My guest, Mark Radel, describes himself this way: I have always been around music. I sang in the church choir, school choirs, acted in musicals in high school, was into music but never took up an instrument until I started to play the harmonica. After my wife and I moved to Seattle my commute was 30 minutes and I was bored driving back and forth each day. I thought about what I could do and saw a book named “harmonica playing for dummies”, with it came a cheap C major harp and a cassette. So each day as I drove to and from work I practiced playing the harmonica. When we moved back to Bellingham, WA, I got serious and started playing with others. Now I can sheepishly say I am a musician.
Artists Mark mentions that he listens to: Kevin Moore, Taj Mahal Eric Clapton, Tracy Chapman, Jerry Portnoy, and Harry Manx.
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Opening Remarks
Today’s guest is a dear friend that I’ve known half my life. Before we moved away many years ago Mark was a fan of our music, my husband Michael’s and mine– that’s that Cohen music I mention later on. Mark would often come see us perform, but he never played.
It is such a pleasure in this interview to hear about his transformation as a harp player and acceptance of himself as a musician. This is what is possible when we try something we’ve always wanted to do. The story of Mark’s journey is exactly what I was thinking about when I started this podcast.
One of the things that’s most interesting about Mark’s process is that he started with improvisation. He didn’t learn melodies or how to read music, but instead he plays by ear and instinctively. I think that’s unusual and kind of courageous. Plus he is fortunate to have good friends to play with and challenge him. And I miss them all very much.
I should mention that during our conversation I use some shorthand and don’t explain everything because we know each other so well. Also during the interview Mark is fiddling with his harmonicas and you can hear them rattling a bit.
It was a joy to reconnect with my friend and I look forward to joining in on one of the music nights he mentions in the near future.
Transcript (add 2:10 to times)
Liz Sumner 0:00
My guest today is Mark Radel. Mark is a retired collections officer and active Dungeon Master. At age 50 he decided to take up the harmonica. I want to hear about that process. Welcome, Mark. Hi. First of all, tell me about your your background. Have you always been interested in music?
Mark Radel 0:21
Well, when I was young, I started singing in grade school, really, I was in the junior choir at church. Before my voice changed, I had one of those high-enough-to-kill-dogs kind of voices. And so I sang a lot. Saying in grade school, junior high in high school choirs sang in operettas blah, blah, blah, but never played an instrument. Well, that’s not entirely true. I played bass guitar, in a junior high group called the misfortunes great name. And but they had no idea. I think I wasn’t my guitar. And my friend, Tom taught me the patterns to play. But I didn’t know any of the notes. I didn’t know it. I just played patterns for him and saying, and that was it. So really, I’ve never played an instrument and have had no music theory whatsoever. So that was my total knowledge.
Liz Sumner 1:18
That was junior high. Now we go up to age 50. So why the harmonica
Mark Radel 1:27
So it started– I was I had moved to Seattle, and I was driving a half hour to work and back, that was my work commute. And I was bored for that half hour, same half hour. I mean, you know, I’m from Bellingham, you commute, if any commute over 10 minutes is like, horrible. So I was someplace and I saw this book that said, harmonica for dummies, and I’ve been thinking about taking up an instrument of some kind, but I knew I didn’t have any knowledge about instruments. And then, so I was looking through this book, and I realized it said, you don’t need to know anything about anything to play harmonica, it’s all by ear. He had a CD in there and had a really cheap C harmonica. just awful. I still have the monitor, but I just didn’t know how to find that terrible. So I put in the CD, on the way to work. And every day, for 20 minutes. I I I practice there and back there and back for four years. Then I came back to Birmingham and kind of gave it up. But still, I was to the point that I could play, but I was playing straight harp. And I was playing by myself, of course, and just learning tunes. And so then I have friends who are musicians. And I thought, well, you know, maybe I can play with them. And so that got me really started again, that was I was 54 by that point, and actually started playing got serious normed cross harp started playing with other people, and slowly got better and better.
Liz Sumner 3:06
So in that first four years. Did others know? did did the public know? Did you tell anybody? Did Jill know?
Mark Radel 3:16
No Jill was the only one, but I never played in front of her. I only played driving to work and driving home from work. My only harp was in– my sole and only harp was in my car. And never, never left.
Liz Sumner 3:31
Okay, so you made a couple of statements about straight harp and cross harp tell me the difference between straight harp and cross harp.
Mark Radel 3:39
Ah straight harp is playing tunes, mostly country western or some folk tunes. So harps are diatonic, there’s 10 holes in a harp. And each harp is a key. So this is an F harp. So you can play in the key of F, and any note you blow or draw on it is going to be in that key of F. So you’re kind of golden, but you you’re really limited to what you play. And so then once you get a little more serious, you want to play cross harp. So it’s called second position. So an F harp, you play in the key of C, okay, just a fifth above, okay? And the good news about that is you get better sounds and the you know, the notes that you resolve something on are almost all drawn notes instead of blow notes. You’re sucking instead of blowing. And when you’re drawing in, you can bend notes, and is every guitar player and every any instrument, you can bend, that’s the cool notes. So instead of playing well, can I play?
Mark Radel 4:50
Sure
Mark Radel 4:51
I’ll show you this, So, so [example] Straight harp, just playing the tune. blah blah blah cross harp is [example]. So lots of different kinds of sounds.
Liz Sumner 5:15
So but can you play Red River Valley on crossharp?
Mark Radel 5:22
no, you could. But it’s it This doesn’t sound right. Okay, um, how you when you’re playing a melody, you want straight up notes. And in, if you’re going to play cross our Red River Valley, then you’d be changing. And I think of them as harmonica for straight. If you’re playing straight harp, you’re playing harmonica. And if you’re playing cross harp, you’re playing a harp. So they’re– one’s harmonica one’s a harp.
Liz Sumner 5:47
Okay, okay.
Mark Radel 5:48
And it’s a whole different attack. And when you’re playing straight harp, you’re playing the melody mostly. But when you’re playing cross harp, you’re never playing the melody. You’re only playing accompaniment to the melody. Okay, so and I, I’ve been playing cross harp so long that it’s hard for me to play straight harp now, because because you’re playing in the key of C, there are notes on your harmonica that aren’t in the key that you’re playing. So it’s a little tougher, but you can use those dissonant notes, which of course you want. And like every other harp player in the world, I’m mostly about the blues. I didn’t like the blues that much ’til I started playing harmonica. Then I started playing along with songs on CDs and and of course then got addicted to so that’s just about all I play now.
Liz Sumner 6:39
So, okay, okay, so who do you like to listen to?
Mark Radel 6:42
KevMo, Kevin Moore is the best I think of the modern blues players, he and Taj Mahal. And so every Saturday, I have, while my wife takes a long bath and relaxes. I drink whiskey and play harp with blues for like, two or three hours. That’s my big, Saturday afternoon thrill. It’s the pandemic and all, you know, you got to make fun where you can and so I play with I like Eric Clapton, a lot. I have several mixed CDs that have all the old blues classics, you know, hoochie coochie, man, and a boom boom, and all the those kind of things. I play with those a lot. And there’s certain songs like this, I think, for all musicians, which by the way, took me years and years and years to say I’m a musician. I still have whenever I say that, I still have a little naggy Oh my God, I shouldn’t be saying that. Um,
Liz Sumner 7:45
Me too. Me too.
Mark Radel 7:46
You’re kidding.
Liz Sumner 7:48
No. Oh, that’s a musician is somebody who plays an instrument not not not a singer.
Mark Radel 7:54
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I can understand. We all have our own. Yeah. Anyway. So yeah, so and there’s certain songs that I just love to death. Tracy Chapman, who I’m not really fond of, but has one song gave me one reason that I’ve played to, with so many times that that I, I have the entire accompaniment down. So yeah,
Liz Sumner 8:20
that’s so when you’re listening? Do you listen to just just general blues? Or are there people playing harmonica and you’re listening to harmonica players?
Mark Radel 8:30
No, I don’t listen to harmonica players. There is occasionally on some of the ones. There’s a musician named Harry Manx, who’s a local guy. And he has a harp player that plays with a lot and who is just amazingly good. But when he’s playing, I don’t play along. I’m listening to him. And you do you do steal things. You still licks from other players, which I felt guilty about until a real musician said oh, my God, that’s what you do. That’s how you learn things. So yeah, so then I saw Yeah, I steal licks from them. And there are certain everybody has their own style for harp. And because I didn’t take any lessons. I play more melodic. Some people just play these little short little wild licks. And I tend to be more melodic when I play. But Jerry Portnoy is somebody that once I got a little more serious about it, I would listen, I have a CD of his that is a tutorial and listen to him play. I just love the way he does it. So I’ve modeled myself to some degree after him.
Liz Sumner 9:37
So okay, so you you read the book, you practiced it in the car, how did you get better and better? Was it just practice or?
Mark Radel 9:47
Good question? No, no, you’re, when you’re playing by yourself. It’s, you’re limited. I mean, I’m still a dilettante, and I’ll never be more than that. I don’t have any want or desire to really get to be, you know, professional level does not I don’t don’t play enough. And I just I’m not interested in that. But you when you start playing with other people, it forces you to go outside your comfort zone like oh yeah, that’s a different kind of song because I when I’m playing along with CDs, I’m just playing the ones that I like to play the way I like to play them. And I started playing with Dr. J. and Sherman, friends of mine, who were both musicians in particularly Sherman pushed me out of my comfort zone, forced me to expand my range, then I started getting better. And although I am not shy person, no one ever said, Oh, that Mark, he sure is shy. And getting in front of people and speaking doesn’t bother me. I’ve gotten in front of hundreds of people lots and lots of times, and doesn’t mean a thing to me. Just not even a flicker of anxiety. However, performing in front of people is really, really was was so anxious. I could barely do it for a long time. But like everything else, if you keep doing it after a while I found Oh my God, I don’t have to face the wall. First time I ever played a gig with Sherman. At this little time they were 12 people and at a restaurant and we’re playing. He kept turning me around because I kept finding myself facing the wall. Yeah, yeah, that’s not that’s not sad. Um, and that was also the first time we’d play there two or three times we were playing once on Mardi Gras. So he was playing zydeco. And I was having to play along with that, and didn’t think it’s not my, what I knew best. And, and I really, I looked at the people, I actually was facing the people, and they were enjoying it. That was the first time in my life that I went like, Oh, my God, I, I think I can do this. I think I can actually play these people aren’t going like what the hell is he doing? They’re actually going like, Wow, that’s cool. So that was really freeing for me. And I remember as we left the place, I was just elated. It was just a sense of, Oh, my God, actually, as a first time I went like I can become a musician.
Liz Sumner 12:32
That’s very Oh, yeah. I was just thinking that the way that you are learning and the way that that you approached it, it’s all improvisation, like most other people, when they learn an instrument, they learn songs, they learn to play things, the way that they were written, basically. Right. But you started with improv, which is one of the hardest things that that musicians do. That’s pretty impressive.
Mark Radel 13:03
Yeah, it’s, I think, was really good for me, it helped me. I can, I mean, I played with guys playing country music and you know zydeco and of course, blues, and we have music nights where a bunch of people get together. I have to say that what we call music nights, because we did that for years, used to start Saturday I mean, we’d go to dinner, then stay up till one o’clock in the morning playing music, or two or whatever. Now, you know, 20 years later, music nights consist of Sunday afternoon at one till about six o’clock in the evening. We still call it music night. But it ain’t night. Yeah, yeah. And so yeah, I can play with not any kind of music, but most kinds of music because I’m improvising. And I’m just you can do as much or as little as you want. The nice thing about being a harp player, some people only play you know, two bars an entire song, you just put in licks in here, little licks there. Or you can play along with the whole thing. If there’s just two of you, I was playing with this guy named Bill who’s just amazing guitar player. He was just noodling out 12 bar blues. And so I started playing with him yesterday. And we just got into this amazing groove. We’re just really going for it. And the fact that there was you know, as a party, there was a lot of people there didn’t even factor in I realized as I went home, no longer even even with friends. I used to be shy about you know, really pushing the envelope. That’s just not true anymore. I really feel comfortable playing harmonica now. Yeah.
Liz Sumner 14:54
So you were saying that you got this free harmonica with the book. What’s the difference between a cheap bad harmonica and a great one,
Mark Radel 15:01
Some harmonicas, So just the quality of the reeds because what makes music these little tiny, thin reeds that blow, and some of them are just cheap, you they become tired and get out of tune really quickly, then you have to throw the harp away. Whereas I play the Oscars, mostly because you can take them apart, take the reeds out, put new reeds in. And if you’re bending notes a lot, you’ll tire out a harp pretty quick. Because bending the note for something twist that read more than just regular plain, they have better sound higher quality metals, and they’re no wood, the old harps and the cheap ones have wood in the middle of the harp. So this part is wood with metal on both sides. One of the things about harps one of the disgusting things is you blow a lot of spit into your harp. If it’s wood, it gets swells shrink, swell, shrink, and eventually it’s no good. Whereas you what you want is plastic on the inside metal on the outside, and then the really high quality reed. And so I you know, like once every few months I take mine apart, have a cleaning and clean them all. Because they do get fairly disgusting. Which is why people don’t play each other’s harps. Because you’re, I mean, you have to be you have to be willing to kiss the other person to play their harp. It’s about and, and yeah, I really enjoyed the whole thing. It’s it’s, it appeals to me– it appeals to my brain. And to my heart. I have the music part of it is always music’s always been a part of my life. Ever since I was a little tiny kid. And and now that I can say yeah, I’m a musician. We were playing at a party once. And I was playing ukulele. And after I played harp and this guy, went– I asked him what he played. He goes, Oh, I play a little guitar but I’m not a musician like you guys. And yeah, I was like, I wanted to hug him. But I thought no, that’s so so I just did the manly thing of Yeah. [laughter] I wanted to break into River Dance but I couldn’t do it there. Yeah.
Liz Sumner 17:30
Okay, so one other question. We have a friend here. Marcello who plays absolutely gorgeous harp, but he has a– Is it a chromatic is that? Yeah, tell me tell me what …
Mark Radel 17:42
so I play a diatonic, which has 10 holes and only has the notes in that key. So if I’m playing in the key of C, a C harp, it only has the notes and C, it has nothing outside that range. A chromatic is more like a piano where it has every note in the scale. So you can if you’re playing in the key of C, there are notes on the piano that are gonna sound bad because they’re not in the key of C, and a chromatic is that way. And there’s all kinds of chromatics there are 10 holes that have a slide on the side, change it slightly, which I do not understand, but I know you can play them chromatically then there are the big harps– Mark Sherman bought me one of these in the in the invalid hope that I would learn to play chromatic. Never happened, looks good in the case, but never got to play. So it’s like playing the piano. And then you see, if you play a chromatic, you have to have music theory, you have to know what notes are in which scales. And so it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, I’m not Stevie Wonder, yes, he’s playing a chromatic, there are people who can take a diatonic harp, and play every note of scale by bending certain other notes, either half tone, or some people couldn’t even been in the full tone, and make it sound just like a normal scale. But those guys are freaks of nature. And that’s all they do in their life. And I got to play D&D and go to work and all. So I just, like I said, I’m really happy being a dilletante. I don’t feel any pressure to be excellent in it. I can, especially with the harp, I can play along with anybody. And now that I have a ukulele, I can take the ukulele out. And long as I know the chords, I can play along with the chords or fake them if I there’s some weird chord in there. But ukulele really, if you learn, there’s about 12 chords, you can learn that you’re good for 99% of the life. I mean,
Liz Sumner 19:47
unless you’re playing Cohen music Yeah. Our friend Peter who, who who plays ukulele gets really frustrated with diminished chords.
Mark Radel 20:00
Exactly, yeah, I, one of the things that Sherman forced me to do is try to write songs, which is a way of learning. Hmm, learning all the music theory. And so I’ll be I’ll write a song and play for him. And he goes, Yeah, that sounds pretty good. But what if you did, you know, G sharp minor, instead of that G, think how cool, how much cooler that might sound. And he’ll play it and you’ll go like, in your brain, you go like, Wow, that’s a lot better. But what you say is Nah I don’t like that. You’re never gonna be able to play that chord.
Liz Sumner 20:39
I bet you could. You you got to this point. And I believe in in what is it the Alexander Pope quotation that “man’s reach must exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for. So so you need it, you need a challenge. And you need a little something to stretch for.
Mark Radel 21:00
I have to say once I felt like I had– mastered is not the word. But I was a full blown Honest to God, I can play harp with people. I then started thinking, you know, this was so much fun. Maybe I should try something else. And so like harmonica, like, what’s the easiest thing I can play? What’s the one that will get me in the door? I mean, maybe when I’m 80. I’ll start playing guitar. Who knows? And so I thought, ukulele, that’s the way to go. And so that’s what I’ve been doing. And once I become proficient in that, I actually thought that a guitar might be interesting. And so I may do that. Who knows? In few years, I may, I may do that. I have a guitar. I played in that little group, the Misfortunes I was talking about in junior high. We would switch instruments and songs, because we thought that was just really cool. I don’t know why. I played guitar on House of the Rising Sun. That was kind of fun. Being the guitar player. So yeah, who knows?
Liz Sumner 22:06
And they get the girls.
Mark Radel 22:07
Yeah, they do? Well, yeah, it was junior high. So get the girls has a whole different meaning that it does in real life. Yeah.
Liz Sumner 22:17
True. So what would you say to– what resources would you recommend? What advice would you give to somebody who has a long commute? Or who is thinking, you know, I’ve been thinking about harmonica, well,
Mark Radel 22:33
Even if they’ve been thinking about it, they’ve never played an instrument, harmonica is a good place to start. Because you start by, you don’t even need a book, you don’t need anything, you just have to practice playing until you can play single notes. Until you if you want to play two notes together, you can. But if you want to get the single note down, pucker your lips, or however you want to do it, there’s a bunch of different ways to play it, then you got to go to the next step. And, and that’s what I recommend. And nowadays, there’s you go to your library, get a CD with a book with a CD, play the CD, you play along with them, until you can actually play. And then at some point, if you want to be able to play with other people, you have to find somebody who can say that sounds that’s right, that’s wrong. Don’t play that, play this, you have to have somebody who who can– not tutor you. And they don’t even have to play harmonica, but they have to give you feed live feedback. Because what you think you hear is not always what, you know, what other people hear. And so that’s those are the steps. The good news is about harmonica is you can just take one, kids, you know, little kids, eight years old love harmonica, because they can just blow, you know, make little noises with them. And that’s all you really need.
Liz Sumner 23:55
Is it difficult to figure out just by trial and error how to blow one single note?
Mark Radel 24:01
Yes. Very difficult. That’s the hardest part of the whole thing. Well, the hardest part is bending notes. Because there’s no way they can say they, you know, you can pucker down but the bend to note is some kind of I don’t even know how you I don’t know, what’s the mechanics of making that read. You know, bending a string makes sense. Oh, I wish the string all that me. But harp. There’s something you’d I’m not even sure what you do to do it. I have these things. A couple other things in my life that I can do. But I don’t really know how I’m doing it. It’s, it’s not confusing. It’s just kind of weird. But yeah, and you just got to practice and practice. That’s the kind of thing that nobody can teach you. You have to learn yourself. A lot of harmonica is self taught, but you do at some point need to. You don’t need any music theory. You just play along and after a while you can play.
Liz Sumner 24:58
Have you ever checked out you YouTube videos
Mark Radel 25:01
on playing harmonica? No, I haven’t.
Liz Sumner 25:04
I bet there are some
Mark Radel 25:05
Oh, there’s a million Dr. J is now trying to play. Everybody that I play music, they play other instruments. Now all of a sudden they want to be able to play harmonica. One of the lovely things about harmonica– digression– is that I don’t know if because it sounds more like a human voice than any other instrument. But I play with really good musicians who are just just killing it. And I’m just playing my little harmonica. And I’m always the one they go like, Wow, that sounds great. And what like, I’m just playing, you know, it’s, there’s something that really strikes a chord with people that I don’t know if it’s, it’s a cool factor, or it’s a different sound, or I don’t know what it is. But you can listen to like theme songs on TV shows, could be stunned how many of them have harmonicas in it. And I think it’s some reason it it. It connects with people more than other instruments. I don’t know. Anyway, so yeah, yeah.
Liz Sumner 26:10
Anything you want to say in conclusion,
Mark Radel 26:13
Harmonica for me– starting things, now that I’m retired and, and I can do what I want in life, I really have had a lot of satisfaction becoming a musician, I have to say, it’s a big part of my life now. And it’s as pleasurable as anything I’ve ever done in my entire life. It really, it really is satisfying. I can look back on five or six times after a night, of playing that I was just vibrating I was so happy. I was just so high from the whole “Oh my god, that was cool.” And I really recommend pushing yourself, I think particularly with music, but there’s lots of other things too. It’s worth the effort. It’s better than just doing crosswords. So many of my friends took up doing crossword puzzles when they retired and went like, Ooh, that’s, that’s not good.
Liz Sumner 27:13
No, no. Oh, thank you, Mark. That was wonderful. Good.
Mark Radel 27:19
I enjoyed it.
Liz Sumner 27:21
My thanks to Mark Radel. Stick around to the end of this episode to hear Mark playing with our friend Mark Sherman. I invite everyone to write and tell me what you’ve always wanted to try. I’m Liz Sumner, reminding you to be bold, and thanks for listening.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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