Harmonica Workshop - Toronto Blues Society April 2011

I attended this year's Toronto Blues Society Harmonica seminar hosted by Paul Reddick. The other musicians inclued Ken Yoshioka, Al Lerman and Howard Willett. Without any doubt these harp artists were excellent entertainers and provided a great amount of history of the harp, and their personal journeys of how they masterd this instrument. The seminar was sponsored by Lee Oskar harmonicas, which is quite ironic as he is a local Toronto boy done good on the harp scene. Interesting that Lee Oskar harps use a plastic comb as opposed to wood which the Hohners (from Germany) use. The Oskar combs are made in Japan, which is amazing, as that is where Ken Yoshiokai started his harp studies. I did not realize how far the blues had impressed a traditional culture such as Japan. One of the highlights was to hear Ken sing and play harp with all the feeling of a delta blues man. Apparently he used to be found on the TTC subway playing harp for the commuters.

However, my majour complaint is that rather than being an instructional forum, the workshop was more of a display of harmonica musicians. Al Lerman did start to give some instruction, but it was short and unstructured. Ken Yoshioka told a great story about when he met one of his great harp heroes, he was reprimanded for not keeping a harp with him at all times. An instrument this small is easy to carry and should be kept by your side at all times!

The best harp instructor I have seen so far is Mark "Bird" Stafford, who led the workshop 2 years ago. Jerome GodBoo is the most technical instructor, explaining how to choose which harp for which key when playing in first, second or fourth position. Barath Rajukumar is the most versatile and filled with raw talent. Shrimp Daddy is great with his deep gutted sound.

Any way you slice it, the harmonica workshop was great to attend. Unfortunately, there is limited supply of youth, learing this art form. There were a lot of grey haired spectators, myself included. I think we need to be reaching out to the kids to learn the way of the harp, if this is to develop in the future.

Happy Harping,

The Adventure Guy