Re: Big Walter's Customized Harp

["Scorcher" <s_c_o_r_c_h_e_r@xxxxxxx>]

From: Allen Stratyner
>          I don't mean to appear rude,

You do

> but In total candor I'm starting to
> believe that some the people who express
> themselves in this forum are a little bit too obsessed with with
equipment,
> tweaks and customizations.


Dont you think you ought to know what's under the hood before you try
to go out and redline the sucker for 50 laps?

Yes, we sometimes are pretty obsessed. You don't talk about this stuff
with strangers on the subway...
You get on an e-mail list like this, then you talk, tweak, compare,
and obsess to your hearts content.

This is not a blues Jam, it's a discussion list. Discuss.

- - I can't hear you play your harmonica from here, and you can't "cut
my head" from there. All we can do is talk.

And we can learn, if we listen.

> Hey it's a big tent, and everyone is welcome, but
> I just wonder sometimes how the old blues masters were able to
create all
> this music we love without all the trappings of the modern would-be
harp
> player,

Most of the blues players I know consider themselves musicians first,
then harp players.
Most of them play stock harmonicas, or near-stock ones they've
"adjusted".

Just like the OBMs.

Most of them play only 1st, 2nd, 3rd - just like many of the OBMs.
Nothin' wrong with that.

LW & others wouldn't have been considered traditionalists, BTW -
electrified play was an innovation, y'know?

Really advanced innovations like chromaticity wouldn't even EXIST
without obsessing about the limitations & potentials of the
instrument.

- -Scorcher