NHL Day 1

I arrived in England yesterday and met up with Brendan Power at the train station. Brendan was a pleasure to hang with, as usual, and was kind enough to show me the lay of the land. We arrived in Bristol at the Folk House where the NHL (National Harmonica League) is being held. I've already met some players from BluesHarmonica.com, like Dave who's working on tongue blocking for the first time and practices on the job in his cherry picker! I spent some quality time with Mick Kinsella, Lee Sankey and Ben Hewlitt... as well as many other impressive players. I'll check in tomorrow with you on today's happenings.

Your tip today...

The drummer at the jam session, at least from the sounds of things from the beer hall (where I was ;-), seemed to play very loudly... that can be the death of us. Too loud out the gate means you'll most likely have a hard time hearing yourself, causing you to play defensively too loudly, throwing all subtlety out the window. When that happens your plan of attack is to say to the band, and direct your comments to the drummer's side of the stage, "let's bring it down a bit for this one..." This will help to start the song with a more manageable dynamic, of which can of course get stronger as the song climaxes.