Sunnyside is one of those that harrasses me offlist. I now delete his
messages without reading them. Too much bad energy.
Well, you answered each and every one so far... But never mind, you're
right: I lost it there and I apoligize to the list for it. But the question
remains: is there, as you pretend, a "shortcut" to becoming creative on the
harmonica (or on any given musical instrument, for that matter). My answer
is no. In a few words, this is why...
IMHO, learning to play music on an instrument has a lot to do with
transpiration before considering inspiration. If we agree on music being a
language, in order to speak it with your own voice, you have to create, for
yourself, a vocabulary and a syntax. And how better can you do that than go
back and listen to those who have spoken before you. That's why the legacy
of the ODBG is so important: they "wrote the book" (see the metaphore?) and
we're lucky enough to be able to read in it, thanks to their recorded body
of work.
Pretending that creativity can be achieved without learning in forehand
to speak the language seems misleading (at the least) to all of us who
struggle with the hole 3 bends or the phrasing of any given riff. It can
only be achieved with love, dedication and work. There is no shortcut to
creativity, there is only work, Larry.
Rostropovitch, who I interwied for my news agency in Berlin, confessed
that he practised between three and five hours a day. And he was in in his
sixties then. Ask Howard or Kim if they have practised a lot, still do and
will: the answer is probably "Yes". Therefore, it seems to me that the
"instant gratification" thing you propose is misleading. Sorry...
Sunnyside in France