Harp Surgery

Seydel Söhne Competition Winners

The Good Doctor

Congratulations to our competition winners

We know that many of you have been waiting for news of the competition result and now that all the formalities have been completed, we can bring you up to date. Thanks for your patience! Thanks also to Bertram Becher at Seydel Söhne for making this special event possible.

As advertised, on the 11th January three names were drawn at random from our pool of correct replies and the winners were notified by email. We are delighted to announce that the lucky recipients of a Seydel e-shopping voucher are Matthew Squires (USA), Tony Westlake (USA) and Jörge Lange (Germany). Congratulations to Matthew, Tony and Jörge and a big thank you to everyone who sent in an entry. Read more

Culture Club Harmonica II – Karma Chameleon [..with tab]

The Good Doctor

Karma Chameleon single coverIn Culture Club Harmonica part 1, we studied Judd Lander‘s harp playing on the band’s top 10 hit, Church Of The Poison Mind. Their follow up single, Karma Chameleon, went flying to the top of the charts worldwide, where it stayed for several weeks. To this day it remains a classic of 1980’s pop. Culture Club and Boy George had well and truly arrived.

To recap for a moment, Judd Lander is purported to have taken lessons from Sonny Boy II during his formative playing days in Liverpool. He subsequently relocated to London where he found studio session work and launched Charisma Records. His playing is not complex, relying as it does on cross harp blues sequences, but it is highly polished and instantly recognisable. Full of natural tone and excellent phrasing, Judd Lander gives his harp licks real ‘voice’ without resorting to digital trickery or overdriven tubes.

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Culture Club Harmonica I – Church Of The Poison Mind [..with tab]

The Good Doctor

Culture Club - Colour By NumbersThe Harp Surgery has had a number of enquiries regarding the harp riffs used in Culture Club’s hits and who was responsible for them. The culprit was Judd Lander, a harp player from Liverpool who managed to ingratiate himself with Sonny Boy II before moving to London as a session musician and co-founding the Charisma record label. You can find more about Judd in our Harp Trivia pages and on his website.

In the heady days of post-punk Britain, the Sex Pistols‘ erstwhile manager Malcolm McLaren branched into the New Wave pop market with his new creation for the 1980s, Bow Wow Wow. We could look into how and where he found the lead singer Annabella Lwin, his promises to side step the Lolita and Svengali traps, how old Lwin wasn’t, that scandalous album cover, the Vivienne Westwood effect, and how utterly brilliant the music actually was. But we won’t. Read more

Octaving The Blues On Harmonica

The Good Doctor

Blues RemedyPutting double-barreled blues harp into your playing

As a journeyman blues harp player listening to the experts, there were moments when those guys hit what I call the tickle spot and I shuddered with pleasure. For years I just couldn’t work out how they did it. It just sounded like they were producing harmonics and extra fat tone from out of nowhere.

It wasn’t until I broke into third position playing and learned that octaving can be achieved with 5 hole splits – as well as easier 4 hole splits – that the secret began to reveal itself. By reapplying those 5 hole splits to cross harp, the hairs on my neck stood up and I broke out in goose bumps. Bingo! There was that tickle spot. So how do you pick it up?

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London Harmonicas

Elwood

Elwood blows some amateur harpLast Wednesday Elwood the Apprentice attended a year-end performance with London Harmonicas, the informal collective that meets every other Tuesday at The Torriano Pub (7.15pm for beginners, 8pm for intermediates). What he saw was a glorious vision for the socialist future of harmonica. What he heard was a little less glorious…

I’ve attended the London Harmonicas gatherings for the past two months and have really enjoyed it. There’s an excellent mix of players – a few who are navigating their first bends, a few who play real sweet and low, and most of us somewhere in between. There’s no official teacher and no elected leader, but a couple of the advanced players have stepped forward to lead us, Moses-like, to the promised land.

It’s egalitarian, it’s informal, and a fantastic place for any budding player like me to soak up some wisdom from a few seasoned players… and maybe even help a few fellow players out. A few weeks ago, for instance, I taught a guy how to bend his notes. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. Read more

Merry Christmas from the Harp Surgery

The Captain

Arthur TolcherNot Now, Arthur!

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a little bit of Morecambe and Wise, so here’s a tribute to classic comedy.. and a forgotten harmonica hero.

Arthur Tolcher was born in Staffordshire in 1922, and his family theatrical history meant he was destined to tread the boards of music hall. He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of popular tunes and and played a variety of harmonicas, interspersing that with sight gags and jokes. It would do Arthur a disservice to call him a ‘novelty act’ since he was tremendously accomplished and was called upon for sessions whenever a harmonica was required.

Eric and Ernie often toured with Arthur, but as their star rose, his career seemed to stall. However, the two comedians found a little place in the TV spotlight for Arthur. Dressed in full concert garb, harmonica in hand, he would rush on at odd moments (or after the credits rolled), and would just manage a brief burst of the Spanish Gypsy Dance before Eric cut him off with a classic catchphrase.

Here are Eric and Ernie happily explaining Eric’s classic paper bag trick to David Frost (you’ll all be trying this at home) when Arthur dashes on for a quick tootle.

Arthur passed away in 1987 and was the subject of a retrospective on BBC Radio 4 in 2007, his story told by Roy Hudd. Thanks for the memory, Arthur.

Merry Christmas everyone!