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Message: 2
Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2007 00:57:43 -0600
From: "Jonathan Metts" <jonathan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Harp-L] Plagiarism and Copying Solos
To: <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Message-ID: <002301c7bae3$f5c528f0$0101a8c0@JONNY>
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A lot of people seem to support the idea of copying the masters as
a form of
tribute. I definitely think you can learn a lot from imitating
your musical
heroes -- it's a great way to practice and improve your skills.
But I think
it's pretty distasteful to copy solos note-for-note in a performance
setting, and it displays very little creativity. Instead, do what
your
heroes did when they originally created those solos. Study the
scales, get
into the groove, and let the music inside of you flow out through the
instrument. As an audience member, if I want to hear a particular
Little
Walter solo performed perfectly, I can just load up that CD when I
get home.
My interest in a live performance is to hear music performed live
-- and
that always bears at least a hint of spontaneity, even in the greatest
professional orchestras around the world. That's why they have
conductors
instead of metronomes!
Jonathan Metts
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John-
I wrote out 70 Little Walter solos in as yet unpublished book, and
21 harp solos published in the book "Master's of the Blues Harp." I
intentionally avoided memorizing a single one of them until I
worked with David Barrett at one his Masterclasses and had to
demonstrate "Blues With a Feeling" for my Little Walter class,
which I performed of course with proper attribution. To this day
that was only one I ever learned. I paid a lot attention, though,
to Little Walter's technique and rhtymic usage in a particular, and
have absorbed many of those elements into my playing. But we harp
players all do things like that, I think.
Your right-if you want to hear Little Walter, you can put on the
record. Baul Butterfield said on the Homespun Tapes series he did
in the 1980s that he had heard many people play Walter's solos, and
that they never sounded right. Walter played with matchless
confidence and verve, and the artist I saw was really no exception
in falling short there, although a very good technique was
demonstrated.
I think this person did this to conceal a deficit in improvisional
skill. Clever, yes, but someone in the crowd with big ears will
usually see through the sham. This time it was me.
-Glenn
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