Finding your "Niche"

[Joe and Cass Leone <leone@xxxxxxxx>]

  All the talk about the various types/styles/genres of playing music 
reminds me of a theory I had many years ago. This having to do with 
niches. I had heard from Pete Fountain where "Emulating your super hero 
was nice but one should go that extra step and develop your OWN sound. 
Don't be a copy". (This was before the use of the word clone.)

Let's suppose for the moment that we have a wall in our home and it is 
covered with bookshelves. The shelves are all 12" deep and same 
distance apart, (same length). There are 10 of them and they each 
represent a different genre/type playing. The fact that some shelves 
are low and some high is insignificant. So, that's NOT to say that the 
bottom shelves contain bottom dwellers and the top shelves contain 
players who are, well..top shelf. The shelve's position doesn't matter.

  Now, you have 100 musicians and your job is to place these artists on 
the shelves in the position you think they should be. We could even 
label the shelves, such as: Levy (& clones), McCoy (& clones), "Toots" 
(& clones), Wilson (& clones), etc. I think you get the picture. You 
might even place little pieces of paper saying: Country, Gospel, Folk, 
Bee-Bop, Hard-Bop, and even "Hey-Bop-a-Ree-Bop". You may wind up with 
people on each shelf. Some shelves would contain a LOT of artists. Some 
(the avante garde) would not.

  This is NOT the way I see it in my twisted, bizzarro world. What I see 
is a wall covered with boxes. Each one is a different size and shape. 
Some are"milk-crate" sized, some would barely hold a "tie-tack". Some 
are 4" wide and 11" high, while another might be 8" wide and 7" high. 
Some would be long and thin, others narrow and high, while still others 
would be cubes.

  Here's where it gets interesting. There are -50- boxes. NOW try and 
place the artists. Not so easy, right? You may find that some of the 
boxes are chock full of "so & so (&clones)" while others have only 1 
name in them. Still others are totally empty.

  If a person was to try to make a situation for themselves in the 
harmonica/music world, they might choose to join one of the boxes, or 
they may try for a box of their own. Given that  neither size of the 
box NOR the number of names the box contains has anything to do with 
Marketability but merely indicates the number of people engaged in that 
particular genre/style, one has to decide where they want to be.

  If you choose a marketable genre/style, you may make a living at it 
and would also (probably) be in good company as there are others like 
you. If you choose a genre/style solely on how you personally feel and 
what you want to play (at all costs, and "Hang" the outcome), you may 
wish to find your OWN box.

  In any case, I have found (just ME) that once one gets past the "waft" 
of recreational and hobby players, the people that stand out (&/or 
attract attention), are either VERY different and in their own niche, 
and therefore hard to substitute, OR are trying to fit a "standard" and 
sitting in one of the marketable boxes. The choice is yours.

Many of the "Greats" were in a niche of their own,( where some make it 
and some don't). The more "standard" musicians (who conformed to the 
norm) tended not to make it as BIG, but didn't starve either.

  If you're wondering where 'I' fit?, I'm just the guy who delivers the 
boxes. :

smokey-joe