My "study buddy" & I made a pact. We decided we'd try to challenge each other to achieve a semblance of "chromaticity" - the art of being able to play fluently in all keys. If you play harmonica you know how hard this is. If you don't, I'll give you a hint: most harmonica-playing pros carry more than 20 harmonicas to give them the reach and depth of color-palette to do this tastefully. I should say most BLUES-harmonica-playing pros.
You can find Maestros like Toots Thielemans and Bill Barrett -and very few others that can play fluently in all keys with one harmonica. But on a planet with literally MILLIONS of players, musicians like Toots are nearly as rare as Charlie Parker.
Anyway, my bud & I are going to try to LIMP through Aebersold's Blues in All Keys over the next several months, challenging each other to a new key every week or so. Should be interesting - I hope we make it all the way through. Maybe I'll try to post a sound-byte later if I can get one that doesn't bite...
