Re: Intro

> The only venue you I play, so far anyway, is church. I have not 
> played the the Chordet yet in public but have found a few  tunes in 
> our church songbook that I believe it will work with. Still working 
> on it. This morning I played chords for a couple tunes on the 
> diatonic but as I said i my first post, I'm looking for songs to play
>  tremolo.

For Christ-related tunes, the best single source I have is a new hymnal,
called "The Celebration Hymnal" ( http://www.celebrationhymnal.com/ ).
It's not very expensive (usually less than $10 retail), and it has lots
of upbeat songs, songs which should have been in hymnals decades ago,
and newer songs that my wife and I have been very happy to find in one
volume.

Beyond this, I would find yourself a church or general coffeeshop or 
other small live music venue which is run well, whose management will 
cheerfully allow you to play along quietly (hold one hand over one ear 
and you will hear your harmonica over all else). You will quickly run 
into the key problem !!!  But that's inevitable in any good live 
environment.

> Thanks for the ideas. What do you mean by ' ".... I play solo and 
> straight with vocals" and  "....I play it solo and semistraight with 
> vocalists" What is solo, straight and semistraight?

By "solo" I mean "solo, unaccompanied, without vocals or any other
instruments playing along".  Playing "straight" is shorthand for
"playing the melody and all of the melody, optionally chording but never
leaving out those melody notes, and never varying from melody timing
and rhythmic structure".  "Semistraight" is like "straight" but does
occasionally vary from melody timing and rhythmic structure for just 
enough pizzazz to help but with care for the needs of vocalists and/or 
sing-alongers.  "Utterly rockin'" is the diametric opposite of 
"straight", and requires other instruments; "semistraight" is much 
closer to "straight" than it is to "utterly rockin'", but with the right 
song (e.g., Good News) it can be very good both for player and listener.

> Do you play a second instrument? Primarily I play guitar but I'm 
> always looking for avenues to include the harmonica.

I play piano and tremolo.  I am really better at tremolo than I am at
piano, but I have far more years on piano.


-- 
Jonathan E. Brickman
http://joshuacorps.org



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