5 minute read
Fatal Attraction - My Life with the Harmonica part 4
Pic: Jon Frost
I am introduced to my new home. It’s a square wooden soundproof box, lined with acoustic foam, 3 metres by 3 metres, in which I am to play percussion and harmonica. It is located directly underneath the stage of the Shaftesbury Theatre in London’s West End, and it’s going to be my office for the next six months. The rest of the orchestra will be in the traditional pit in front of the stage, but current sounddesign thinking requires the noisy and space-consuming percussion instruments to be placed FATAL ATTRACTION in a booth away from the rest of the instruments. My link to the - MY LIFE WITH THE orchestra will be via headphones and TV monitors. As well as the marimba, conga HARMONICA drums, side drum and other instruments accompanying me to this musical desert island Part 4 will be my trusty chromatic (Hohner Deluxe, key of C) and a diatonic harmonica (Lee Oskar, key of C). Phil Hopkins It’s 2013 and the show is Sir Tim Rice’s new production From Here to Eternity. The musical director and arranger, David White, is a lovely and talented man but, more importantly, a harmonica fan and he has decided that this story about American GIs set in WWII needs some harmonica. It is my third production featuring harmonica for David and I wish there were more like him in the corridors of West End power. During the rehearsal period, there’s been quite a lot of chromatic harmonica (my instrument of choice) scored into my part, but sadly, many of the sections where it really shines eventually get cut. This is the reality of a collaborative world such as musical theatre - there’s an awful lot of content fighting to be included, and if there’s a moment you love, you hold your breath until Press Night. Up until that moment anything’s fair game to be added or removed - after Press Night, when the show gets reviewed, the show is set in stone, for better or for worse. Some chromatic moments remain in From Here to Eternity, and I look forward to them every night. It’s always a nice change to put down the mallets and sticks for a while and pick up a harmonica. But, amazingly to me, the most prominent harmonica feature stays in the show - a tune called Ain’t Where I Wanna Be Blues. I say ‘amazingly’, because in this number I have a diatonic solo, and it has survived the cut - even though I have never considered myself a blues harp player and never will. There’s no glory, however. While I wail my little heart out every night into a microphone in my soundproof box, upstairs on the stage an actor mimes the harp solo with a whisky bottle. Hardly glamorous, is it? However, I
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Pic: Jon Stewart
don’t mind, because I still get the fun of playing this solo a couple of hundred times over the ensuing months, and even do it live on This Morning on ITV. Plus, I’m getting paid. Although I’m a chromatic player, I’ve always respected the diatonic and its deserved niche in the world of popular music. Years ago, I realised that I would inevitably get asked to play it, so I bought Don Baker’s book on blues harp, among others, and diligently worked my way through it. I bought a Sonny Terry album and played it endlessly, as well as checking out many other diatonic geniuses such as Jerry Portnoy, whose work with Eric Clapton on Me and Mr Johnson I’ve much enjoyed. I’ve recently been learning that Toots Thielemans used to carry diatonics around with him, as did legendary Hollywood chromatic player Tommy Morgan. Versatility is definitely a lesson I’m happy to learn from these all-time greats. In fact, one of my most memorable musical moments was diatonic-based - I will never forget the thrill of finally achieving that hole 2 draw wholetone bend on the diatonic. As I felt that chunky reed vibrating downwards I wanted to run down the street and share the news with anyone prepared to listen! When a theatre show’s up and running, the musicians are allowed to take the odd performance off, to do other work or just have a night in with the family, and at this point they organise a deputy. The ‘depping’ system is the oil which greases the life of the West End musician. But in this area I have a problem. None of my harmonica-playing colleagues play the marimba, and vice-versa. So an ingenious solution is proposed by the sound engineer to allow me time off. He’s happy to record me playing all the harmonica cues (maybe 30 in all) onto a sampler, which he then allocates to keys on a midi-controller keyboard. On nights when I’m absent, my percussionist deputy will use the keyboard to trigger the harmonica cues as they arise in the score. To allow for fluctuating tempos, the chunks of audio are divided into one-bar phrases. It’s all in a day’s work, and many musicians would prefer to be onstage rather than under it. But to be a team player you have to check your ego at the door, and if that’s what it takes to play my instruments every day for a living then I’ll gladly take this one for the team. Website: www.philhopkins.org.uk/ You Tube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCp2HzSYG7L_KRPC_weZyZCA Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2IK3uJCkpsnHdTXtRQbgoP Harmonica Paradiso: https://philhopkins.bandcamp.com/album/harmonica-paradiso
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