Re: [Harp-L] Blues Scale / Shapes




On Mar 7, 2008, at 4:58 PM, MundHarp@xxxxxxx wrote:


It is always good to have music theory knowledge, but I'm sure Little Walter
and Walter Horton also Sonny Terry never thought about even the names of the
notes! They just played what they FELT!

This idea of celebrating illiteracy is a curious notion to me. All of us here can read and write. We use written language to express our ideas. Nevertheless, we all acknowledge the necessity and the benefits of our education and the ability to construct grammatically correct sentences that form paragraphs that adhere to the basic rules of composition.


Musical notation and theory are like that. Notation is a language for expressing the ideas in a composer's head so that they can be more easily shared with others. Theory is an organized way of explaining how and why those ideas work.

Guys like Little Walter and Sonny Terry and . . . fill in the blank harmonica hero from the 50s were mostly poor, uneducated, and probably illiterate as well as untutored in music. They were illiterate by circumstance not choice. It is a testimony to their genius that they were able to create and organize and perform such amazing music with so few tools. But most of us aren't geniuses.

Indeed, if my old friend Earring George Mayweather is indicative of his peers, I doubt seriously they felt good about their educational shortcomings. He went to great lengths to hide his inability to read and write English and his lack of formal music theory. Was he amazing when he played? Yes. Could he explain to others what he did, sort of. Mostly he'd say, "It's like this . . . and he'd play something. Or when he fronted a band, he'd say, "I got a "A harp" and rely on the band to figure out they needed to play in E.

Case in point is Howlin' Wolf who, according to a documentary I saw on his life, learned how to read and write English and music and about music theory in his 50s, long after he was a success. It was his professionalism and pride that sent him on that journey. He realized the limitations inherent in being illiterate and untutored.

Clearly theory for theory's sake is a waste of time. But it sure can help.

Bob




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