Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Marko Jovanovic interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 78

Share episode

Marko Jovanovic joins me on episode 78.

Marko is a German player with Serbian roots, from where he developed an interest in playing Balkan music on the harmonica, returning to the region to team up with several acts to release some great music in that genre. He’s also an expert blues player, has played chamber music, Arabic music and much more on both diatonic and chromatic harmonicas.

Marko also runs the successful Berlin Harmonica School, where as well as one-to-one group classes he has some great online video tutorials from players around the world. Offering lessons in a range of different styles, including Irish, Argentinian, and soon to come: more chromatic, flamenco and advanced diatonic harmonica. And he also runs the FEN harmonica festival now too.

Links:
Marko’s website:
https://mjharmonica.com/

Berlin Harmonica School:
https://harmonica-school-berlin.com/

FEN Festival:
https://harmonica-fen-festival.com/


Videos:

Marko’s YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@mjharmonica/featured

Marko playing On The Road Again with Bluesrudy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ooqHFbmK9k

Playing with Lars Vegas & The Love Gloves:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvksaOsXgkY

Playing with George Sareski:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9lVZN76fjo

Playing at Harmonica Masters 2015 Trossingen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtbW9HHAxbU


Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/

Support the show

SPEAKER_01:

Marko Jovanovic joins me on episode 78. Marko is a German player with Serbian roots, from where he developed an interest in playing Balkan music on the harmonica, returning to the region to team up with several acts to release some great music in that genre. He's also an expert blues player, has played chamber music, Arabic music and much more on both diatonic and chromatic harmonicas. Marko also runs the successful Berlin Harmonica School. where as well as one-to-one group classes, he has some great online video tutorials from players around the world, offering lessons in a range of different styles, including Irish, Argentinian, and soon to come, more chromatic, flamenco, and advanced diatonic, and he also runs the Fenn Harmonica Festival now too. This podcast is sponsored by Seidel Harmonicas. Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world, at www.zidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zidel Harmonicas. Hello, Marko Johanovic, and welcome to the podcast. Hi, Neil. So I'm talking to you in Germany. I think you're living in Berlin now, but you're originally from Munich.

SPEAKER_02:

That's right. I'm right now in Berlin, actually since 1999. So in the meanwhile, I'm longer living in Berlin than I was living in Munich. But I grew up and I was born in Munich. That's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

But I understand you have Serbian roots, but you were born in Germany, as you just said. Yes, my

SPEAKER_02:

parents came in the 70s from Yugoslavia to Berlin. Munich and they met there nowadays it's called Serbia when they left their country it was called Yugoslavia but I mostly see myself still as a Yugoslavian somehow it seems to be more appropriate in my heart than Serbian

SPEAKER_01:

yeah and hence the reason you go back to Croatia that's a name of Yugoslavia isn't it

SPEAKER_02:

yeah we started there from 2014 a series of workshop which is still happening every year with our school with my school I was the years before teaching in Italy, in Tuscany, which was nice. And it was my first time of experiencing that kind of workshop format where you meet for a week and you have a nice place and you really have a week time of introducing more complex ideas or musical ideas and practice for a longer time together with the people. And after two years doing that in Tuscany, I realized I want to try to establish my own series of workshops and my natural first thought appeared why not doing it in Croatia where I haven't been since the end of the war. Back then it was almost 20 years and I thought that would be a wonderful reunion and reconnection to a part of the Mediterranean where I spent a lot of time in my childhood. So we found there a wonderful hotel and we met a Yeah, fantastic. So

SPEAKER_01:

you run a Berlin harmonica school. We'll get into that a little bit later. But yeah, nice taste there of some of the courses that you run. So I believe you started out on harmonica around age 13. So what got you into the harmonica?

SPEAKER_02:

The harmonica was very present early on. My dad listened a lot to blues music and I literally grew up with that music surrounding me and us. And my uncle, his brother, he played harmonica. I saw him very often on stage, hopping, jumping on stage and joining for a session or playing with his band. This was very inspiring from a very early age on. This instrument in particular, music in general, was very present in our home. But the harmonica as a small port magical powerful instrument was very very present yeah with 13 I decided why not give it a try and I asked my uncle if he would be willing to show me the first steps into the harmonica world immediately catched me

SPEAKER_01:

fantastic yeah and so it was your first instrument was it the harmonica

SPEAKER_02:

i would say yes although i was trying to build my own guitar a year earlier but i did not succeed in building a proper sounding guitar so uh i gave that up and change it to the harmonica yeah

SPEAKER_01:

but now you do play what i think some bass and some piano and yes

SPEAKER_02:

i played later on for a couple of years in one band in particular a lot of i played a lot upright bass which was a great experience and later on i of course, started a little studying piano. It was never the intention of becoming a piano player. I mean, piano is, I think, one of the best instruments for harmonica players for studying and for understanding musical relationships, not only for a harmonica player, I mean, for any instrumentalist or for any musician. I mean, that's the most visual instrument where you can really see what's going on. And in a time where I had the urge to really dig a little deeper into musical theory, piano was very important and still is important for me yeah

SPEAKER_01:

so you started playing out 13 was this was diatonic i take it with the blues

SPEAKER_02:

i started with diatonic yes that's my instrument i play the most i started playing chromatic 2004 which is 18 years now and i love them both now i almost play more chromatic in the recent days and years so But I think that the diatonic is my first love and it will stay. Although I'm very excited in getting to know the chromatic better and better from day to day, it's a lovely addition. Things you struggled or you're struggling with a diatonic, you can finally easily play on the chromatic and vice versa. And I think it's good to be aware of both possibilities and the similarities and the differences of these instruments. It's certainly an addition of expressive possibilities in certain situations. yeah

SPEAKER_01:

yeah so that was your motivation for picking up the chromatic was it to you know to see what else it could do or there wasn't a specific song you were trying to learn or anything like that to or style of music

SPEAKER_02:

no i remember the initial reason why i really decided to to start chromatic was a studio job where i was asked to play over an a flat jazz tune a solo and i was really struggling to do that with a diatonic harmonica although i i could i could play the changes I could create some interesting idea over it but it just didn't sound right or I could not sound bring it to sound in the way I wanted it and I realized that this would have been the perfect situation if I would have played the chromatic in that time but I did not play played it and actually the next day I bought a chromatic and started practicing seriously because yeah I mean I love to play the latonic and there are certainly possibilities of playing it chromatically and in other keys and expanding your technique and musical knowledge that you can master a lot. But sound-wise, it's not always the option you want to have. Sometimes it's just a struggle against the instrument and you can hear that and sometimes not appropriate. And in these cases, I prefer the chromatic then.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, sure. Yeah. Good to have both. Yeah. What about the people you listen to inspiring you?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I mean, I think you could divide it in harmonica players and non-harmonica players. So one of the earliest memories I have of one of the first fascinations or moments when I was really fascinated from the sound and from someone really touching me with his playing that was Kent Heat playing with John Lee Hooker on this album, Who Can Heat.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Alan Wilson on the whole album is just fantastic how he's flying and navigating his instrument. You do a version of On the Road again, don't you?

UNKNOWN:

On the Road

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, yes, yes. It's kind of like a homage to that period. Yes, it's a song which was very present in that time when I started playing harmonica on the road again. Alan Wilson was one of the first inspirations, but later on, when the first time I heard Howard Levy with, for example, Trio Globo with a cello player and percussion player, Glenn Veles.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

fantastic album where I for the first time was touched by the possibilities using the harmonica outside of the blues world that really opened up imaginations of like wow there are so many things which can be done yeah but I have to say that I listened very very very much to harmonica players from all kinds of genres and at some time I almost stopped listening to it and focused more on listening to music in general I was not avoiding listening to harmonica players but I was more interested in finding my sound or finding how it all

SPEAKER_01:

works. But I mean one thing which will pick up when we talk through your recordings is that you certainly like to play different genres don't you and get away from the harmonica just being a blues instrument and you know maybe jazz for chromatic so that's a big part of that I guess yeah what you've just said there you know finding your own sort of sound in those different genres where there isn't you know you generally wouldn't hear any harmonica so any particular instruments besides harmonica that you've tried to emulate on the harmonica?

SPEAKER_02:

So many I would have I have difficulties to name just one. I think the way would be, I'm impressed by a sound, I'm impressed by a player, and what is the instrument he plays that is inspiring that moment. It can be an oud, it can be a clarinet, it can be Ravi Shankar's guitar playing. I mean, it's so many fantastic players and music out there. If you find something which really touches you and inspires you, then it's the way to go and to follow. I was not limiting myself to only listening to one instrument. I think what drove me and still drives me is the curiosity in finding sounds and ways of expressions, musical expressions, which are unique. And I was for many years really investigating like in libraries or later on in internet, trying to find in different blog spots from, for example, one blog spot, it was called awesome tapes from Africa. And there was a guy traveling in Africa and collecting from all the markets the cassettes and digitalizing them this was a very inspiring huge resource of very unique recordings and and inspirations for me for african music and rhythms and sounds and there you really could find treasures you normally would not hear if you certainly not in any mainstream radio or or other platform

SPEAKER_01:

yeah so it's probably a good time then to start looking through the your recording career so again very varied and played with lots of different people quite often in duos it's not always, but is a duo something you favor?

SPEAKER_02:

Certainly small setups, duos, trios are my favorite. Partly it's a practical decision of if you want to travel and play not only just once, if you want to play regularly, it's of course a matter of organization, travel costs and so on. But besides that, musically speaking, I like very much to have space in music and the more instruments and more player are in a band, the less the space is getting lost. And harmonica sounds, I think, the most beautiful if you give it proper space to shine. And if it's not played too loud, I love to play with amplifier, but it can lose all the subtleties, all the little nuances the instrument can carry in imitating or creating atmosphere and emotion. And I used to play in the past much more electric. Recent years, I switched more and more to acoustic setups and acoustic playing because of the richness of the instrument, which can get lost when you play exclusively or over an amplifier.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so let's talk then again through your recording. So the first one I've got you down is playing with Lars Vegas and the Love Gloves. You recorded three albums with these.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, it was my first band when I moved to Berlin. We met at a blues festival as a blues competition in Dresden. I was playing with a colleague of mine, Peter Krause, a Kusti Blues finger-picking master from South Germany. And we played as a duo. And Lars Vegas and the Love Gloves, they played as a trio after us. They won the first prize of the jury. prize of the audience and so it was natural somehow that when we figured out that we both live in Berlin to meet and to to get to know each other and their bass player was leading the band and I was looking for a band so that was also natural somehow to join the band as a bass player and that's how my bass career started. I had 10 days to learn to play the upright bass and they gave me a bass and they introduced me to a string instrument which I've never played before and practiced for 10 days and then we started playing and touring and because I was actually a harmonic player and they knew if they saw me as a harmonica player we decided to swap and switch instruments according to different songs and the singer and guitar player was a was the best upright bass player of us all then the drummer was a upright bass player so all three of us played bass and we changed during the set and there I switched between bass and harmonica that was the first band yeah

SPEAKER_01:

great yeah you did

SPEAKER_02:

well to learn the bass in 10 days of course you cannot expect from yourself any virtuosity in 10 days but I learned basic accompaniment basically lines and the forms I had to learn to slap and grooves and so on and after 10 days we had the first concert and we played a lot so I experienced definitely that playing that's cool in a way I mean if you play on the stage and if you're playing in front of an audience there is no joking you really have to concentrate and do your job but it was fun

SPEAKER_01:

So I often talk about and you mentioned already about how the piano you know it's got a lot of similarities with the harmonica and often talk about how you know different instruments inform your harmonica playing so what is it about the bass that's helped your harmonica playing you think absolutely

SPEAKER_02:

like with languages if you pick up learning a language it creates a certain new aspect in your personality and or touches it and learning a new instrument is similar you are learning new tools of expression you're maybe becoming more aware of a musical aspect you were not aware before and for me with the bass it was exactly like is that until then, I was only playing melody and some accompaniment rhythm in the background, but switching to such an important role like the bass, that was really, really altering my knowledge and my perspective or my vision for music. Understanding the connection between rhythm and harmony and that bass is really the instrument which is holding everything together and the responsibility you have in a band timing-wise and also harmony-wise. It's just a huge responsibility and I was not aware of that. Nobody told me that. I realized it literally on the first song, on the first gig. In the first couple of rounds, when I realized, oh my God, if I drag or if I'm pushing the tempo, I'm responsible for it. I started really sweating and that was the point where I realized, oh my God, now I cannot step back. I have to stick to it and then do my best not to play wrong or create chaos on stage. Bass is a fantastic instrument in terms of understanding rhythmical function, groove-based, listening, hearing, playing. Later on, in many years in my teaching or in my classes, I refer very much to the bass, listening to the bass, picking up bass lines as a starting point and learning to play bass lines as an improvisational starting point and so on. So somehow my early experience with learning the bass definitely had a great impact in my musical understanding.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely, yeah. And so the next outfit we've got you down with is with the chamber music ensemble. Is it Pia Cordia? Oh, yeah.

UNKNOWN:

Pia Cordia

SPEAKER_01:

Fantastic music and very different from the blues band that you've just talked about playing with. So how did you get with them and what about learning how to play chamber music on the harmonica?

SPEAKER_02:

That's also an interesting story. In that period, I was... very interested in accordion. And I had accordion at my home and I practiced accordion for some time and I wanted to bring it to the next level. So I was looking for an accordion teacher in my neighborhood. I happened to meet Gerhard Schieve, who's the ensemble leader of Pia Accordia and who was the leader of that band. And he was recommended to me as an accordion teacher. And I came to the first lesson, first class, and I He introduced me to the first basic ideas of accordion. I could play a little, not too well. I mean, I was a beginner, but self-taught. couple of things but he introduced me to proper technique to proper playing technique and so I repeated that for I think two or three lessons and after the third lesson I realized oh my god playing upright play bass playing diatonic harmonica at that time I was practicing a little singing playing piano and now another instrument accordion I realized that is going to be maybe too much I realized that is maybe not going to happen in this life and so I told him thank you so much for your time and dedication but i think it's not for me and and somehow we we talked and and and he knew that i'm a harmonica player and then we jammed i think we jammed after the third lesson we played a little and um and he offered me after that little session he offered me if i would be interested in becoming uh the first soloist of that ensemble so that the ensemble would that he would write arrangements and compositions around the harmonica I was very excited because I've never played in such a quintet ensemble setup. And I immediately said yes. And we started practicing for one and a half years and arranging everything. We had a couple of concerts, did a recording.

SPEAKER_01:

And so is this on diatonic, chromatic or both?

SPEAKER_02:

Mostly on the diatonic, although I played two or three songs chromatic, but mostly diatonic.

SPEAKER_01:

You mentioned Peter Crowe earlier on. You played with Peter Crowe, who's, as you say, a great blues player, finger picker and singer. So is this one of your earliest acts as well?

SPEAKER_02:

He was definitely my first blues guitar partner when I was living in Munich still. piano plays

UNKNOWN:

Hey!

SPEAKER_03:

What

SPEAKER_02:

was fascinating was our difference in approaches because back then I was very much listening to modern blues players. I was fascinated by Mark Ford, Andy Just and Sugar Blue and fast players, technical players. And he was into country blues from the 20s and 30s and Jazz Gilliam and all the greats from that period. And he was a huge collector and he is a huge collector of document record series and had all of the vinyls and shellacs and everything, a huge library of that old music. And that was so far away at that time for me. I really had difficulties to listen through the noise, which I was not used to of that old recordings. But after some time, I realized what treasure lays there and what the origins are. which are captured from that time, that really opened up somehow the true depth of that music and the richness of that culture and varieties which blues has. And I realized how little I knew back then from all the different influences and cultural aspects of blues music.

SPEAKER_01:

And you did harmonica and guitar workshops together. Is that something you still do? We started

SPEAKER_02:

the previous mentioned... harmonica workshops or harmonica guitar play workshops in Tuscany, in Italy. I did two years... teach with him and gave a workshop. And from that on, I decided to make my own series in Croatia. And we do not play regularly together anymore, which doesn't mean that we will not play maybe one day again. But in the recent years, I'm so much focused on the school's work and my projects that I'm simply focused more on these things. But we're still friends and in contact regularly.

SPEAKER_01:

And then Little Sam Ludd is another G or you've been in. So I think Little Sam is from New Orleans.

SPEAKER_02:

Little Sam is not actually a guy. Little Sam Lute is a word play. It's Ryan Donoghue and me. Ryan is from New Orleans and we met 2001 in Berlin and played in many, many bands together. He was sometime also a band member of the Lars Vegas and the Love Gloves. We played in many, many different projects together, sometimes only for a couple of concerts or for a tour. In 2009, we recorded an album which is actually still not published and I'm really considering to publish it now after almost 13 years.

UNKNOWN:

...

SPEAKER_02:

With Ryan, we came up with this idea, Little Sam Lut. Sam Lut is actually the meaning in Serbian, I am crazy. So the translation would be, I am a little crazy. Yeah, we recorded... That album, which is not published, but it will be soon, we played in the Sahara together. We played for a Sahrawian refugee camp music school opening with the most famous Sahrawian singer, Mariam Hassan.

SPEAKER_00:

Music That's

SPEAKER_01:

a great one. And again, a good example of the different styles you're playing with that outfit. Yeah, I

SPEAKER_02:

mean, the harmonica is capable, quite capable of integrating and delivering all that emotion in so many different styles. And I think that is what amazes many people. People, when they hear and witness it in that moment, that it's possible. And sometimes I'm asked, what instrument do I actually play? Because people cannot believe that it's a regular diatonic harmonica, like from their grandpa. But that's, I think, one of the greatest strengths we have with our instrument, that it's powerful and expressive.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And then next one, another duo, I think, with Branko... Branko Galuic, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Branko Galuic is from creation. and he used to live for a couple of years here in Berlin he lives now in Paris and is quite successful there we recorded one album in my sleeping room actually not living room sleeping room that was the sound the best and I was getting more and more involved in recording home recording we recorded there the album and we had also a duo the first time where I was coming closer to my dream in in introducing the harmonica into Balkan music and mixing it with Balkan blues, blues Balkan and everything in between. There was a great playground in checking out what's possible and how can I make it.

SPEAKER_01:

the Balkan music. How do you approach that? Are you playing particular scales of that music consciously or are you just playing that fit?

SPEAKER_02:

If you want to play in a certain genre, not only Balkan music in any genre, I mean, it is literally like a language. You have to get to know a little the language you want to speak or the genre you want to play there. Every musical genre has its particularities, special rhythms, grooves, ways of expressions. If you want to step into and sound authentic or respect the tradition, you really have to know what's going on. And in Balkan music in particular, it's of course, about scales. It's about rhythms, a lot of odd rhythms, 7-8, 9-8, 11-8. And it's also about a particular way of improvising, which is very connected to Arabic music. So there are many, many little things you have to know to navigate through your style or in Balkan music. Ornamentation is a huge thing. And there you have to figure out, for example, with the diatonic harmonica, certain things are just limited and or the limitation starts with the ornamentation. That's what I wanted to say. For example, with a chromatic harmonica, you have the lever where you can trill and change between a half step very easily. On the diatonic harmonica, you cannot do that. so easily. But what you can do is if you switch, for example, to a position where you have a lot of overblows, you can then use overblow bendings to play ornamentations. And that's something I really was working on and I was fascinated with that new aspect of diatonic harmonica playing to adjust it to the needs of the genre, so to say.

SPEAKER_01:

And it sounds great that, you know, the Balkan music, that style music does sound fantastic in harmonica too, doesn't it? So yeah, I think we're all envious and would love to play a bit of that stuff. So yeah, thanks for the insights there. Here's a quick word from the podcast sponsor, Blows Me Away Productions.

SPEAKER_04:

Hey folks, this is Charlie Musselwhite. If you're in an amplified tone like I am, the best and only place to start is a microphone from Blows Me Away Productions. Check them out at blowsmeaway.com. You know I ain't lyin'.

SPEAKER_01:

A couple more outfits you played with then, just to finish off this section. So you play with the Trio Franulic, is it? Which is an outfit you met in Croatia?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's Trio Franulic Csulap Jovanovic. It's a very hard band name to pronounce. Franulic Csulap Jovanovic. We recorded two albums. Put was the first one. PUT We worked for quite some time in Croatia. It's a fun combination. It's actually Arabic music, Arabic scales, Arabic music in our Balkan interpretation. So... It's very exotic and rare also for Balkan perspective. So it's not very common that someone there plays an Arabic oud and plays Arabic percussion instruments and certainly not a diatonic and chromatic harmonica. So it was a very, very unique setup, but I enjoyed it a lot. I enjoyed and learned a lot from them both. Maybe we will also continue soon working and recording on a third album.

SPEAKER_01:

Your latest album is an album called Big Love and that's with guitarist George Giorgi

SPEAKER_02:

Seresky.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean

SPEAKER_02:

compositions can really tell a story and then if you listen to the composition and you involve yourself in it and you bring yourself in it, it's even altered. I'm very... proud of that album and um we decided actually this april to record the second album because we somehow sense that there's more output coming

SPEAKER_01:

great yeah we look forward to that and a great thing that's available on your website of other recordings you you put this section of home recordings slash band tapes slash sessions where you've just kind of put on some old recordings you've dug out and it's great to get that variety there's some really interesting stuff on there and you know listening through those so yeah it's a really good idea to do that so

SPEAKER_02:

For a long time, I really enjoyed playing around with the possibilities and just getting creative and I wanted to share that and thank you for the reminder I probably have to put more or other stuff on it to update it.

SPEAKER_01:

So we've touched on obviously your harmonica school so you've talked about how you were working in Tuscany on another school and you decided to start your own so this is become harmonica school Berlin right so you you run you founded this school in Berlin and that's your day job nowadays is it

SPEAKER_02:

certainly since 2000 and I mean the last couple of years I'm really focusing more and more on it for the first couple of years I was 50% playing and traveling and on the other half of my time and and remaining power I was organizing school but I realized so I have to somehow maybe focus on was for some time more exclusive on one task and it became the school now and I'm quite happy with it because many branches are now growing from the original school's idea. We presented last year for the first time the Harmonica Fan Festival which is also organized by us. Another branch is that we are collaborating now with players with our video courses we released for the school our first video course with Joel Anderson and last week actually with Santiago Alvarez for Tango Argentina harmonica on chromatic harmonica

SPEAKER_00:

so

SPEAKER_02:

there are many many things which are connected to the harmonica school berlin it makes me proud really that yes such a simple idea branches out in so many beautiful events and connection points to others. That was my hope and I'm happy that it's going in that direction.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so as you say there, you offer different things. There's online courses, there's video courses, which are obviously recorded video that you can watch back. I mean, did it start off as, you know, a sort of group of harmonica players that you were teaching in person and then branch out into these different areas?

SPEAKER_02:

It started as group classes and single classes from time to time in workshops with my colleagues when some of my colleagues was around or touring then we were giving workshops for guitar players and harmonica players together or if the harmonica colleague was on tour we invited him for specialized harmonica lecture what happened was 2020 when the pandemic started that we were of course forced also to position ourselves and we were right about to move to our own bigger rooms we wanted to expand actually also create collaboration with more teachers and so on but that was certainly not possible in that time and we decided to switch and to change the plan into an online school online identity of the harmonica school berlin but it was important to us not to to do it as a somehow like an excuse. Okay, it's obviously not possible to do it in another way. So we're doing it also. We decided that we want to somehow to use the technical possibilities for teaching and to bring all the advantages that teaching format has. We knew that we cannot compare to one by one or real life experiencing when you play in a room with someone that cannot be replaced by online teaching. But I created a a studio here where I implemented a lot of my teaching material into a platform. While I'm teaching, you can really see and follow and visually have an idea of what I'm doing. So I wrote and created a lot of visual templates for certain content. And with three years of experience now with our students, it seems to work out really good that although the playing together part is not possible in that way, you can really focus on the technical you can really focus on understanding certain musical aspects. And then later on, when you come together for a workshop, for example, there you can experience the coming together and playing together aspect of music. So we decided to stay in our online format for the teaching part, but we also offer week-long courses in Croatia or here in Berlin as well. So to have like both aspects represented.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I had Joe Landerson on the podcast some episodes ago, and I know he was telling me me you put a lot of effort into putting those video classes together you know to keep the quality very high you know that's the difference isn't it with you know looking on YouTube for videos and then getting it from a reliable source like yourself where you know it's progressive and you know the quality is there

SPEAKER_02:

I myself dedicated YouTube user and watcher and I learned so much on through different YouTube tutorials about all kinds of topics I don't know camera editing techniques everything actually I learned from YouTube and it's a wonderful resource and wonderful way of learning things. I'm a huge fan of learning things and learner. If you know already what you're looking for and you have some experience, then you can judge easier what could be helpful on your path. When you're a beginner and you just do not have the experience, it can be tricky in that early phase to learn things in a wrong way, which then will take a long time to become correct it or sometimes really create a problem for other things you're just not aware and so it's a huge responsibility to teach things so openly that they are inspiring that they are teaching a good technique and still opening up possibilities for expanding wherever you want to expand to so that was one of my initial inspirations of like really thinking about how pedagogically to present it how to make it simple but still professional and fun in a way also like that that you have fun with the content so I'm not working alone on these things I have a little team with my colleague Julia and our guitar friend and colleague Lutz Schlosser also so I think pedagogy is of course a very useful and important aspect in teaching if you don't know anything about it you can be a natural you should be aware a little of how people learn and how they digest information and how things work.

SPEAKER_01:

One thing that was interesting, I saw that you give one-on-one lessons for advanced and professional players. So that's quite a unique offering. What do you do with those?

SPEAKER_02:

I had a couple of times the situations or requests from players who are active on stage and they have a program with a band and they certainly have knowledge and sound and a repertoire and everything. And I received the request of, I'm with a particular knowledge note that they said i'm looking for inspiration i'm i'm circling around the same idea and i don't know how to expand my harmonica playing i mean we all know it that sometimes it's really hard to break through the the licks and the common ground we are established and i really enjoy that part of giving inspiration in in getting to know someone to see like okay what what knowledge is existing and to trying to find where are entry points for for expansion where where How can I create inspiration? And sometimes it's very surprising, I think, for the players that it's sometimes in an unexpected area where you can find interesting growth inspiration. It can be sometimes even not in music itself. It can be sometimes just the relationship of music towards, let's say, some philosophical aspects of life. If you think of like, what do I play? If you think like, what do I want to express? And if you connect suddenly to areas of your personality of your past, of your emotions. You create a bridge between your instrument and your, so to say, soul, your experience. It can be a huge resource of inspiration. So it's a very personal coaching relationship I'm trying to establish then. It's fun for me. It's a very intimate, personal work. I enjoy it. If someone is ready for such a journey, I really certainly enjoy giving my expertise and and experience and inspiration for it.

SPEAKER_01:

And you mentioned the FEN Festival. This is basically harmonica concerts. You had one last year and then you've got one in 2024 and 26 planned as well. Yes. And they're held in Berlin.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. The Harmonica Fan Festival, it's an invitation for the harmonica scene, for harmonica players, lovers, enthusiasts, and everyone who are interested in that topic. As a judge and performer many times, for example, in the World Harmonica Festival in Drossingen in Germany, the first time 97 And then almost every time, I think it's happening every four years.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank

SPEAKER_02:

you. thought always like the aspect of competitions was something i understand i respect it if someone wants to compete against other in in terms of virtuosity technical skills and so on but me personally i i never saw music as a competitive thing for me music carries totally different values and should carry different values i was asked if i can come up with a with a harmonic Concepts. I introduced this idea of the Harmonica Fan Festival, and fan stands for the three aspects which are very, very important for me as a vision, as an invitation. It's the fascination, the education, and the networking aspect of it. What I mean by that is that we all experience as a harmonica player that the starting point of the harmonica is the fascination of this instrument, of the sound, of the possibilities it carries in it. time you want to learn it and of course learning makes more fun if you learn it with others and you connect to others and the network part is actually really about the sharing caring and networking part of it and we are hoping that in this series of three festivals that we will succeed in bringing out this message that we really want to connect to everyone who's into harmonica education who really is into harmonica here history, harmonica, music, everyone who wants to connect outside of the competitiveness. I think it's necessary that our instrument also is showing or presenting itself to a wider audience, not only harmonica players. I think that it would be good if this instrument could gain a little more recognition in general, I think. I think that our history has a lot to offer. I think that the harmonica has many values and many interesting things to offer in terms of music education. It's cheap, it's portable, it's a poor man's instrument. It's not an elite instrument. There are so many aspects which are interesting. And it's still in its development, the instrument. So it doesn't have 400 years of history like the violin with institutions and everything, it's still in its development. Many things are still moving and happening.

SPEAKER_01:

A question to ask each time, Marco, is if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

SPEAKER_02:

I think it's good to be aware what you're working on right now. So, Do I have a certain thing I want to develop, a certain technique? Do I work on a certain song? Do I work on a certain aspect in my playing? And if you have only 10 minutes, then just be aware of that 10 minutes and practice aware where you are. I think it's very important to divide between the fun part. I'm just playing for having fun and whatever happens is good and I'm enjoying it. Or being aware, no, I want to use the 10 minutes of aware practicing on a certain thing. What happens very often is that you practice this and you practice that and oh yes, I forgot to practice this and then you're jumping between the topics and you end up not doing anything of this. You're just wandering from one area to another and it's not a focused work. I think the greatest challenge is in learning in general is To learn how to learn. That is the greatest task, to understand how do I function, how can I organize myself, what tricks, tools are necessary to create a structured way of my progress, of my learning. That's what we are trying to help in different kinds of ways in the school.

SPEAKER_01:

Great stuff. So we'll move on to the last section now and start talking through gear. So first of all, talking about your harmonica of choice. I think you're certainly a Hohner player. You're featured on the Hohner website.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, I always played Hohner harmonicas. For diatonic harmonicas, I really prefer and like the Marine Band Crossover. That's my harmonica of choice.

SPEAKER_01:

Do you use the ones built by Joel?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, I just wanted to say that since I met Joel and really, really appreciate his craftsmanship and his wonderful harmonicas. I ordered and received a wonderful set of customized harmonicas from Joel and I love them. It's, I think, the fastest, best tuned and easy, the most easy playable harmonicas I ever had. And no, it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01:

So you'd certainly endorse then using a customized harmonica, certainly to a higher level like from Joel. You think it really makes a difference to your playing? I

SPEAKER_02:

think that when I started playing, I remember that I could not afford the more expensive models. And I had a lovely instrument. It was the old Meisterklasse. It was like 580 Meisterklasse or something. I don't remember exactly the name, but that was my absolutely beloved instrument. But it was expensive. I couldn't afford it. And I bought in a music shop a five euro Huang cheap harmonica and it played very well it played super it was plastic but somehow the reeds and everything was set very well and I really liked it and I played it for a long time and of course I had many harmonicas but not always good ones and I I had to practice a with also cheaper and not that responsive instruments. And I realized every time I was grabbing a Meisterklasser, a good instrument, that it was time worth spending on the lower quality harmonicas because my technique had to be really precise and good. And that paid off much stronger afterwards. on a good harmonica because there I could use the technique. What I'm trying to say here is a customized harmonica is fantastic and it's definitely helpful to have one and it will do easier everything you want to do with that instrument. But it will not replace study of technique and it will not replace the player itself. So it's like with an amplifier. An amplifier amplifies what you put in. A customized harmonica will put out what you put in as well. So I think it's good to be aware what are what the advantages are but to for this advantage it's good also to have not customized even a cheaper maybe complete cheap harmonica to to understand what is the other range of the scale so what is not responsive what is an instrument which is hard to bend to appreciate more what a customized harmonica can deliver you so

SPEAKER_01:

I noticed that you sell Joel's harmonicas via the Berlin... music school website are they ready to go are they just to order from joel

SPEAKER_02:

we have in stock a couple of harmonicas and we are expanding this collaboration now in a couple of weeks we will announce it it's it's a good way of having having instruments in stock and and making it available to the customer we will not represent his whole range of instruments but for the diatonic marine bands series we will we will have a wider and and more instruments available pretty soon So yeah, we're proud to have this relationship, collaboration and friendship with him. It's really lovely to work with him.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, so they're very hard to get hold of. So if you've got some readily available on your website, then yes, I'm sure they'll be snapped up quickly. So that's Verona. I think chromatics, you're playing Suzuki's?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, Sirius 64. That's my favorite chromatic harmonica.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

With an instrument, it's always a path you have to try to choose. Sometimes it changes. you have to find your instrument which suits your playing style, your body also. And I fell completely in love with the mouthpiece of the Suzuki Sirius and it's just a reliable, wonderful, wonderful instrument and can recommend it absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

You mentioned overblows and I can see you offer a video lesson on using overblows. So obviously you do play overblows on the diatonic. And is it something you use extensively or on certain genres or do you use them all the time?

SPEAKER_02:

I like to think of them as the natural existing possibility of nodes which are just available. I'll try to avoid them as overblows because that gives them a focus as something special or as something hard. They should not stand out. I think the first question I would ask is like, what is the genre you want to play? Is it interesting or is it important to you to stay in one genre? I have students who... are sure from day one, they just want to learn to play blues and they're not interested at all in any excursions in other playing styles. So if you play blues, these notes are mostly not so, particularly if you play traditional blues, they've never been played. And if you use them, if you play chromatic approaches or something, you immediately step out of the genre. It's something you can do if you make it nice, if you can make it sound nice, good for you. it's super but it immediately pops out as something modern sounding unusual sounding and it's just not people are not used to use these notes there if you are interested in learning the harmonica as an instrument that's something I always ask so do you not want to limit yourself to a certain genre do you want to learn the instrument as an instrument then certainly we want to learn to play the diatonic harmonica in all of its positions including all of the keys, and there you have to learn all four techniques of bending, blowbending, overblowing, and overdrawing, and being able to play chromatically. And when you start learning all the keys, the scales, these notes are part of scales, so I'm trying to avoid to label them as something particular. They're part of what we can play, and it depends on what you want to play, whether you will use it or not use it.

SPEAKER_01:

And embouchure-wise, again, on your video classes, you teach tongue blocking so we obviously play tongue blocking but do you use um other embouchures as well

SPEAKER_02:

same thing here if you learn your instrument be aware of the possibilities how you can play it so you can play pucker position you can play tongue blocking they offer different advantages and disadvantages they create a certain sound and i want to have that toolbox ready ready to go in all the scenarios which can appear if you want to play certain rhythmical aspects um micro rhythms or accompaniments. Tongue blocking is the way, the technique to use. If you want to play certain melodic ornamentations with your tongue, you will need the tongue to do some articulations with the tongue. So it would not be possible with tongue blocking. I'm not too much involved in forums or something. Not that I don't find that they are not interesting. I'm just doing too much so I don't have the time to read it, I guess. But sometimes I read a comment of someone who said, yeah, I I recommend only this or that embouchure. I don't see it that it's an advantage. It's a disadvantage if you limit yourself. So I think it's always good to be as widely prepared for anything you want to do and learn tongue blocking, learn whistle position puckering. So and then you have it.

SPEAKER_01:

Getting on to microphones and amplifiers, I noticed again on your Berlin school that you're selling the Schertler acoustic amp. So you mentioned already that you like to play more acoustic these days. So is that your amplifier of choice?

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. Schertler is a fantastic acoustic amplifier. And I really like it when I play in a duo or trio. There are certain or different models. Even the smallest one have two channels, so you can already play with a duo, with a guitar player and microphone. I tried all of the brands, actually. there used to be AER of course they are great great amplifiers and there are other companies as well but as a musician you always are looking for a certain sound which suits you and inspires you as well and with Schertler they have this the warm sounding guitar sound but also for the harmonica it's just a very natural doesn't emphasize any frequencies I'm a fan of their quality definitely

SPEAKER_01:

yeah and would it about microphone when you're playing acoustically?

SPEAKER_02:

I'm not too crazy about any particular microphones. I love the classic Shure SM58. But there is another lovely Shure microphone, the silver one. It's the 441MD441. It's a classic microphone from the 70s and Sennheiser is still building it. It's a dynamic microphone, fantastic for recording and live as well. And also, again, very natural sounding. If I can choose on a gig or in a studio harmonica, I would use the 441 Sennheiser.

SPEAKER_01:

That's the one that Howard Levy uses,

SPEAKER_02:

isn't it? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And I've seen you when you're playing through a tube amp, you know, playing more blues, you've got this kind of silver kind of bullet mic. What's that one?

SPEAKER_02:

Electro voice, an old electro voice. Bill Barrett was giving it as a present one of the days when he was here in Berlin touring and traveling. And he had, I think, three or four microphones in his bag and we were talking about different microphones and he gave it as a present to me and it's just one of the best sounding microphones I own. It's fantastic. I don't know the exact model number. I

SPEAKER_01:

mean, when you're using a tube amp, do you have any particular favorites?

SPEAKER_02:

Small and good sounding. I used to play for many years an old Fender Champ. I certainly love if you can find a Princeton amp. I mean, there are so many great amps. It also depends on what you need in terms of of how loud does it have to be I bought a couple of years ago a marble custom amp from Netherlands as well fantastic sounding it's like with a custom harmonica it's such a professional tool it's incredible but again if you're just sending in which comes amplified out so I think like harmonicas gear amplifiers they in my world they are 10% of my attention it's really about musicality it's about expression about feeling, about technique. That is 90% of the picture.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so great. And so last question then, Marco, just about your future plans. I mean, it sounds like you've got lots on the go. You've got the FEN Festival next year. You've already talked about recording some new albums. So anything particularly coming up this year or people can check you out or your school?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, definitely. The next big things which will happen is that we will publish in the next half year Two already recorded online courses. One is with Bill Barrett, a chromatic course for advanced chromatic playing techniques, chromatic harmonica. And the second one is with William Gellison from New York City. I started to edit them right now. And I will record my course this year for advanced diatonic harmonica playing. And in March, we will record with Antonio Serrano, a flamenco course. So many, many things coming this year. I'm looking forward to it, definitely.

SPEAKER_01:

Fantastic. So thanks so much for talking to me today, Marko Jovanovic.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you, Neil. Thank you for having me here in your show. Super. It was fun.

SPEAKER_01:

Once again, thanks to Zydle for sponsoring the podcast. Be sure to check out their great range of harmonicas and products at www.zydle1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zydle Harmonicas. Thanks so much to Marco for joining me, a great player, and doesn't Balkan music sound amazing on the harmonica? Be sure to check out his online video content, already available on the Berlin Harmonica School website, linked off the podcast webpage. The new content coming in 2023 looks fantastic. And now it's over to Marco to play us out with Tiny Waltz from his latest album, Big Love.

UNKNOWN:

Big Love

SPEAKER_00:

do do