The Harrington Family Foundation

By Steve Brandon and Jason Vondersmith

Joey Harrington has to have a playbook, but he does just fine without a songbook. Harrington, the piano man, plays by ear and feel. The Detroit Lions quarterback will demonstrate his musical talents when he jams with contemporary rockers Third Eye Blind and the Pat McGee Band at a benefit concert July 1 at Pioneer Courthouse Square.
   
“I know their songs, but I listen to their music differently,” Harrington says of Third Eye Blind. “I couldn’t tell you the words to half their songs. I listen to the chords, the crescendos, the accents, the riffs.”
   
He has grown to prefer jazz to classical because “jazz is a lot more laid-back and less constricting. I can just sit back and play. “All jazz is chord progressions,” he adds. “You hear voices or progressions and you learn how to lean into something else, how to extend them and go over the top.”
   
Harrington began taking piano lessons at age 4. “My mom got me started. At that age, I wasn’t going to walk up to Mom and say, ‘I want to be a concert pianist,’ ” he jokes. Turns out Mother knew best. In Detroit, Harrington plays on the refurbished 1911 Baldwin that belonged to his great-grandmother.

Music and theater are “very important to me,” he says. “I have to have music in my life in some capacity. This is the balancing side of my life. I have to give my mom a lot of credit. She noticed very early that her kids were very lopsided (toward things like sports).”

Harrington played in the jazz band at Fernwood Middle School, and he and bassist Christian Grewell and various drummers had a three-man jazz combo. In 1994, Harrington helped start a jazz band at Central Catholic High. He soon began to focus more on football, but while at the University of Oregon, he took two piano classes. “When I have the time, I fully intend to take lessons again,” he says. “I feel like I’ve regressed, actually. I haven’t sat down and practiced my scales in 10 years. I essentially open up a music book and go at it.”
   
He also plays some some guitar. “I got bored in Eugene one winter and picked it up,” he says. “Once you learn music, it’s consistent among all instruments. You learn all about chords, and it’s just a matter of where you put your fingers. Now, I wouldn’t go out on the road with the guitar or anything … ”
   
Tickets for the Third Eye Blind/Pat McGee Band concert are available online at www.ticketswest.com or by calling 1-800-992-8499 or 1-800-325-7328. The 7 p.m. show will raise money for Shriners Hospital for Children in Portland and the Harrington Family Foundation. Harrington will enjoy the stage.
 
“There’s nothing like performing,” he says. Just don’t expect him to sing.
“I don’t even attempt that,” he says.