Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast
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Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast
Christian Marsh interview
Christian Marsh joins me on episode 102.
Christian is an Australian who plays both the diatonic and chromatic harmonica. Starting out playing diatonic, Christian drew inspiration from players such as Norton Buffalo and Charlie McCoy, absorbing as much harmonica as he could lay his hands on . He picked the chromatic up a few years later after hearing Toots Thielemans play, and even went on to maintain Larry Adler’s harmonicas while he was touring Australia.
Christian is a mainstay on the Australian music scene, having 60 album credits sessions to his name, as well as a number of albums with Dr Goodvibe, and several under his own name, with a new release coming out in January 2024. Christian has also performed a concerto written for harmonica, as well as performing at the Sydney Opera House.
Links:
Christian Marsh website:
https://christianmarsh.com.au/
Recording credits:
https://christianmarsh.com.au/credits/
Online tracks:
https://www.reverbnation.com/christianmarsh/song/27991199-sven-libaeks-harmonica-concerto
Videos:
Nun In The Back Seat, with Dr Goodvibe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cov-WjwvCp4&t=200s
Roxanne, live with Dr Goodvibe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh136n8OQHY
Live with Paul Robert Burton trio:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBMiFbRZYSk
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
or sign-up to a monthly subscription to the podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/995536/support
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
Christian Marsh joins me on episode 102. Christian is an Australian who plays both the diatonic and chromatic harmonica. Starting out playing diatonic, Christian drew inspiration from players such as Norton Buffalo and Charlie McCoy, absorbing as much harmonica as he could lay his hands on. He picked up the chromatic a few years later after hearing Toots Thielman's play, and even went on to maintain Larry Adler's harmonicas while he was touring Australia. Christian is a mainstay on the Australian music scene, having 60 album credit sessions to his name, as well as a number of albums with Dr. Good Vibe and several under his own name, with a new release coming out in January 2024. Christian has also performed a concerto written for harmonica, as well as performing at the Sydney Opera House. This podcast is sponsored by Seidel Harmonicas. Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Seidel Harmonicas. Hello, Christian Marsh, and welcome to the podcast.
SPEAKER_00:Hello, Neil. Well, thank you for having me on. I really appreciate
SPEAKER_02:it. My pleasure. And you're speaking to us from the land down under, from Sydney, Australia, yep?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I just live just north of Sydney, a beautiful spot, which is between Sydney and Newcastle, but out in the country a little bit.
SPEAKER_02:You're a diatonic and a chromatic player, right? So which one did you start playing first, and what was the spark that got you playing?
SPEAKER_00:I started playing diatonic harmonica because I had an older brother who used to listen to Jimi Hendrix and Cream and Deep Purple. And when I heard Deep Purple, I really loved the sound of the Hammond organ. And I went to my mother and I said, I'd love to play Hammond organ. But unfortunately, we were kind of a poorer kind of family. And my mom said, there's no way we could afford to set you up with a Hammond organ. Is there anything else you like the sound of? And I said, well, I do like harmonica. And so she said, if I buy you a harmonica, will you promise me you'll learn it? So I went and bought a harmonica and I learned how to play it.
SPEAKER_02:What age were you? this stage?
SPEAKER_00:I was 14 when I first got a diatonic harmonica and I was a surfer and it was a very convenient instrument to take down the beach and have with you. And so we used to travel around surfing a bit and play on the beach and around the fire and stuff like that. So I kind of learned to play that way.
SPEAKER_02:I've got visions of you actually surfing and playing the harmonica. Have you ever done that?
SPEAKER_00:No, I have had one in the back of my board short pocket and I went out and it got soaking wet. But then when I did try playing it on the beach, it was loud. It sounded really good. So I thought, well, if you put them in water, they sound pretty good. That was back in the days of the old marine bands.
SPEAKER_02:So great. So you started playing at 14 then. So I'm putting a bit more emphasis now on the podcast around how people have achieved their mastery of the instrument. So at that stage, What did you do to really work up your chops? Did you start having lessons? What were you doing?
SPEAKER_00:No, I was pretty much self-taught. My father was into bebop jazz, and so he listened to Charlie Parker and he listened to Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington and that kind of stuff, that kind of jazz. And my brother, on the other hand, was listening to Hendrix and Cream and Deep Purple and Canned Heat and stuff like that. And I would hear a song that I liked and I'd find the key and try and play along with it. And when I started to hear players that really blew me away, like Norton Buffalo. I started trying to copy what they did. And so I kind of listened to lots of different kinds of players and copied what they were doing. And I always managed to find whatever key they were playing in fairly quickly. So I was lucky that way. And that was in the early days. There was lots of stuff like Charlie McCoy and, you know, there was masses of material out there that I was interested in.
SPEAKER_02:So, a lot of people, certainly that generation, myself included, learnt exactly that way and so, I mean, what do you think that did for your playing, you know, that ability to pick things up by ear?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I kind of got thrown in the deep end as much as when I was at school, there was a few guys that played instruments and I got drawn into a band. Like, we all went surfing together but then when at school because we all played instruments and I played a bit of harmonica and we put a band together and then we had to come up with all this material because they wanted us to play at the school and the school dance and so I kind of had to pull it together and find things to do in songs and I would research other players and to try to define what my role in the band would be and I was a bit of a perfectionist and I was always practicing and trying to get good sound, good tone. And so that was kind of the way I started to play live.
SPEAKER_02:You say always practicing though. So is that something, again, conscious of yourself, when you start playing and you really put some hours in to really get the fundamentals under your belt, is that something you felt you, you know, you spent a lot of time doing then?
SPEAKER_00:I did, but it was more about being inspired by what I was hearing. I really wanted, I want to do that, you know. I heard Lee Oscar in War. He played some really beautiful things that were new to me and new to my ear for harmonica. And I just really wanted to emulate that. I wanted to capture that sound. I wanted to be that guy. But then I'd hear Charlie McCoy go, wow, I want to do that. And then I'd hear Norton Buffalo and, wow, I want to do that. So I just absorbed as much as I could from all the people that I had access to hearing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, sure. And you mentioned Walter. I know you did a version of Low Rider with Dr. Goodvibe, didn't
SPEAKER_00:you? Yeah. I did. You know, I was in a hardware store not long ago and I heard it come out over the PA system and I hadn't heard it for years. And Dr. Good Vibe has a certain style about it. And I thought, you know what? That is very Dr. Good Vibe. You know, Dr. Good Vibe could capture that. So I suggested it to Ed and we recorded it, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, great track. Okay, so you got through playing with bands when you were younger. At what point did you start picking up the chromatic?
SPEAKER_00:When I was about seven years old, my mother called me into the lounge room to listen to Larry Adler. He was on television and I'd never actually seen any harmonica at that stage. I was kind of fascinated by it, but not. Then one day I walked into a record shop because there was a record shop down the road and the guy that ran the record shop used to collar you and say, this is something I know you'd like and he'd play things to me. And he played Toots Tillemans playing that Misty Red Beast. It sounded a bit classical to me at the time as Roger van Otterloo, who was a Dutch composer. And I was absolutely... blown away and once again I stood there and thought I want to do that and so I did have a chromatic but I never took it that seriously until then and then I started to learn scales because it was the only way I could give the chromatic a voice was to learn a scale so I could be in key with the rest of the band
SPEAKER_02:So just a slight aside so you mentioned Larry Adler there I understand that when Larry Adler was touring in Australia you were his technician when he was over there. Is that right?
SPEAKER_00:That's right. It was funny because little did I know when I was seven that I would be his technician one day. But when he was doing the Glory of Gershwin tour and when they came to Australia, he had two silver concerto harmonicas that needed work. And so he trusted me with them because at the time I was working as a repairer for Hohner Australia with KJ Music. So I got to work on Larry Adler's harmonicas it was interesting to be with someone that had such an incredible background playing with Django Reinhardt and George Gershwin and all the people that he played with to sit and listen to stories coming from the guy that was there doing that really was amazing time for me I learned a lot from him
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I've read his book, Me, My Big Mouth. You have plenty of stories, that's for sure. So yeah, what was he like? I
SPEAKER_00:liked him. He was a really nice guy. He was down to earth. Really liked him. I had a funny story because he had a couple of minutes to go on stage and I had his harmonica apart and it was a silver concerto and it had a silver slide in it. And I dropped the slide down inside of this big lounge that was back stage it was a big old lounge and the more I tried to get hold of the slide the further down the lounge it went and then he said is my harmonica ready yet and I thought oh no and so in my panic I took my own harmonica apart which was a stainless steel harmonica and I put my stainless steel slide in his silver harmonica and screwed it together and just quickly played it and gave it to him and he went out and performed and I thought when he comes back off stage I'll get the harmonica back off him and I'll change the slide over back to his slide so while the show was on I took the lounge part found his silver slide and then he came off stage and I asked for the harmonica back and he said no no I'm not giving this back to you this is this is the best slide I've had for years don't touch it it's fine and so to this day I've got Larry Adler's silver slide in my stainless steel harmonica
SPEAKER_02:wow that's great that's great interestingly I've got one of two Steelman slides which I acquired via my teacher for a while was Julian Jackson and he got one of his harmonicas and I got that eventually because it was an old one and got his slide out there. So I've got one of Toots Thielman's slides.
SPEAKER_00:Well, there you go.
SPEAKER_02:So back to your learning of the chromatic then. What age did you start playing the chromatic?
SPEAKER_00:17 and I was a bit daunted by it because I had to learn music basically but I didn't really have anyone much to teach me and so I tried to learn scales and I tried to do a little bit by ear and I had friends that were moving into jazz at that time and I was interested in jazz because it was always on the background at home so and they would share things with me and say oh you really need to learn the minor scales and you really need to learn the harmonic minor and blah blah blah so I really tried learning scales but it was all kind of on my own. It wasn't until there was an outreach program at the Sydney Conservatorium that was just a day a night a week which was designed for anyone to come to. I had a teacher called Julie Spithill who taught the class the fundamentals of music and that's when I started to get a much better handle on music and and how to play different kinds of jazz structures also learning to read a little bit my reading's not great but it's i get away with it and so i i got really into learning scales and and applying them and all that sort of stuff and i i still do work every day just do a little bit just to get a little bit better each time
SPEAKER_02:the chromatic as you say you need to learn scales more obviously you can play different scales different keys on the diatonic but do you did you apply that to the diatonic that sort of learning or was it more separate on the chromatic?
SPEAKER_00:I worked equally on diatonic and chromatic harmonica because I used them both in live situations and the reason I did that is because it gave me a broader palette. I played with musicians that played all sorts of different stuff and to fit in with them I needed to be able to draw on things that would fit in with what they were playing and so I just got into playing chromatic and diatonic. Sometimes I'd have one in one hand and one in the other and switch them over and all sorts of stuff like that and so I've always use both of them in equal measure. Anything that I learn on chromatic, I try and relate back to diatonic and vice versa.
SPEAKER_02:I didn't come across overblowing pretty
SPEAKER_00:much until Howard Levy was using the technique. Although I had discovered it by accident some years before, I didn't really know what it was, but I didn't really use it. But then once Howard Levy came along and started using the technique, then I learned how to blow and overdraw notes to give more chromaticism to the diatonic. That's been another journey. So now I do try and apply scales that I learned on chromatic to the diatonic and vice versa.
SPEAKER_02:Howard Levy, you played with him in Australia.
SPEAKER_00:I did, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:There was a workshop
SPEAKER_00:and Howard was doing diatonic harmonica and I was doing chromatic harmonica. It was run by Hona. There was a little show put on pretty much for the people that were attending the workshops and so we played together in that and Howard played diatonic and I played chromatic.
SPEAKER_02:So great. So you mentioned, obviously, that you did this jazz course and that led you on to obviously playing jazz. And then, you know, jazz requires serious studio, right? We've got complex chord sequences, the scales that go over them. At that stage, you know, did you really dive into, you know, seriously working on your jazz chops?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Once I'd started on doing the outreach program and I did the fundamental of music at the con, the conservatorium offered an outreach jazz improv course. And I applied and they auditioned me and they put me in at a level that they thought I was at with everyone else. And so you get put into more or less an ensemble and it was like horn players and guitar players and flute players and just different musicians. So there'd be ensembles of about eight people. Every lesson they'd come in with a tune, explain the structure of the chords and what kinds of things to play over the top of them and then get you to have a go at it. And then you'd play as an ensemble and I did that every day a week, every three years or something because it was fun and I met a lot of jazz players and I met a lot of great people, some of which I still play with now and again and that was a great learning curve for me and that freed me to be able to, say, choose tunes that I like, like a jazz tune, get the chart, listen to how it sounds from the original recordings look at the chart, learn the head on chromatic, learn how to play it, learn how to solo over it. And I used a little bit of the Jamie Abbasol recordings to play over to get myself comfortable with playing that stuff. Whilst I never got out and played that much jazz, I did apply a lot of the ideas that I was getting into kind of the music that I was out playing because I was playing in bars and pubs and all sorts of things but they were more rock bands but I was applying jazz ideas into the rock music that I was playing and that sort of shows in some of the good Dr. Goodfire material.
SPEAKER_02:And then, so you play, you know, you say different genres and some jazz and classical and blues and country. So yeah, lots of, and this has led you on to getting lots of session work. You play with all sorts of people over there in Australia, haven't you? And got lots of work.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, I played a little bit in the Tamworth Country Music Festival because I knew some country players. I did quite a few country sessions. I was fairly well grounded in country music because I'd listened a lot. to charlie mccoy and to norton buffalo and i loved all that stuff and and country players can be a bit like jazz players you know when you're playing bluegrass or some of that crossover country into jazz stuff
SPEAKER_01:It
SPEAKER_00:can be quite difficult and challenging stuff. So, yeah, I ended up doing quite a few sessions. I think I've done 60-odd albums, I think, to date. And the sessions could be either chromatic or diatonic. Yeah, I feel very privileged that I've had a lot of that kind of work.
SPEAKER_02:So the country harmonica, quite often very fast licks, running up high and across the harmonica. Is that the sort of licks you developed on the countryside playing?
SPEAKER_00:yeah it was because it was I heard it in Charlie McCoy's playing and also not in Buffalo's and lots of other harmonica players that I used to listen to and of course you know I really wanted to do that yeah I'd play Orange Blossom Special and things like that and it was always a showstopper I used to play Orange Blossom Special with a guitar player that I used to tour with and it was just him and I and it was always something that everyone loved the latest album that I've done I used kind to play jazz a lot of the time as a harmonica player they ask you to play in their bands doing the things that they want you to do and I thought well I'm going to do a jazz album and I'm going to get the country guys in and I'm going to ask them to play jazz and so it's been an interesting little journey I've developed material with a pedal steel player called Michelle Rose and we're doing horn lines but it's harmonica and pedal steel and I'm quite excited That album's being released next week, actually. It's called Christian Marshall and the Imagineers.
SPEAKER_02:Great, yeah. And so these are jazz tracks on here. You've got you doing Sidewinder, for example.
UNKNOWN:SIDEWINDER
SPEAKER_00:And the thing was is that I, I kind of wanted to get a different flavor in jazz tracks than you get from guys that are into jazz, that play jazz. I wanted something else. And so that's why I did it the way I did. And I wanted, it's just a creative project. I'm quite happy with it, actually. I think it sounds pretty good.
SPEAKER_02:This crossing over of genres is a thing these days. And it's a good idea, yeah, to get that different sort of vibe. So yeah, as you say, this is out 22nd, 24th of January. Is that going to be available via your website? Put a link on the podcast page.
SPEAKER_00:Well, physical copies will be available on the website, but it's being released to digital platforms. So it'll be on Amazon and it'll be on Apple Music and it'll be on Deezer and all those digital platforms. Did I say Spotify? And that'll be fairly soon. It'll be available on those platforms.
SPEAKER_02:Touching on then, again, this idea of playing different genres, as you say, you played some country there, obviously jazz and, you know, blues and classical and so you know what's your thoughts on the benefits because I'm often torn myself around if you want to be a jazz player, for example, you kind of really got to dedicate yourself to that genre. What do you feel about the benefits of playing different genres and also the diatonic and chromatic? Obviously, it brings you a broader range of skills, but what do you think?
SPEAKER_00:You're absolutely right. If you wanted to be a great jazz player, then yeah, you do need to concentrate on jazz. Same with country harmonica. If you want to be a great country player, you should concentrate on a lot of classical. Because I live in the end activities. I have to be flexible with the kind of offers that I get from different people. And at the end of the day, I don't classify myself as a jazz player and I don't classify myself in any genre at all. There's blues players that play better blues than I do because I don't play in that genre. Well, I do, but I don't specialize in that genre. But I play what I really like. And so if I like something... I learn how to play it. And so I've become a bit of a diversified player because of that. But at the end of the day, it's all music to me. Whatever strikes my heart, I kind of want to do. Sometimes bringing something different into a genre pays off. I do play with jazz players now, and they tell me I'm a jazz player, and I say, well, I'm not. But they like what I do, and they like that it's the unusual animal that it is, and so go along with
SPEAKER_02:it. like you say, it's great to be versatile and to be able to get lots of work, right? So which is, which is where, yes, it's definitely got those advantages.
SPEAKER_00:It helps if you can kind of put on different hats, you know, you get more work. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Great. So let's get into some more into your recording career. Obviously you talked about your new album coming out. So I don't know if it's your first album, but the first album I've got you down is, is Planetbound. Is that one of your first ones?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. Planetbound, I played with Guy Dickerson for many years and we were developing original material. Eventually we put it together on an album called Planet Bound and it was released through Festival Records in Australia anyway. It's a quirky album, I guess, for its time. It was in the late 90s we did that. It kind of predated world music in some ways. They didn't know where to put it in the record shops.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and as you say, it's quirky in a way. You're getting some unusual sounds on the harmonica using some effects on there. You get almost something like an accordion accordion at times
SPEAKER_00:yeah that album we had access to one of sydney's best studios for as much time as we wanted We were experimenting using harmonica through different effects units and putting it through different amplifiers and all that sort of stuff and doubling harmonica up. So I'd play the same thing doubling up what I'd just played. That's why it sounds piano accordion-y. We were just experimenting with things, you know. We were just kids having fun in the sandpit.
UNKNOWN:MUSIC
SPEAKER_02:And then you play quite a lot of diatonic on here and some chromatic. But on the next album I've got you down, at least, which is the sketch from 2000, am I detecting quite a lot more chromatic on this album?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the sketch was more chromatic. The sketch was kind of, I was playing with people that I'd met at the conservatorium, basically, you know, when I did the outreach program. And it was the same studio. I had access to the same studio. And I was very honored to have Chad Wacken and join in on the recording because, I mean, he was Frank Zappa's drummer. So I was very blessed that he agreed to come in. The sketch was a whole bunch of tunes that I just really liked and I kind of just wanted to make versions of.
UNKNOWN:MUSIC
SPEAKER_02:And then another one under your name was The Lil' Tink. When did this one come out?
SPEAKER_00:The Lil Team was in 2014 or 2015. I was playing at the time with a concert pianist. We toured Asia and I played with a didgeridoo player, a guy called Mark Atkins, and a concert pianist and harmonica. And we were playing things like Rachmaninoff and Debussy, but also funky versions of our own stuff. The tour was fun and it gathered a lot of interest around the didgeridoo, basically. when we came back to Australia we did an album which was called The Reason to Breathe which is a kind of a classical album and then there's an offshoot to that at the same studio Paris McLeod who was one of the keyboard players said why don't you do an album so I sat down and wrote some material with Paris and so quite a few of the tracks on that album the original material that we came up with and recorded it became the animal that it was as a result of a touring with the people that I had. And so I was just lucky that once again, there was a studio available and people willing to back me up, go along with my crazy ideas.
SPEAKER_02:So you mentioned, obviously, you're playing with a classical pianist on that album. So this led to, again, a great achievement that you got, which is you played a concerto with the Symphony Orchestra there in Sydney, yeah?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I did a concerto that was written by an Australian composer. Well, he's originally from Denmark, I think. His name is Sten Liebeck. And Sven Liebeck used to write a lot of film scores for Australian movies and I used to hear his scores on nature programs and it always featured harmonica. The chromatic harmonica through Sven Liebeck almost became, in Australia anyway, the sound of the outback because it was used on nature programs and Sven wrote a symphony for chromatic harmonica for the original harmonica player that he used to use on those those recordings but unfortunately he became ill and couldn't perform it. Then the concerto was going begging and I'd heard about it and even though I wasn't a classical player as such I rang Sven because he was going to send it overseas to be done and the concerto was about the Australian outback and I'd been in the outback prior to that and I'd spent some time out there with the Aboriginal community and I felt like well maybe I could play it because I come in know what it's about and so I rang him up and he didn't know me but he said oh well if you have a go and I've had all the score and everything and I was at a party and someone at the party said you've got the score for a concerto don't you and I said yeah and he said well there's a guy standing over there that's a conductor for the Newcastle Symphony and do you want to meet him and I said yeah and so I was introduced to him and within five minutes of conversation I had a orchestra and so I thought okay well I'm going to give this a go. So I got it together and professed with the orchestra and we ended up performing it and eventually recording it.
SPEAKER_02:So you said yourself you weren't the strongest reader so how did you go about learning and performing a concerto?
SPEAKER_00:Well charts for me I do need them because I learned all of the melodic lines and everything but having the chart there reminds me of them and reminds me where they are so in some ways I'm kind of speed reading the chart rather than looking at every note because I already know the melodic structure I've learnt it and so the score is a cue for me and I just I kind of just scan it and know where I am because you can get lost in concertos quite easily if you're not careful and so it just reminds me of where I am
SPEAKER_02:You're playing it from memory mainly and as you say using the score as a cue
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah because I want to learn the thing and learn the nuances that I can use to give it melodic lines some meaning and some feeling and all that kind of stuff so I like to know it now that I've worked with a few classical musicians they do the same thing a lot of them know exactly what it is they're playing and they just scan the chart you know
SPEAKER_02:so you also played Henry Mancini's Breakfast at Tiffany's with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra as well so you got some more so you must have done well
SPEAKER_00:yeah look you know that came my way because they needed a chromatic harmonic player because the you know the classic symphonies song in Breakfast at Tiffany's I learned that song and played it with the Sydney Symphony and I was terrified I managed to pull that off and the Sydney Symphony were great they were really supportive and they were all saying yeah we can hear we're behind you because they knew I was nervous but we ended up pulling it off because every night there was three and a half thousand people in the audience it was at the Opera House in the concert hall and one night we played it really well and got a standing ovation and And I was really honoured in as much as the conductor made me stand up and everyone clapped. So it was kind of nice.
SPEAKER_02:I can't think of a more daunting gig to play in a symphony orchestra, in a venue like that. So well done, Chris. I'm not surprised you were terrified so well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:yeah. A characteristic of your playing is your sweet tone.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:How have you developed your tone and particularly producing that kind of nice tone? What have you worked on for that?
SPEAKER_00:When I worked with Adler, he said to me, you know what, you've got to sound like you do, don't imitate anybody else, just be yourself, sound like yourself. Toots Tillemans wrote to me because he heard a copy of the sketch and I spoke to him on the phone and he said, You've got to just find yourself in this. Don't emulate anybody else. So there's no point in sounding like anybody else. Sound like yourself. And I was always conscious of that. And I liked Toots's tone. I liked everybody else's tone. I never liked mine. I just never liked my own tone for some reason. But my tone, I think, and my way of playing was developed as a result of listening to saxophone players like Stan Getz and Pat Matheny's guitar playing. And things that really inspired me, there's lots of really sweet horn players that I really love. Paul Desmond's another one. And so I listened to the way they pull their tones, and I just tried to copy that on harmonica because I was really into the Stan Getz sound. And Dave Sanborn was another one. He was more of a modern saxophone player, but I just loved his tone. And so I copied saxophone tonality, I think, is that's why– It just became ingrained in my melodic sensibility. And so I think that's why.
SPEAKER_02:Was this mainly on chromatic that you were copying the saxophones?
SPEAKER_00:Everything I do on chromatic relates back to diatonic. I mean, people often say to me when I'm playing diatonic, they didn't realize it was diatonic. They thought it was chromatic. So in some ways, you end up approaching the two instruments in the same way. What you learn on one, you apply to the other and vice versa. And so the tonality I can get from a diatonic... is a byproduct in some ways of the tonality I've got from chromatic by listening to horn players if you get that.
SPEAKER_02:And so to, you know, the tone of the saxophone players, is this something that you play along with, you know, with the records and then try and emulate the tone in that way?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I try and learn their lines and try and play along with them and imagine that I'm Stan Getz and I'm doing this, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Hopefully it kind of, you absorb a little bit of it then one day you're playing and it starts coming out and you think oh okay and I think that's my approach to tone I don't play hugely loud either like I'm amped up to the hilt I play right on the mic I'm loud but I don't play hard I play softly and that was something I learned from Toots because Toots plays softly and I loved the sweetness and how he could get he could whisper things to and it was beautiful. I was really inspired by that. And so I tend to play quietly into the mic, but I'm quite amped up as well.
SPEAKER_02:And I noticed on one of your recordings, I think with Ed Cooper, that you're playing some bass harmonica. That's you on bass, is it?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it is. The Ed Cooper recording, Ed Cooper was or is a great composer in Australia in rock music. They called me to the studio because they wanted chromatic harmonica and so they put on a track and said can you just give us a demo of the chromatic and a bit of a demo of diatonic and a bit of a demo of bass harmonica because they knew I had one. They pressed play and so I played it a bit of chromatic and then I played a bit of titanic and at the end I played bass harmonica and then when the track was finished I kind of said okay what do you want me to do and they said thanks we've got it and they just recorded it all in one go and kept it all and that was how that track came about and it was like I was kind of trying to say well I was only experimenting I wasn't you know and they said no it sat perfectly we really like it we're going to keep it and so that's how that came about so that was a funny one
SPEAKER_02:so i mean probably like some people i own a bass harmonica and you know i played it a little bit i've never really mastered it but you know is it something you've worked on any of you sort of works on bass lines or you know you're sort of using your your kind of understanding of um chord triads and things to play any any deeper than that
SPEAKER_00:i had a bass harmonica because i played in in a band they wanted bass harmonica that the guy playing guitar knew about bass harmonica he said you need to play bass harmonica
SPEAKER_02:and so
SPEAKER_00:twisted my arm to go and buy one and play a couple of lines in some songs that we used to do we used to play bars and pubs and stuff and then I did a stage musical called Big River which was about Huckleberry Finn and it had a couple of tunes that had bass harmonica in them and I had to play in the pit orchestra for this musical Big River which was at Her Majesty's Theatre in Sydney and also Melbourne and I had to learn the bass line And so I learned the bass line and I got over being nervous on bass harmonica because I had to play to big audiences every night. And I really loved the sound of it. And so I've used it in quite a few different recordings now, but I wouldn't call myself a bass harmonica player. And I always stress that to people, like I can play a few things, but I'm no bass harmonica player. But I used it in Planetbound as well.
SPEAKER_02:So great, yes, you did the theatre there, as you say. You even acted in... Big River, didn't you?
SPEAKER_00:I did. I was a character in Tom Sawyer's gang. There was a character in the gang that played harmonica. And so we'd be on stage and I'd start the song and then Huck Finn would start singing and then we'd roll about stage. And I had to roll about stage playing harmonica and stuff like that. It was fun. It was a lot of fun, that show. I did that tour with that for over a year. It was good fun.
SPEAKER_02:I love it when the actors play instruments on stage. I always think that works really well. Okay, and... So you've also done lots of TV work, lots of TV appearances in Australia.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I've been invited to do TV appearances with different bands, some of whom I've done sessions for. The track that I was on was a track that they were playing on the radio or whatever it was and then they'd go on a midday show or whatever show it was and they'd say, can you come on the show, come on the TV with us because, you know, we need you to do the solo that you did on the record. Pretty much Most of the performances that I've done on TV have been as a result of that. I did play in the band, the backing band for a television show for a little while. yeah these opportunities came up and they were always fun
SPEAKER_02:yeah no great stuff and you've won some awards over there in australia the uh the hona gold harmonica award three times at hona's uh harmonica championship over in australia
SPEAKER_00:well the harmonica championship was one of those things where you know a whole bunch of people would get up and perform and then you'd be judged on your performance and you know you'd win the gold harmonica award if you were the best one on the night, and so I always used to say, you know, I used to say you're the Australian harmonica champion, but it was to me, it was like, well, no, I was probably the guy on the night that played the most confidently, you know, because if we did it on another night, someone else probably would have got it, you know what I mean? But they were always fun, and you always had to come up with some novel thing that the audience would like to try and establish a place in the competition, so...
SPEAKER_02:Is that something that you'd work up a piece for, that you prepare for, something that was good for your development, do you think?
SPEAKER_00:It was great for my development because there was a lot of pressure and a lot of nerves around it. You'd work up some material, get up and perform it and hope that everyone liked it and that the judges would say, yeah, okay, that was the best performance of the night. In the days when those competitions were on, lots of good players would come and perform because the money was good you know you got a gold harmonica and I think a thousand dollars for being the best performer at the time and so that was good money that was at the time that was like you had to do you know maybe six or eight shows to make the same sort of money and you could do it in one go and so it used to attract some pretty good players and so it was always fairly competitive and as a result quite nerve-wracking
SPEAKER_02:so So we're getting on to a question I ask each time. Kristen, if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?
SPEAKER_00:I tend to sit down and play a classical piece because with classical pieces you need to keep working on them, otherwise you lose them. And so I tend to sit down and just play one of the classical pieces that I've got up my sleeve. I would play usually a jazz tune, something that I'm aiming for. I spend time getting jazz tunes together and trying to get them working for myself. So I might spend a bit of time on working through a jazz tune, it's sounding good. And then I try and do some diatonic harmonica as well. My diatonic harmonica practice revolves around a bit of scale work these days and getting the overblows really clean, getting the overdraws really clean. Because I find that if you don't play really clean overblows to the audience, it can sound like a bad note. So you've got to get them clean. And the other thing that you have to do with overblows is that you have to get them into the... melodic structure of whatever it is you're doing so that the overblow is a stepping tone to the next one. Just playing overblows and overdraws because you can for me doesn't work they've got to be part of the melodic scale or the melodic idea that you're expressing. When you use them as a stepping stone in the melodic idea they give you a much broader palette on the diatonic harmonica and so I work on that stuff.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah and so obviously you were Larry Adler's technician so I take it you set up your own harps for overblows as well
SPEAKER_00:I do yeah I learned that early because you can be anywhere and have a harmonica as you know mess up on you so you've got to open it up and get it sounding good right from the word go I was pulling harmonicas apart when I was about you know when I was 18 because I was always curious about how does this thing work and the first dramatic I ever got I had it for about a day and the next day I'm unscrewing it, I'm pulling it apart just to have a look. I'm just curious. And then I learned very quickly about read angles and then tuning, how to tune reads and all that sort of stuff. And I got very interested in it. And my chromatics that I've had for years For me, because I've set them up for me and my playing and everything, it sounds so much better than anything else I could ever pick up because they're so personalised and I've spent so much time messing around with them. And the same with the diatonics. If I gave my diatonic to another player, they'd probably find that it didn't work for them. But it works for me and their harmonica works for them. And this is a difficulty I have with Larry Adler because Larry Adler plays really loud and he learnt to play really loud because when he was young he used to play in big halls without amplification so he had the audience to sit there and you'd have to be heard standing up on a stage without any amplification so he played really hard and what that did was that flattened the reeds so he used to want his harmonicas tuned up to 445 because when he hit them hard the strength of the way he was playing would flatten and the reed down to about 442. And so a box, down at the box, I might have tuned it at A440. It was no good for Larry Adler. He needed them all tuned up to 445. And so when I was tuning his hummelingers, he would play and go, no, no, this is not right. Because even though I tuned it to 445, the reed angle might have been a little bit low and so the reed was blocking for him. Whereas if I played it, it sounded great for me, but it didn't work for him. So... I had to adjust read angles and tunings and get to know how he liked his harmonicas set up. I kind of learned on the fly on that one. But I've applied all that stuff to my own harmonicas now. And whilst I don't claim to be the best harmonica technician in the world, what I do works for me and that gets me through.
SPEAKER_02:So have you got your re-gappings set quite low because you're a gentle player?
SPEAKER_00:No, not really. Look, I do play gently, but I can play pretty hard. There's a song on Dr. Good Vibe, which is a song called Hard to Understand. And the solo at the end of it's like really grungy. And I used a big 410 amplifier and all that sort of stuff and played really hard.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So sometimes I do do that, but mostly I play quietly. But sometimes when you're in a rock band, you've got no choice but to, you know, really pivot something. And so I need to set my read angles a little bit higher than you'd get if it was out of the box. But they still respond to quiet playing. You've just got to be careful about the tuning. I tune them up to 442 because it sounds... One's a little bit brighter and it just puts you a little bit over the top. And when you hit them hard, they might flatten down to 440.
SPEAKER_02:Do you tune your harmonicas regularly as in, you know, you sort of retune them back up? Is that something, you know, you spend quite a lot of time on?
SPEAKER_00:Not these days because I used to blow harmonica reeds regularly when I was younger. For some reason I don't seem to do it anymore.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You find a middle line as you develop in your playing and the middle line is what works for you and I find these days that I use levels from, I'm quite amped up usually. I've got lots of effects pedals and all sorts of stuff. I use them to give me power if I need it and so I'm not blowing I don't blow as hard on harmonica as I used to to get the same result. And Norton Buffalo said that to me once. He said, you know, you'll learn one day the art of playing quietly and amping up. And he was absolutely right. So, you know, I was lucky enough to meet him and spend a day or two with him. But the middle road is, you know, playing loud but not expecting the harmonica to be the sort of of the volume, but to use your equipment to give you the volume.
SPEAKER_02:Talking about your harmonica's a choice, I think you're a Hauner player, are you?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I am. Yeah, I've been playing, I've been endorsed by Hauner for a long time
SPEAKER_02:now. Which of their harps do you like to play?
SPEAKER_00:I play rockets these days. If I go back a little bit, I used to play meisterclasses. The reason I switched to meisterclasses is when I did a stage theatre, I needed a really bright, reliable sounding harmonica. And at the time, the meisterclasses were the best quality harmonica by a long way. And they just worked for me in theatre. And I kept playing them for a few years. Before that I used Special 20s and in a way I've gone back to Special 20s in as much as I play Rockets now. I do play the low tone harmonicas.
SPEAKER_02:The Thunderbirds.
SPEAKER_00:The Thunderbirds, yeah, I love the Thunderbirds. So pretty much these days I play Rockets and Thunderbirds.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, I've got a Rocket myself and I really like it. Yeah, it's an excellent harmonica, that one, yeah. So what about your chromatic?
SPEAKER_00:Okay, now I started on a Larry Adler four octave harmonica. I played that for years and then I switched over to this Super 64 and I played the Super 64 for years and years and years and years and I still play them to this day. Yeah, I love the Super 64 and I've never played three octave harmonicas and whereas most chromatic players tend to play three octave chromatics and that's another thing about, I guess, my sound is that I play a four
SPEAKER_01:octave harmonica.
SPEAKER_00:they've got bigger reeds and a slightly fatter sound than the three octave harmonica and so that's another reason why i guess sometimes i sound a little bit different to the guys that play three octave harmonicas so the super 64 has served me well i see no reason to change to be honest i've tried lots of you know i've tried other models you know i've tried them but i always come back to the super 64
SPEAKER_02:have you ever tried the the dm 48 midi chromatic
SPEAKER_00:i've got one. I love it. And I've used it live. I used it live because we needed Hammond organ in a few songs. And so I play it through the Proteus 2000, which has got great Hammond organ sounds. So when I was playing live, I just used the Proteus 2000 and played Hammond organ on it, and it was great. I mean, I really love it. I mean, it's obviously designed to play trumpet and to play all sorts of flutes and stuff like that. I don't do that because... I'm not sure I'm a trumpet player. You know what I mean? It's like, you've got to play like a trumpet player. And I, yeah, I'm not that guy. And so... I can play, the Hammond organ sounded okay because the structure of the chromatic is similar to the way the white notes on the Hammond organ are set up. And so you can actually emulate the Hammond lines that I needed to use for the tunes I was playing. But I don't really want to be a trumpet player or play other instruments on the harmonica, but I do love the concept.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, for me, it's just that end of that versatility again I just love being able to do that but I mean I use it quite a lot now but I find that I try and play it a bit more simply you know I find it's not maybe quite as responsive as a chromatic but yeah maybe it's the settings of the air but yeah no I love it I think it's got a great use. What about your embouchure what do you use on the tongue blocking puckering anything else?
SPEAKER_00:I'm mostly a pucker player I do use tongue blocking you know for effect but I'm not a tongue block player it's because of the sorts of things I'm want to play and the velocity with which I need to play things so that I've just adapted my playing to puckering. I really do like the sound of tongue blocking because you get great tone from it but I'm not that player so puckering is my thing.
SPEAKER_02:So what about your amplification? First of all let's start on chromatic so I assume you're going for a cleaner sound, you're using a PA for that or have you got your own amp if you're a chromatic?
SPEAKER_00:What I do, because I've played both diatonic and chromatic all the time I have to find a middle line between the diatonic and chromatic so the bullet mics are no good for me so I don't use those mics because they don't sound very good on chromatic I tend to use I've got a pedal board and I've got a multi effects unit I use I feed that into into the another little thing called a preamp it's a small preamp and then I I use the Commander, the Commander 3, and everything goes into the Commander, and then from there it goes into, I use an AER amp. AER is very clean, and I use all my effects on the floor for fatness, because what I look for is fatness. I don't have that big blues sound. I've got a different kind of sound that suits the chromatic and the diatonic, so I've kind of taken the middle road.
UNKNOWN:Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Right, so when you're playing diatonic, you're using effects pedals through the AAR amp mostly, are you?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, yes. So I've got the multi-effects unit, and I've got a little thing called a burnisher, which is basically like a little preamp. Sometimes I use an art pedal, and it's an art preamp pedal, and it's got a valve in it. That goes into the commander. I switch them in and out depending on what I want. What I have to do is I... I'm not on stage switching between microphones and stuff. For simplicity, I just use one rig for everything and then just step on pedals. And
SPEAKER_02:what mic?
SPEAKER_00:My favorite mic's a Bayer 88, and I've got a Bayer 88 with volume control attached to it. That's my favorite mic, and that's the one I use all the time. I've experimented with lots of different microphones, but I keep coming back to the Bayer 88.
SPEAKER_02:And then just final question and just on your future plans, what have you got coming up in 2024? At the
SPEAKER_00:moment, I'm playing with an Americana singer. His name is Rory Ellis. And we are going to be recording an album of Americana things. He's a great singer. He's been an opera singer in his time and he's a songwriter. He's got a really big voice and we're developing material at the moment. We're planning on doing an album within the next... few months and we've got a few festivals around Australia to do and I've got my album coming out and I'll probably be playing a few shows using some jazz guys playing tracks off my album and then whatever else comes up you know things the phone rings and you go and do stuff so
SPEAKER_02:yeah great stuff so been great speaking to you today Christian Marsh thanks for joining me
SPEAKER_00:well thanks Neil
SPEAKER_02:thanks
SPEAKER_00:very much for having
SPEAKER_02:me
SPEAKER_00:it's been fun
SPEAKER_02: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 again to Christian for joining me today. A great diverse range of playing styles on diatonic and chromatic. As I mentioned near the beginning of the podcast, I'm putting more of an emphasis on how the players develop their skills. More of that in the next podcast episode with a great player. Thanks to you all for listening again, and please send in any comments via the contacts page on the website harmonicahappyhour.com. I'll leave you now with a track from Christian's soon-to-be-released album with the Imagineers band, a song first recorded way back Back in 1932, Willow weep for me.