[Harp-L] Re: Lack of Respect

[Steve Baker <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The questionable status of the harmonica and the perceived lack of  
respect some respondents have mentioned here is as old as the  
instrument itself. My friend Soeren Birke wrote his master's thesis  
in philosophy on this subject at the Humboldt University in Berlin  
(he passed with flying colours). He dealt with the social status of  
the harmonica during the time between its emergence as a widely  
distributed instrument in the mid 1800s, until the end of the 1920s  
and concluded that there were two widely divergent perceptions of it.  
On the one hand it was an important element in the democratisation of  
musical culture, as it was cheap and easy to play in a rudimentary  
fashion and therefore made playing music available to everyman. It  
always was a "people's instrument". On the other hand it was hated by  
the musical establishment and regarded as intrinsically inferior to  
the instruments on which the European classical tradition was based.  
The fundamental dichotomy in the way people perceive the harmonica  
hasn't changed much in the last 150 years,

Steve Baker
www.stevebaker.de
www.bluesculture.com