... Count me in with the "crap" musicians. I have other things in my
life besides music and harp playing - and I LIKE IT that way! YMMV...
More power to ... all the ... masterful musicians that create music
so wonderful, so beautiful that it moves me to want to emulate them!
Crazy ('bout harp!) Bob
--
Ditto, Bob thanks. Like many, perhaps most, harpblowers, I play
blues harp for fun, personal expression and simple
satisfaction. There are other reasons to play harp, of course. And
they're all fine -insofar as they're for the powers of good, not evil
(I won't talk about Bob Dylan in this thread ;>)
A good friend and former road-warrior said of a famous and currently
successful (non-harp) muso, essentially, "she prefers to spend her
life on the road because it's where she finds her family, since she
has none at home." He meant she, like many others, craved the
acceptance and, indeed, found family, a family of those who adore
her, one night, one gig, at a time.
He felt sorry for her, but he shouldn't, she's doin' what she wants,
and creating awesome musical beauty, even if her own personal life
seems (in my pal's conservative eyes) less than ideal.
And I neither pity nor disdain harp players who, to me, seem at times
lost in the technical/gear/intelleckshual minutae, they love that
schtuff, and occasionally I benefit from their explorations. And
sometimes, their playing.
But I Do Regret that some readers of this list might come away
feeling inadequate because they're persuaded they lack the gear,
brains, time or technical ability which we're often told is necessary
to be adequate harp suckers.
I will venture an arrogant absolute: The greats have proven that gear
is tertiary at best, brains are vastly over-rated and technical
ability only takes you so far (not very) towards making beautiful
music. (Howls abound! Okay, secondary, somewhat, and a bit.)
Harp, I mean diatonic, is easy to play for fun, and damned difficult
to play excellently. But that distinction should not operate to
separate or denigrate people. Au contraire. And here on Harp-L it
brings us, or smashes us, together. Even as we endure plebeian
maunderings (like mine), yawning conceits, absolutist edicts or lofty
proclamations of horsepucky (like mine, too.)