Re: [Harp-L] Subject: Who decides who is Bad or Good?

["Bob Maglinte" <bbqbob917@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Planet Harmonica" <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "harp-l" <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, July 03, 2005 9:56 AM
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Subject: Who decides who is Bad or Good?


> > I suppose if there's a question in all of this it's this (for anyone  to
> > answer):  Who told you - or how did you find out YOU were a good
> > player?
> >
> > Elizabeth

I don't consider myself a good player. I'm sure I can stand up to a good 
number of people who do consider themselves good players, but I don't 
consider myself a "good" player. Not in the sense of the word "good" that I 
envisage anyway. I have too great a conscience of how good I could be given 
work, time, dedication, etc.

That being said, of course, peer feedback is an important element of 
assessing your own playing. It is not objective feedback though, so you have 
to keep that in mind. Constructive criticism, in my book, is always better 
than direct praise.

There are more objective ways to assess your own playing. The easiest one is 
to settle on a challenging exercice, and record yourself playing the same 
exercice every week. After a couple of months, listen to the first and last 
recording in sequence. That will give you an accurate assessment of your own 
ability and progress.

Meeting and listening to other harp students is also an important part of 
assessing yourself. Knowing that you could "do that" or not, as it were, 
allows you to set some goals and identify areas of improvement. I wrote a 
small text a few months back entitled "The Long Road" that I posted here and 
on my weblog (direct link 
http://harmonica.typepad.com/harmonica_ramblings/2004/10/the_long_road.html) 
You might want to check it out, it relates to this whole "how good am I" 
thing.

Finally, I'd like to add that I have been writing reviews of albums 
featuring harmonica for the last 7 years (on http://harmonica.typepad.com 
and on www.planetharmonica.com) and I feel that there are some elements that 
may help define what "good" playing means, but not what "musical" playing 
means. Bob Dylan and Neil Young are objectively bad players by any technical 
standard of the diatonic harmonica. And yet most often their use of 
harmonica in their music is more musical than the use of many pro harp 
players in their own music, at least to my ears...

Hope this helps, keep up the faith !

Ben FELTEN
http://harmonica.typepad.com

Hi Ben,
Your last sentence of your post makes an excellent point because in their 
music, the focus is NOT the technical aspect of the soloing, but the ACTUAL 
focus are the songs and the songwriting, with everything else being gravy. 
In a sense, what they do is "people music," rather than "musician's music." 
In strict technical standards, what Bob Dylan and Neil Young play can be 
thought of as terrible, but I do agree it IS musical because it clearly fits 
within the CONTEXT of what they're doing, and again, the focus is NOT the 
solos, but the songs and the songwriting, and someone who approaches 
everything with a highlighly technical approach would wind up laying an egg 
here.

To be good at ANYTHING, you can't rely on taking shortcuts, because truth be 
told, to be good at anything, it ALWAYS will take hard work and dedication. 
We are also our own worst critics, which can be both good as well as bad for 
you at the same time. Good, because it forces you to want to reach for the 
next level, and bad because if you're not careful, you can get a really 
serious inferiority complex that can be detrimental.

Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
MP3's: http://music.mp3lizard.com/barbequebob/