Re: Play music, don't play harmonica (longer yet)



At 10:01 AM 6/1/95 KPGraham@xxxxxxx wrote:

>I really like this quote and I have a small story.

And I really liked your story, Keith !

Sorry I've been down for a week with a crashed hard drive [the net gods
must have had their ~search and destroy~ agents set on "cantankerous" {&^)
] and have been doing some of my own catching up,  but I thought I'd offer
my mega-2 cents on a connection between this oft repeated ~should you read~
thread, the not-quite-recent ~Eric Clapton thinks Little Walter was
limited~ thread -- and possibly to some other threads (I don't recall
exactly where I saw them, maybe blues-l, maybe here, maybe even Living
Blues) about the legitmacy of blues, blues culture, etc.

I think Billy Branch, in a harmonica symposium in Tucson, said something to
the effect that if you're not ~in the culture~, you're not really a blues
person, or don't really understand it.  This of course stems from the fact
that most of this music was handed down face-to-face amoung
African-Americans in the early part of this century, sitting around
jamming, freely improvising, faking it when necessary, doing what felt good
at the time, not really worrying about theory or structure.  I guess he
feels it's an ~if you weren't there, you don't know~ kind of thing.  I had
a little trouble with Branch's statements since he is known for teaching
grade school children ~blues harp~ and I'm not sure all of them are/were of
~the culture~, but nonetheless, we all know that for this style of music
the subtleties and nuances were usually communicated orally, by rote as
Keith pointed out, which made unnecessary the act of writing anything down
[although Willie Dixon comes to mind as one who penned a few in standard
musical notation :-)]. Some blues purists charge that this creates a more
natural kind of music and is the basis for why blues is so powerful. This
is perplexing, since everything I have read about EC is that he understands
this --  in fact I read in a guitar mag (Guitar World?) a few months ago
that he knows many Little Walter harp lines by heart and whistles them
around the house and in the car-- but if the charges of a few weeks ago are
true, he must not agree with this and must consider himself particularly
knowledgeable (does anyone know if he is a note reader?)

You can extend the logic to much of rock music, esp. punk rock, where the
culture *IS* the music and the less you know ( esp. from traditional
sources including writing in standard notation), the better. You know,
youth and teen-age angst rules, screw any one who can play and especially
readers !!  There are parallels to many other types of folk music where
personal and verbal interaction is ~the method~ for handing it down,
however aren't those that are (or became) more complex generally now best
communicated in written form (this isn't rhetorical, but a real question
for anyone interested) ?

Music notation is a language that communicates across many boundaries and
is a quick way to communicate a lot of ideas.  It may or may not be the
greatest, but it's universal for whatever reason, kind of like the English
language.  As I've said before, I'm still not ~there~ yet (can read melody
lines though), but if you give a lead sheet to a pro they can quickly
surmise the style, the rhythm, the melody and harmony in a matter of
seconds (or minutes if it's complex).  It doesn't follow from ~reading~
that the practitioner must then stay note-for-note all the time or
regurgitate  stock licks. It does mean that they could be better prepared
faster than someone who has to hear it all the way through, maybe a couple
of times, or have a verbal breakdown given to them. Is that not a bad goal
for any stylist?

One interesting thing I've found (opinion here) more in line with Keith's
point is that some (emphasis on SOME, not all) knowledgeable people, call
them ~technicians~, can do many, many interesting things since they have
devoted much of their lives to learning lots of music, usually by reading
or transcribing, receiving formal training, listen to all the greats, etc.
but then when it comes to making or composing music, I just don't get it or
don't like it. It could be my ignorance, but when I listen to some
techno-wizard heavy metal guitar god like Joe "knowledge is power" Satriani
or Steve Vai, I think, Hmmmm....interesting, but not very moving. I
intentionally left out any reference to harmonica players on this one ;-)

A final thought on the classicists and ensemble members like Richard out
there, isn't it true that the main purpose of playing classical piece is to
minimize interpretation and improvisation and to ~as close as possible~
match what was intended by the composer (part of the ~discipline~)?  If
there are several to play a piece, then what better ~common denominator~
than sheet music, both for speed per the above, but also for accuracy.

Many of the harmonica players in Borrah M (can't remember how to spell his
name) learned by rote and did wonderfully, but I'm sure it was more
laborious. Also, how many complex pieces can you carry around in your head
at one time?  I think the singer in REM read from sheet music recently here
in Mpls. since he had forgotten many of the lyrics on their earlier songs.
The point there is that on any level documentation can help.

Perhaps those who read musical notation are in their own subculture, but I
think you could accurately say that most pros fall into this category, or
probably feel the pressure to learn more because of the speed and accuracy
issue or the overloaded brain issue.  As Richard said, to each his own, but
I'll submit that readers tend to have more open minds, maybe ~too open~ to
some. But maybe it is true that learning to read, or at least too much
focus on technicalities ~overloads~ the blues or simple rock player and
distracts from the emotional focus. Sorry for the 6K [meant to stimulate,
not instigate -- and it's OK to call the kettle black ;-) ].

Harv <HAAndruss@xxxxxxx> -- music spoken and read here, but less is more,
more or less.

Harv <HAAndruss@xxxxxxx>






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