Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Yvonnick Prene interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 117

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Yvonnick Prene joins me on episode 117.
Yvonnick was born in France and has been resident in New York for seventeen years after first moving to the city to study at the New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music.
He started out playing blues and jazz on the diatonic and took lessons with some of the great French players, before focusing his attention playing jazz on the chromatic.
Yvonnick is a bandleader and has released seven albums under his own name as well as numerous sessions as a sideman.
He also runs the New Harmonica School in New York and the excellent online tutorial website My Harmonica Studio, as well as numerous tutorial books.
Yvonnick is also the face of Hohner’s new Xpression chromatic harmonica.

Links:
Website:
https://www.yvonnickprene.com/

Tuition website:
https://www.myharmonicastudio.com/

Henriksen amplifiers:
https://www.henriksenamplifiers.com/

Videos:
Yvonnick’s YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCRked2IhFUqTf92SHisizQ

Yvonnick Prene & Manual Rocheman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O-y3YLahwY

Slim Shady song:
https://youtu.be/y6mgIJH6_EY

New York Harmonica School:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcwEprk6rJ8

Triste from Jobim’s World album:
https://youtu.be/nlztkwCXeKU

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
--------------------------------
Blue Moon Harmonicas: https://bluemoonharmonicas.com


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SPEAKER_01:

Yannick Prenet joins me on episode 117. Yannick was born in France and has been resident in New York for 17 years after first moving to the city to study at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. He started out playing blues and jazz on the diatonic and took lessons with some of the great players based in Paris before focusing his attention playing jazz on the chromatic. Yannick is a band leader and has released seven albums under his own name, as well as numerous sessions as a sideman. He also runs the New Harmonica School in New York and the excellent online tutorial website, My Harmonica Studio, as well as numerous tutorial books. Yannick is also the face of Holner's new expression, Chromatic Harmonica. This podcast is sponsored by Zeidel Harmonicas. Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world, at www.zeidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zeidel Harmonicas. Hello, Yvonik Prenet, and welcome to the podcast. Hello, Neil. Thank you for having me. So you're originally from France, born in Paris, and now living in New York, yeah?

SPEAKER_04:

Yes,

SPEAKER_01:

exactly,

SPEAKER_04:

yes. I went to arrive in New York about like 17 years ago now. So it's been quite a long time.

SPEAKER_01:

So the pinnacle of jazz in New York, would you still agree? So if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. So what was that transition to New York like for you? So I was supposed

SPEAKER_04:

to stay a year in New York City to study. I was an extra a student from Sorbonne University in Paris. I was studying musicology, also jazz on the side. I had some jazz courses at Sorbonne, but it was mostly classical music, music history, musicology. And they have this program to send students abroad in the US, so I had the choice to study it in various universities in the in New Orleans, New Jersey, Chicago, I think also in the West Coast. But my dream was to visit New York and meet some of my favorite jazz players in New York City. So it was a big change for me. It was also a challenge to come from a Parisian suburb and just to learn the language, just learn to speak English. And then there was also musical shock because the level of musicianship and the level of the musicians that I met and I heard when I first arrived was unbelievable and incredible so high so it was really difficult in the first few years I would say it was really hard to rethink almost everything that I thought I knew about music and jazz improvisation But it was good. I'm glad I did it.

SPEAKER_01:

And again, you know, New York probably is the pinnacle of the jazz scene these days. But Paris has got a good reputation for jazz as well. Certainly, you know, in the past, lots of Americans would come over and bass themselves, and Europe and Paris was quite a big part of that, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_04:

Yes, during the 50s, 40s, and even earlier, when Sidney Bechet lived in Paris for a while, and you had also all the bebop players coming from New York and on tour in France and Europe and some of them decided to live in Paris and they were having gigs every night at the Parisian caves in Saint-Germain and you had some legends such as Dexter Gordon, Kenny Clark, Oscar Pettiford, and so many of them, even Miles Davis went there. We have a lot of this famous picture, this photo of Juliette Gréco, the French singer, with Miles Davis in Saint-Germain-des-Prés in a little cave. So at that time, in the 50s, 60s, I think there were a lot of exchange between musicians, French musicians, American musicians. And I'm thinking about that. So Johnny Griffin bought a house in the south of France and used to live there. So I think a lot of American musicians found freedom in a place where they were welcomed and appreciated. So that was back in the 40s, 50s, 60s even. When I grew up and when I started to practice and learn jazz, I've met a few Americans, but more on the free jazz scene like Archie Shep, Sonny Murray, maybe more recently Rick Margitza, saxophonist who played with Mike Davis and I had the chance to perform with him actually last year. So I think these days, yes, there are a lot of great French musicians And I think everywhere in the world, I think the level has gone really high, maybe because of YouTube and maybe because Spotify. Because in my day, in early 2000s, it was more difficult to get access to information. And I was spending my weekends at the... The record shop, listening to CDs, had a little budget for that. So it was a different era.

SPEAKER_01:

Definitely, yeah. So going back to your education, as you say, you went to Sorbonne University and you studied two degrees, I think, a Bachelor of Music and a Master's of Music. So you say that the first one was focused on classical music, was it?

SPEAKER_04:

yes the bachelor at the beginning when you get into the musicology so first I was studying history like medieval history I did that for a semester and then I switched to musicology and there you had a lot of classical musicians coming from conservatories but no one was very interested in jazz but I met a professor Laurent Cuny who is a pianist and arranger and he opened up a jazz course so it was more jazz history course so but then i had the opportunity to play with his band and he helped me to to move to to new york

SPEAKER_01:

When you were doing these courses that saw Boeing, were you studying on the chromatic harmonica at the stage in the first one? No,

SPEAKER_04:

no, it was the chromatic, the harmonica I was studying on the side. It was more like theory and history, commentary of musical pieces and writing, but some air training too.

SPEAKER_01:

And so talking about your development on the instrument, so I think you started playing guitar as your first instrument.

SPEAKER_04:

I started playing the marine band, diatonic harmonica. Really? And after that, a few years later, I started to pick up the guitar to play blues. And I did that for a few years. But I never really went deep with the guitar or tried to play jazz on the guitar. Jazz came later for me.

SPEAKER_01:

So you are accomplished on the diatonic. You certainly can play some good blues harmonica on the diatonic, which you don't always get with chromatic players. So you've got able to play both, the diatonic and chromatic.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, on the diatonic, I was a complete geek. Until I was 17, I was playing jazz on the diatonic. I studied with Greg Zlapp, Jean-Jacques Milteau and Sébastien Charlier. I had a band in Paris, in the center of Paris where we were playing every Wednesday afternoon and we were playing jazz standards and I was playing I was using a bunch of diatonic harmonica so I was bending overblowing overdraw playing like standards like I remember like my favorite standards at the time were were like on Green Loft in the street like Lady Bird and all the things you are yes until I was 17 and then I I stopped really my my quest for for playing jazz on the diatonic, and I switched to the chromatic.

SPEAKER_01:

So you were playing, obviously, as you said, a sort of full overblow so that you were able to play.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh yeah, I was really into that. But a few things, a few factors that made me not quit really that purpose. But I still play the diatonic every day. I teach on the diatonic, and it's fun. I love the instrument, too.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so tell us about that transition to the chromatic and exactly why you decided to do that.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes, so I think at some point I felt like I was spending a lot of time working on my diatonics. At that time I was playing the Suzuki Promaster and some golden melodies, Horner too. And I was really trying to customize the harmonicas and spending a lot of time just trying to bend, make my bends overblows and overdraw it in tune and trying to think about which harmonicas to use on certain songs. I felt like I was probably spending too much time on that aspect and not really on the music and learning tunes, learning more about improvisation, working on different aspects of music, rhythm, melodies. Instead of being focalized on the instruments, I was too focused on the... I felt like... And also... During that time, when I was 17, 18, I was at school. I was in school to spend a lot of time just studying literature, math, and all of that. But just using the little times I have for music and just focus on learning jazz because it's already a lot of things to practice, to focus on. So yes, that was one of the factors and also I love the instrument I love the sounds and I felt like for what I wanted to accomplish for my vision I wanted an instrument that was a little bit more even in his tones in his each note having the same timbre I would say the same tone like a piano so it's easier to create phrases to improvise and to be able to reproduce your inner melodies from your head to the instrument. The harmonica, diatonic harmonica, is a bit more, I feel like, more challenging. There's a lot of techniques that have to be really mastered, but I hear a lot of younger players these days doing fantastic jobs, like really, really playing great.

SPEAKER_01:

It's an interesting point you make there between the difference between the chromatic and diatonic there, and as you say, the diatonic doesn't maybe have the same evenness across the different notes because she can bend ones more and you know and it's got more punch on certain holes and with the chromatic it's much more uniform so you know a lot of people consider if you want to play jazz you need to play the chromatic on it apart from obviously overblowers who might dispute that but yeah it's interesting that point on the sound there and you definitely found that yourself you think you know the chromatic is the jazz instrument on the harmonica point of view

SPEAKER_04:

I think it's easier to start playing jazz on the chromatic compared to the diatonic, harmonica. But if you really love the sound of the diatonic, you should go with what you like to play the most because anyway you will have to spend many hours to get to the point where you can really express yourself with an instrument. and also you don't have to say just one harmonica or the other you can start with the diatonic get into the blues jazz and try the chromatic and go back and forth and see what you prefer it's most important to be passionate to love and to discover and it takes time to find what you enjoy the most for me it took many years because I hated the chromatic for a long time until I started to change and also to listen to some great players. Of course, like Two Steelmans, Stevie Wonder, so many others.

SPEAKER_01:

Let's get into your transition again across to New York. So as you say, you... you were on a sort of placement, was it, or a sponsorship, a scholarship, was it, to go across to New York, and then you started then studying for a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Performance in 2012 at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, yeah?

SPEAKER_04:

Yes, yes. At first, I was supposed to stay just a year at the City College of New York in Harlem, and then I keep bothering the International Relations Office at the Sorbonne and trying to ask any way that I could stay longer, extend my stay, my visa. So they gave me six months at the City College and then it was time to leave and then at the last minute they found another program that I could apply. I could apply to the Columbia University. So I went there for a semester and then something at the end of the year I was supposed to come back and try the audition at the the new school, and I got the scholarship, so

SPEAKER_01:

I stayed a few more years. So was the chromatic your main instrument in the New York school?

SPEAKER_04:

Yes, it's a very open school, the new school, so you can play anything you want, they will accept you. So I had the opportunity to study with a really great jazz man, and some legends too, such as Charles Persip, with a drummer who recorded with Sonny Stitt, Sonny Rollins, on the Eternal Triangle. They have a label, and he recorded some really historical jazz sessions. Also with Lee Connitz, the saxophonist, Alto Lee Connitz, who was on the Birth of the Cool, the famous Miles Davis album. Also younger players like Kevin Hayes, who were recorded with my previous album, Listen. Kevin Hayes, pianist.

UNKNOWN:

piano plays

SPEAKER_04:

So how was the chromatic

SPEAKER_01:

harmonica received with these guys and also generally in the scene in New York? They're quite welcoming to the chromatic harmonica in a jazz setting. so it depends

SPEAKER_04:

I really it depends also the context because for example jam sessions are really cutthroat in the sense of you never know how the microphone is going to be equalized sometimes they put too much highs on the microphone or the microphone is too hot and you start playing and just too much gain too loud and you get this really horrible sound and everybody is like wondering what's going on and you see their face it's not good so it happens it happens so it can be challenging in this way because when you think about it the saxophonist trumpet players or even guitar players who sometimes they come with their amps so they come with their sound us harmonica players we have to make sure that the PA the Mac to give us a a nice sound and not too much highs a little bit of reverb because you can really change your performance and also it can also stop your creativity because you have to love every note that you play, the sound so you can really start swinging, grooving and be inspired but some really musicians were impressed because they really I haven't heard a harmonica playing the language of bebop and improvising like that.

SPEAKER_01:

You're a band leader and you're also a composer and so you've had the Evonik Prenet Quartet and also Padam Swing so I think you've been the leader of these and so you've released seven of your own albums and so that's obviously one way to counter having to compete in jam sessions right with loud saxophones and things is to have your own band right so is that part of the obviously you wanted your own band but part of that drive as well to get heard was to get your own outfits yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes, as a harmonica player, as a rare instrument, you have to, I think, lead your own projects because it's not an instrument that other band leaders will think about first. And most of us are not probably in constant demand, like some of musicians here in New York. Guitar players, bass players can perform almost every night in various bands, because we always need them in the band, and drummers also. But harmonica players, it's not probably the first thing that we think about when we want to put a jazz gig together. So it's important, I think, to lead your own project and create opportunities for yourself.

SPEAKER_01:

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SPEAKER_04:

So I had this band, Padam Swing. It was a gypsy jazz band with guitar, bass, harmonica, and violin. So we played a lot of private events in New York at hotel gigs, even weddings, club dates, bars, restaurants, cultural centers. But I'm not really playing with this band too much these days because the violinist scott tixier is a move to texas to

SPEAKER_01:

teach at the unt so your second album wonderful world in in 2014 this was with padam swing and as you say you uh you mentioned some playing some gypsy jazz on here you've got all of me you've got coquettes

SPEAKER_03:

and

SPEAKER_01:

so Were you into Gypsy Jazz, obviously playing as part of your other general jazz playing as well, or did you go into that area for this album?

SPEAKER_04:

At the time I was living in Brooklyn, I had a roommate, Michael Valerneau, who is a great French guitar player. He's still playing with... the French singer Cyril Aimé. So they will come at our loft and rehearse there. And I will go to their gigs sometimes. So I was surrounded by gypsy jazz music, Manouche jazz. And so I met other French musicians who were playing in that style. And I got asked to play gypsy jazz. So I started to learn the repertoire but I was familiar with this music because I listened to it since I was like 8 years old 9 years old Django Reinhardt my father had a jazz CD collection so I used to listen to a lot of music

SPEAKER_01:

and maybe it's quite a good entry point to jazz because I've played some myself the chord changes tend not to be quite as complex as some of the jazz standards do they?

SPEAKER_04:

there are all the jazz standards like Coquette it's an old tune all of me it's quite challenging too because it's very rhythmic because you have the guitar Sometimes you don't have bass, sometimes you just have two guitars and the harmonica. And you have what we call the pump, when they play a chord on each beat, like a drummer. So you have to be really strong rhythmically, I think, to play this music. So it was fun, yes, I did that a lot for a few years. And I like to explore various styles of music, and I felt like there was a demand at the time for... for that in New York for this type of jazz so you have to to change yourself to

SPEAKER_01:

adapt and your first album which is the year before in 2013 Jour de Fé

SPEAKER_04:

so yeah I recorded a jour de fête and I think I probably should have waited a few more years. I was a little bit green in my playing and everything. But I was just finishing the school, the new school, and then I was trying to get an artist visa and I felt like I didn't have enough credits, enough musical professional experience. So I thought that recording a CD maybe would give me enough evidence to prove that I was you know ready to because you know for the visa you had to in the US you have to prove that you have a certain stage in your career so I rushed a little bit making this album to in order to try to get the visa and I did with Steeplechairs I love Steeplechairs record when I grew up I used to collect albums from this label so I recorded with some friends from the new school. But

SPEAKER_01:

yeah, some good stuff. Always good to get your first album out, isn't it? And then you mentioned Toots earlier on, so you've done an album called Mercy Toots. Obviously this is sort of a tribute to Toots, is it?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, at the time I was playing a lot with this amazing guitar player from Italy, Pasquale Grasso, who's really a genius on the guitar. He's the only one who can play like Bud Powell. and Charlie Parker on the guitar. So I was doing a lot of gigs and again, like private parties and sometimes I would play gypsy jazz with him. I never really played strict gypsy jazz, not like the cats in Paris. But I would play with him a lot, a lot in 2014 for a few years. So I decided to record something with him and we went to the studio in Brooklyn, and just for, you probably stayed like three hours there, and just played a few tunes.

SPEAKER_01:

And then a couple more albums going through, you did Breathe.

UNKNOWN:

Breathe.

SPEAKER_01:

and then New York Moments. And there's a song on New York Moments called Dear Slap. So that's for Greg Slap, is it? Oh, yeah,

SPEAKER_04:

yeah, yeah. Greg Slap, yeah. It's probably my favorite diatonic harmonica player. He's great.

UNKNOWN:

He's great.

SPEAKER_04:

I started learning the blues harmonica with him when I was like 12 years old and I took lessons. I used to go every Saturday at the blues school in Paris. And he was really kind and a great teacher. And yes, I was really, yeah, he's a great guy. He's one of a kind. He has incredible time and also beautiful tone on the harmonica that you can recognize instantly. And unique, unique sound on the diatonic. And a great improviser too.

SPEAKER_01:

No, he's fantastic. He's one of my favourites. I interviewed him quite a long time ago on here. So yeah, Greg's great for people who haven't listened to him. Check him out for sure. He's fantastic, yeah. And then you've done two more, your more recent albums. So in 2023, you did an album called Listen, which you mentioned earlier on. This is a full band. Is this your quartet?

SPEAKER_04:

So it's a quintet. The idea was to bring the chromatic harmonica into formation with tenor sax, so to have the tenor sax... chromatic harmonica in the front with the piano drums and bass and the idea was to to play really jazz swing compositions, some standards and I had really a great band for this session. We recorded at the famous Rudy Van Gelder Studios in New Jersey. It's a place where so many Blue Notes albums were made.

UNKNOWN:

...

SPEAKER_04:

So that was a special experience, especially when my boot blew up and there was a fire starting around at the end of the day. There was a lot of smoke in my booth. There was a problem, electrical, something that happened, and so the mics were cut off, and I had to stop for almost two hours for the smoke to... Must

SPEAKER_01:

have been your hot

SPEAKER_04:

playing. Yeah, I don't know. It was strange. But I got a good discount. Great. It was okay, but I think it's a great album. My favorite albums

SPEAKER_01:

are the last two. So your most recent one, bringing it on to that, is Jobin's World. So this is Antonio Carlos Jobin, the Acosta Brazilian composer.

UNKNOWN:

.

SPEAKER_01:

and this is with a duo yeah with the piano

SPEAKER_04:

player yeah with Geoffrey Kieser so I wanted to do something completely different from my last album from a lesson and a little bit show myself a little bit more because one can say that I was surrounded by some of the greatest musicians in the world I had Bill Stewart on drums Dana Stephens on sax Kevin Hayes on piano and of course I'm not close to the same level. So it's always better to be playing with better musicians than yourself. But also for that new album, Jeux Bimes Sourds, I wanted just to be in a situation where we can listen more of my harmonica and put me in a more, not dangerous situation, but where I'm not as helped or as backed.

SPEAKER_03:

Bye.

SPEAKER_01:

Always great, that combination with the piano and chromatic harmonica, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, Geoffrey Kieser, it's incredible.

SPEAKER_01:

So you've got some videos out of you playing, and I'll put a couple of links on to the podcast page so people can check it out, you playing in this duo. So are you touring this or performing this album now? Because it just came out this year, yeah?

SPEAKER_04:

Yes, so I'm working on a tour for 2025. It takes a lot of time to do that. Even with a duo, it's not easy to put together. So I'm trying to prepare that and have a few concerts with the duo. So I'm not always performing with Geoffrey Kieser. I have other pianists that have a different take on the music. And it's interesting also to hear the songs, the these arrangements played differently.

SPEAKER_01:

And would this tour be just in the US or are you coming to Europe or anywhere else?

SPEAKER_04:

So I was in Paris in June and I played with Manuel Rochman and I had a different pianist that was booked but just when I arrived it's Pierre de Bettman an amazing French pianist couldn't do the gigs so I had to find someone I had just a few days to find a different pianist who could play these quite intricate arrangements. And I was lucky to have Manuel Rochman, another French pianist, to play with me. And we had performances at the jazz radio TSF in France. You can see some videos on YouTube from that performance.

UNKNOWN:

PIANO PLAYS

SPEAKER_04:

and we played it for Radio France and we played it at the Sunset in Paris.

SPEAKER_01:

As well as your old albums, you've also done lots of work as a sideman and you've created a great playlist on Spotify. For example, playing with Arthur Vine, you're doing Man with a Harmonica. Man with a Harmonica Great song I really love called Everything Happens to Me, which you're playing with a band called Talking Strings, which has got a vocalist, and he's got a great voice, that guy. So again, the chromatic harmonica works so nice with the vocals too, doesn't

SPEAKER_02:

it? At first my heart thought you could break these jeans for me But love would turn the trick to end a spell

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I love to play with singers, I've done that since I arrived in the US, first at schools, at ensembles, when we had jazz ensembles at the City College, the new school, I was always mixed up with singers. And then I started to, in my own bands, when I was hired sometimes to play for events, like I did an event in Miami last year for this perfume company, French perfume, and I hired an Italian singer, Chiara easy to play with us. For a few months I had a regular Tuesday where every Tuesday I would invite a different singer to play as a trio, guitar, harmonica and voice. It's not easy to play with a singer because they have their own repertoire. Most of the time it's standards that we are familiar with but they can play it in different keys.

SPEAKER_01:

So as well as all this great music recorded, you're also very big on tuition. You founded the harmonica school in in new york which is an in-person class here where people come and you teach them in in sort of groups and and is it is it one-to-one as well

SPEAKER_04:

yes the new york harmonica school i teach diatonic and chromatic harmonica players we are doing a concert every year sometimes twice a year at a local music studio where i rent a space and we have the the friends and family coming to to hear the harmonica students to to perform with a Ben, some of my friends, really great players to back up the students. So they perform songs by Bob Dylan, Neil Young, some blues that I write, some blues like standards. So it's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01:

And as well as this then, you also got a really excellent tutorial website called My Harmonica Studio. You got over 750 lessons. And on this, you really focus heavily on playing the chromatic and really digging deep into the jazz. which I don't think there's so much of online is there with the chromatic and the jazz side

SPEAKER_04:

yeah I'm not sure about the other websites because it takes a lot of time to put the videos together the PDF and thinking about the lessons and even just taking care of the website it takes a lot of time just the design but yes a lot of videos a lot of PDF people can download We have a lot of resources.

SPEAKER_01:

As well as that, you've also written, I think, 13 tutorial books.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I need to review that number because a lot of them I discontinued. So I think there are a few, I'm not sure, maybe four or five that are available on my website, also on Amazon. And I'm thinking about to put more at the end of the year or next year.

SPEAKER_01:

but I mean for example you've got a jazz etudes for chromatic harmonic you've got 100 jazz patterns for the chromatic harmonic volumes 1 and 2 you've got classical themes chromatic harmonic you've got 101 easy blues harmonic elixir you've got some diatonic stuff so yeah some great stuff and again obviously you put loads of effort putting this material together yeah

SPEAKER_04:

I did that for a few years I was really focusing on teaching and on doing that I think like between 17 to 20 3-4 years to focusing on on the website, on the videos, on teaching, on the books. Now I'm more getting back to the playing, and since 21, I would say 20, 21, I am really trying to get to the next level, really more on the chromatic. I'm still teaching, of course, but also I keep my goals to being the greatest player I can be, trying to get better at a lot of area in music, rhythm, ear training, harmonica techniques challenge myself that's also like having a band and making records it's very expensive but so it keeps you motivated and having some artistic goals also but yeah

SPEAKER_03:

so

SPEAKER_00:

Hey everybody, you're listening to Neil Warren's Harmonica Happy Hour Podcast, sponsored by Tom Halcheck and Blue Moon Harmonicas out of Clearwater, Florida. The best in custom harmonicas, custom harmonica parts, and more. Check them out, www.bluemoonharmonicas.com.

SPEAKER_01:

You've also played in lots of places, just touching on some of the places you've played for. Some of the great New York venues, such as you played at the Blue Note, for example, and Birdland, and some of these great venues, and also played in Europe, and even in Africa. Where have you played in Africa?

SPEAKER_04:

I played in Ivory Coast. I played there with violinist Scott Tixier. It was a trio, I think, because I think the bassist didn't catch the plane in time. So I think, I'm not sure if we did just guitar, harmonica and violin. I just remember that I got sick there with the water or the food sometimes, just before the show. But it went well. It was probably 10 years ago. But it was just a few days. It was not a big tour.

SPEAKER_01:

So, you know, again, looking back on your tuition side, so the question you ask each time is if you had 10 minutes of practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

SPEAKER_04:

So if you have 10 minutes, first I'm thinking about focusing on one thing. It can be an arpeggio, a scale, a melody, or just a sequence of chords that I want to practice on the piano. So I'm not thinking about in terms of time, but just in terms of having like a goal because you don't want to rush into what you're practicing what you're doing the harmonica is an instrument where you have to really be cool I mean we are always cool but you have to even be cooler you have to really have to your heart beat low and be in peace with yourself so your breathing is going to be the best for you to be able to breathe in and out with less air and you'll be able to to manage your breathing technique better, and you'll be also able to focus. So if you start 10 minutes and having to jump into different things, I think it's probably the best way to go about it. So it depends on what you are into, your level, if you're just getting started. I'll just start playing a long note, like everybody has some trouble with the two-jewel, or the one-jewel, the three-jewel. So I'm trying to relax. and focus on the sound, on my breathing, breathing from the diaphragm with less air, a little bit of air, gently, and trying to hold the sound, trying to breathe really naturally, and almost forget that I have a harmonica in my mouth. And I start with that, trying to make a sound, consistent sound, and then I just start breathing in, breathing out. So that's just really for a total beginner. Then when you get into jazz, of course, you have some goals, some long-term goals. Learn all your scales, arpeggios, and various inversions, and really master them. You really want to learn them in and out. And so I meet so many people who don't know the notes on the harmonica, on the chromatic harmonica. They don't know where is the G, where is C, where is F. And they already want to play Flaming to the Moon or all of me, but they're lacking really some fundamental knowledge about the instrument. And a lot of people just play by ear. That's another problem that I encounter. It's hard just to say that, to generalize, but I would say just having one idea, and you start with that, and then if you still have more time, you get to a second idea, second purpose. Like, for example, one arpeggio over the harmonica, like the F triad, trying to find where are the notes, trying to play the F triad, starting on the third, on the trying to sing the triad if you have a piano keyboard that's very important but also you want to have fun so take some time to do what you enjoy the most learning some tunes that's what I'm going to do after that because I have a show tomorrow playing with my organ trio and I want to bring some new blues some new melodies so And that's fun. I love to do that, to practice new songs.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, as you said earlier on, obviously jazz is a big undertaking, right? There's lots to it. So, yeah, you touched on many of the aspects there. But people who are maybe daunted about playing jazz, what would your advice be on that front?

SPEAKER_04:

You don't want to feel overwhelmed. And start with listening carefully. to jazz, something easy that everyone can do. And depending where you are with your harmonica journey, if you have just started, you will not probably get into Charlie Parker, bebop right away. I will teach you just some simple melodies, folk songs, some scales easy scales it has to be really progressive easy and fun and you start with the blues to learning just blues melodies riffs that you can play and already sound like you are playing music so that's very important so it depends every person has some different taste and some really love the theory aspect some other prefer just to play the harmonica just to play songs and they really don't care about also playing jazz or so it depends who you have in front of you and you are the person who is interested but yeah starting like if I want to generalize starting jazz harmonica I think it's better to have a little background before, as I say, be able to play some simple tunes, having good sound. have a little bit of knowledge of what's a chord, what's a scale, an interval. Because you need to build up your musicianship. Because in jazz, we improvise in the moment. So you have to react fast, you have to have sharp ears, a good sense of time, a sense of rhythm. So there are a lot of different musical aspects to practice and to get better in order to play jazz there are other ways to to get slowly to because you know you're not going to jump into playing like charlie parker and fast tempos but i like to uh when i teach i uh i bring like some blues head some some simple blues and also some uh some of the repertoire from the uh the blue note um like the the organ like jimmy smith uh lou donaldson some of this repertoire like the boogaloo which is very fun to play and it's already jazz so it's something else if the person comes from the blues it's a better progressive move from the blues to the

SPEAKER_03:

jazz

SPEAKER_01:

We'll move on to the last section now and we'll talk about gear. So you're an official ambassador for Hohner. I think you're a reseller for the Hohner Expression. Chromatic, yeah. And you've got your name on the box too.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, so it was a great honor, privilege to be the face of the new 12-hole harmonica, the Expression. So I have a few at home that I can sell. and usually what I do is that I open the box and I check the reeds and I make sure everything works correctly and I'm trying to also make the reeds a little work of gapping so to optimize the breathing and the response on the harmonica It's a great harmonica also for anyone, really beginners and intermediate players. It's a 12-hole that has a nice moon-shaped mouthpiece, so it's quite comfortable. I had some of my students who played tongue-blocking that had some, not some issue, but it was not the most comfortable tone, for the tongue blocking, if I want to be honest. Because the hole inside can be a little bit sharp, but it's great for pucker.

SPEAKER_01:

And so are you a pucker player yourself?

SPEAKER_04:

yeah I started puckering but also I do a lot of tongue blocking in order to play various intervals fourth sixth thirds octaves and yes that's something that I'm practicing to find some original new ideas for myself

SPEAKER_01:

and you also like to play some diatonic as you say so I think I've got you down here playing golden melodies and crossovers so you still play playing diatonic on those?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, diatonic all the time. I always have my bag of diatonic with me. I did a nice video with this singer on YouTube. He was singing an Eminem song, but with a metal approach. I played a solo on the diatonic. I did a couple of projects where I played the Diatonic.

SPEAKER_01:

Great, and what about equipment-wise when you're playing? You talked earlier on about going to jam sessions and having a good mic and using a PA. What mics do you like to use?

SPEAKER_04:

I tried many microphones and most of them are really good. The SM58, the Shure... Right now, I'm speaking on the Artist Elite Condenser Audio Technica. I use it many times for my gigs. The first time I played with this microphone was when I performed at Dizzy Club in New York City, and then they had this microphone. What's great is that it really captures a lot of... a lot of the harmonica so you can have the microphone on a max 10 and just being in front And it's going to really take all the highs and lows. So it's a very sensitive harmonica. But yeah, it's a condenser. So you need to have a preamp or using an amp into a PA. It's not every amp that can power this type of microphone. But now I found a microphone that I really absolutely love. It's the M88, I think.

SPEAKER_01:

is that the the buyer dynamic the buyer

SPEAKER_04:

yeah yeah yeah exactly yeah i used i used the on my last recording jobim sword I brought this microphone to the studio, Octavion Studios in New York, and we tested against other microphones, and it was the best. It was the best sound.

SPEAKER_01:

And what about, do you use any amplifiers, or are you always going through a PA?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, so again, I used so many amps, ranging from$200 to maybe$400. So various amps... for like singers, for like keyboard amps, guitar amps. I had the Fishman for a while, Fishman Acoustic. I had some Roland, Roland Acoustic also. But now I'm using Henriksen. He's a local... amp maker located in colorado peter henriksen and he is he's making like this these guitar amps for for jazz guitar amps i've seen it the first time at uh when performing with my friend guitarist so many of them are using this amp so it's a really small amp really portable that has over 200 watts very powerful little amp and light that I put in a suitcase and a few days ago I just bought an extension cabinet because when you're playing with the organ a drummer And outside, or even in a room, sometimes you need the other musicians can't listen to you. So when you have like two amps and you link them, you can put one as a monitor for the drummer and one for the public, for you, for yourself. So it's important to have a...

SPEAKER_01:

And what about any effects? Do you use anything?

SPEAKER_04:

So yeah, during the pandemic, I used to go on Amazon and buy a lot of pedals. And I will send them back. Not all of them, but I tried. I was testing. But no, I was looking for sound. So I had different reverbs that I was using with my amp. But since I found this microphone, and this amp, this combo, it's just the best for me, to get a pure sound, just a bit of reverb, and everything is balanced, and yeah, I love it, and now I'm bringing the amp everywhere, even when I play at a festival, or at a jazz club, I'm just going to bring my amp, even if they have a PA, but just I want them to plug, into my amp and go through their monitor, their speaker, because I'm getting used to that sound.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, great stuff. So just final question then, just about your future plans. I mean, you've talked about them some already. You're going to tour the new album next year and you've got some gigs coming up. So what else is on your radar?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, a lot of things, a lot of things. I mean, you always have to constantly almost rewrite yourself and... coming up with new ideas. Yes, it's quite challenging to be a harmonica player, I feel like. But it's not boring. But if you want to make a living, you have to really, you cannot let yourself go on an automatic pilot. So yeah, I'm doing a lot of, sometimes I have this period of I'm trying to think about what to do, where to go Because you can spend a lot of time doing something and then it doesn't work. But that's the nature of the game sometimes. But now I'm working on the... I've already started a new project. I cannot tell too much about it, but it's a new recording project. Completely different from the last one and the one before. So yes, I'm going to explore another project.

SPEAKER_01:

Great and challenging yourself again in that new direction. So thanks so much for joining me today, Yvonik Prenet. Thank you. 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 Yannick for joining me today. He's playing some great jazz chromatic, and his My Harmonica Studio website really is one of the best resources for chromatic harmonica available, so check that out. Thanks all to you for listening again, and as usual, please check out the website at happyhourharmonica.com. And if you listen on a podcast player, it would be great if you could rate the show. I'll leave you now with Yannick playing us out from a song from his latest album, Jobin's World. This one is called

SPEAKER_03:

Trieste.

UNKNOWN:

.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you.