Re: [Harp-L] Re: diatonic harps not designed to play all the

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"akc" wrote:
<Well, for my money.. if you want to play all the notes, get yourself a 
<chromatic.. The 
<beautiful thing, for me, about a diatonic, is the arrangement of the 
<notes... it forces you to improvise and, when you do, it comes out
<naturally more 'imaginative' than you'd probably be if you had all the
<notes at your disposal. 

I disagree strongly with this post, and I want to make it clear up front
that in this reply I am addressing the ideas only, not the person who
proposed them.  In other words, this is not a personal attack.

With due respect, the logic of this post is completely unconvincing. It
basically argues that the layout of the diatonic harp -- all those
missing notes -- magically makes people more creative.  This is like
arguing that painting with one shade of red and one shade of blue is
necessarily more imaginative than using a palette full of colors. 

<At the jam I play at, a girl plays a flute.... to be fair, she's
<something of a novice... but - because she CAN play the melody line -
<she usually does. The guys would sooner play with me, because the harp
<finds harmonies in the tune that she'd never dream of.

"The harp finds harmonies?"  Man, tell me where I can get a truckload of
those harps -- the ones I buy are so lazy, they force ME to find the
harmonies, along with the rhythms, the timbre, and everything else.  And
when I let my diatonic harps choose the harmonies, you know what?  They
always choose harmonies in the same key as the harp! Now THAT's lazy.  

What do you expect a novice to do, besides stick to the melody? Harp
players who can't play the melody -- of which there are far too many --
usually just play blues licks over whatever the rhythm section happens
to be doing, which works sometimes, sometimes not; whether or not it
works, it's about playing the harp, not the music, and it doesn't strike
me as very "imaginative."  Anyway, the reason the novice can't improvise
well on the flute -- or any other instrument -- is that she doesn't know
how to translate what she hears in her head to her instrument.  (Or
maybe she doesn't hear much that's interesting in her head, but that's a
different story.)  It's got nothing to do with being inhibited by all
those notes.

<I can understand the drive to make oneself more and more proficient at
<an instrument. If we aren't careful, though... we're like footballers
<who can run 50 yards balancing the ball on our noses. Very clever.. but
<useful?

Playing the melody to a piece of music isn't like running 50 yards with
a ball balanced on your nose.  It's basic musicianship.  And it's
useful, especially if you want to play with the pros, for whom things
like being able to play a melody on demand are pretty much taken for
granted.

I happen to have serious reservations about playing chromatically on the
diatonic too, and I've expressed those reservations many times on this
list. But you will never hear me argue that it's more creative to just
play the licks that fall easily on the diatonic.  The overblowers may be
wrong about what the best path is -- we'll see in 20 years or so, I
guess -- but they're certainly demonstrating a lot of imagination.

Regards, Richard Hunter
hunterharp.com