I started the day at SPAH by participating in a panel featuring players who play both chromatic and diatonic harps.  It was a good session, with lots of people in attendance.  One thing that became very clear is that one reason the panelists could play…

SPAH began to get interesting yesterday, for me anyway.  A critical mass of great players is now onsite, and it’s not hard to find really hot music. James Conway’s set of Irish music last night was really hot music.  Conway performed with his regular Chicago-based…

One of the things that’s really obvious at this SPAH is that the number of manufacturers making good-quality harmonicas has increased drastically.  In my youth, the only manufacturer of (barely) usable harmonicas was Hohner, and their idea of product development back then was putting a…

Went to breakfast and saw Michael Rubin, a harp player whose various posts to Harp-L (the Internet harmonica mailing list that most of the pros use) are always informative and interesting. Otherwise, I noticed again how old the general attendees to SPAH are.  I’m not…

Got in to the hotel at about 11:30 PM last night.  As I came into the lobby, I saw small clusters of mostly middle-aged men playing harmonicas.  SPAH is mostly men, and most of the membership seems to be in its mid-40s and up.  The…

I’m going to the 2007 convention for the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica (SPAH) in Milwuakee tomorrow.   SPAH is an unusual event.  It’s insipring and nerdy, brilliant and silly.  Let me give you an analogy.  Suppose that you’re a guitar…

One of my very favorite players, Brendan Power, has posted clips from his new swing jazz album to his site at http://www.brendan-power.com.

Because one isn’t enough. Seriously, when every piece of music played in the world uses the same scale and chords, I’ll stick to one harmonica tuning.  Maybe.  In the meantime, I need at least six different tunings to express my music.  (Joni Mitchell uses 31…

I mentioned in my blog about the Dragonfly gig that I used a few effects, including my Digitech RP200, a Boss OC2 octave divider, an Akai Intelliphase, and an Akai Headrush delay.  Here are a few comments on what these things do. First of all,…

I played with Spinning Plates, the ambient improvised electronica band, last night.  Three sets of nonstop improvising and playing.  It was fun and very different, and pretty demanding mentally and physically, since I had no idea at any given point in  time what I was…