can't be heard, it's time to get a bigger amplifier, or find quieter accompanists. My main diatonics are Lee Oskars that I bought in the mid-80s that are still going strong after more than 20 years and racking up thousands of playing hours on stage and on the street.


That's partly due to the legendary longevity of Lee Oskars, but it's also got a lot to do with learning how to play without placing undue tress on the reeds.
Then there are the related faults of playing too much and not listening enough. These are common problems with many musicians, but harmonica players often seem to be some of the worst offenders. If you're playing with a band, you really need to be aware of what the others are doing and you need to make sure that what you are doing is adding to the overall performance, not detracting from it. Even if you are playing completely solo, you still need to be listening closely to yourself and your surroundings - and not just listening with "harp player's ears".


All too often I hear harmonica players allow themselves to play something badly, just because it is difficult to play it on the harmonica. Of course it's true that the harmonica presents some unique technical challenges, but every instrument has things that are easy and things that are not so easy. Out of tune is out of tune, out of time is out of time and badly phrased is badly phrased - the fact that something may be difficult on a harmonica does not excuse you from having to make everything you play sound as musical as possible.

6. What is the best advice you can give about getting better tone?

Again, listening to yourself, I mean REALLY listening to yourself is key. However, you also have to know what it is that you are trying to hear. A lot of people talk about tone, but many of them don't really seem to know what it is. Without getting too technical here, sounds have a fundamental plus various overtones. Learning to hear these overtones is the first step towards learning to control them and shape your own sound. I talk a little about this topic on my website.


I also feel that there is no such thing as "good tone" or "bad tone". It's more a case of whether a tone is appropriate or not in context. A tone which is suitable for playing a Chicago blues tune is probably not one that would be suitable for a bluegrass tune or a classical piece. Rather than trying to develop one single tone, I think it's important to be able to coax a wide range of tones from your instrument.

7. How important is it to learn proper breathing when playing harmonica?
To be honest, I'm not really sure. In my teens I did a lot of martial arts training and I later got into yoga and meditation. Perhaps this has lead me to take my breathing skills for granted, I don't know. Compared with saxophone or trumpet, harmonica playing requires very little lung power, so if you are routinely finding yourself running out of breath as you play, it's likely that you are simply pushing too much air through the instrument.

You actually design harmonicas. How much do you have to take into consideration?

I think the most important thing is to keep in mind that most harmonica players do not want to learn a new instrument. The patent archives are full of highly innovative harmonicas with wonderful possibilities that were either commercial failures, or were never even produced in the first place.

Really, I think the vast majority of harmonica players just want a better 10-hole diatonic or a better solo tuned slide chromatic. Even things like Suzuki's valved diatonics or their Overdrive harp, or Hohner's XB-40 have not made huge inroads into the market, even though blues harp players don't have to do very much relearning at all in order to get the most from these instruments.
9. Which of your own designs is your favorite?Actually, my favorite is one that completely ignores the previous point! I have no idea if this will ever be commercially available, but I have a design for a harmonica that is fully chromatic, but doesn't require a slide or buttons or anything. I can't say too much about it, but it's based around a pattern that makes for easy transposition through all keys.


Every draw note can be bent just like a blues harp and each note of the chromatic scale is available as a blow note, a draw note and a bent draw note. It does require the player to learn a new interface with the instrument, although the basics of tone production are the same as on a standard harmonica.There are a few teething troubles with the prototype, but I think it's a really cool idea, if I say so myself!

10. Any last words to members of HOOT?
Yeah - stop by my website and say hi!

Harping On: Jerry Portnoy

1. Early in your career, you played with Muddy Waters. What was that like?
A rather broad question but, in brief, simply a dream come true to claim a place among the great harmonica players who preceded me in that most prestigious position. It was a thrill every night to stand there and answer his voice with my harp.

2. What first led you to play harmonica?
I picked one up off a friend's mantel piece and immediately had the feeling that I could make sense out of how to play it.

3. Did you have any difficulty learning?
I grew up around blues in Chicago and learned from hanging out with Big Walter Horton, listening to other great players playing live around town, as well as spending endless hours wearing the grooves down on the classic blues harmonica records. Six years later I was playing with Muddy.
4. What is your harp of choice?
I play customized Marine Bands by Joe Filisko and Mauro Pionzio and Marine Band DeLuxes right out of the box.

5. Your CD set, Blues Harmonica Masterclass, is considered to be one of the best learning sources out there. What do you think makes it stand out?
Probably my ability to explain the physicality of sound production and the use of phonetics.


6. How did you first get the idea for the CD set?

I was doing a lot of private instruction and one of my students brought me a shopping bag full of harmonica instruction materials (books, tapes, and CDs) that he had purchased. I was appalled at the quality of the instruction and realized there should be a good market for a product that really explained and clearly demonstrated the method of producing a professional sound.


7. Your playing in Eric Clapton's "From the Cradle" was what made me want to be a harp player. How did you end up playing with Clapton?
I met Clapton when Muddy's band opened up for him on a European tour in 1978. We followed that up with a three month tour of the U.S. in 1979. Frequently, at the end of his show, he would bring Muddy and me out to play a number with him. I saw him a time or two over the intervening years and, once, he called me out of the audience in Buffalo, NY to join him onstage. In 1990 I got a call that he wanted me to come to England to play the blues nights for his 24 night stand at the Royal Albert Hall in 1991. Buddy Guy, Albert Collins, Jimmie Vaughn, Robert Cray and Johnnie Johnson were the other special guests. I got a call to return in 1993 and became a regular member of his band when he did a largely blues based show for the next several years.


8. Your website says you played harmonica for Sesame Street. What did you do for that show?
That is Toots Thielemans playing the iconic theme song. I did one segment about the letter "Z" and made up a little harmonica riff as the music for it.

9. Which current harmonica players do you admire the most?
There are a number of good harmonica players out there now - many, many more than when I began my career and some of them have told me that hearing me with Muddy or the Legendary Blues Band or Clapton was what turned them on and made them want to play. That's a very satisfying compliment and affirmation. Among current players my top guys would have to be Kim Wilson for blues/diatonic and Mike Turk for jazz/chromatic. Stevie Wonder relegates the harmonica to the back burner but he is an awesome virtuoso on the chromatic.

10. What harmonica playing habits would you have have members of HOOT get into, and which would you have them avoid?
Learn how to use space and concentrate on the sound of one note. See what you can do with it. Attack it different ways - staccato and legato, make it swell and diminish in volume, try different vibratos and other effects. The "sound" of the note is what carries the emotion. Become the note! Avoid eating peanuts just before playing.

Cheryl Arena and Hashbrown at Catfish Blues

This Saturday, go check Cheryl and Hashbrown out at Catfish Blues. I'll be there to take some photos and video.

http://www.catfishbluesdallas.com/

1011 Corinth Street
Dallas, TX 75215-1936
(214) 565-9300

Workshop With Cheryl Arena!

Harmonica Workshop Presented by Cheryl Arena

Workshop begins Monday, March 1st

Dates: March 1, 8, 15, and 29

Classroom Times: 7:00-8:00 P.M.

Tuition and Fees: $100.00

Supplies needed: 1 Harmonica Key of C. I recommend a Hohner Special 20 or a Hohner Big River.

Class Size: Class will be limited to 8 Students

Technique’s covered: "chugging"/ train rhythms, belly breathing and breathe control, clean single notes, lip pursing, tongue blocking, slapping chords and octaves, note bending for blues, licks and patterns for 12-bar progressions, simple songs and much more. Exercise sheets and song charts will be provided.

Register now to reserve your seat!

Lancaster Music

902 N.I-35E

Lancaster, TX.75146

972-274-9767

Update On Ronnie SHellist Workshop

From Ronnie Shellist:

Hope all is well. I do have a location picked up but would like to reserve releasing the exact address to those who have paid up front for the harmonica workshop Feb 27th in Houston..the cross streets are Chimney Rock/San Felipe.

To find out more info or sign up: RonnieShellist@gmail.com
Take care!

Gussow on First Position

Adam Gussow explains first position.

Ever Get L O S T at a Jam?

The last season of ABC's  LOST premiere's tommorrow night. Being a big fan, I thought I'd throw this together. It's the circle of fiths modeled after the Dharma Initiative logo. Fellow fans will dig it. Others will give me funny looks.

I'm okay with that. 

Enjoy!