[Harp-L] harping on musicianship

[chris smith <harpshredder@xxxxxxxxx>]

     Fellow harpers,
                             I think it's true that
there are many harmonica players that aren't terribly
accomplished musicians particularly in
specific areas of sight-reading and theory knowledge.
When an instrument costs as little as $10.00 or less
it's very easy to be a harp
owner as opposed to a real harmonica player. Many of
us, however, have gotten "the bug" and have taken to
playing, playing, playing. This
is the beauty of this instrument. Many people LOVE
music but can't play it. With the simple diatonic harp
one can make music without knowing a lot .
     Stepping into the professional world it's a horse
of a different color
especially doing session work. Then every weapon you
have in your arsenal can be called into play and then
some. This level of musicianship is astonishing where
a 100 piece orchestra knocks out a complex score maybe
8 minutes long ON THE FIRST TAKE ! So, that's the apex
and there's not a lot of Tommy Morgans around who can
hang at that level. Fortunately, there are plenty of
other levels of music
and styles that are perfectly valid. The nature of the
beast is that harmonically (no pun intended) the
diatonic is quite limited having only 2 chords (3 if
you count the D minor chord on a C harp) This presents
its unique challenge : playing other than
these two chords involves harp switching or finding
single notes or octaves that work. For me, while I
love to wail on the blues harp and am
most powerful on that instrument ,I enjoy chromatic
and  guitar playing to move beyond the constraints of
the diatonic. 
     I strongly encourage any harp player to learn as
much theory and musicianship skills as you can. It'll
only give you more confidence and
a greater palette for expression. I don't think though
that there's any
reason to denigrate yourself for lack of absolutely
stellar technical skills. An awful lot of great music
has been made by relatively untrained  musicians and a
lot of awful music has been made by highly
trained musicians ,IMHO. Bottom line enjoy blowin'
your horn. Isn't that 
why we all started playing ?
                                                      
      Chris

Chris "Hammer" Smith
Hammer Smith Band
Official Myspace Page http://myspace.com/chrishammersmith
harpshredder@xxxxxxxxx

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