[Harp-L] Re: future harmonicas and all that

Jonathan Ross seemed to misunderstand my comments in
this thread, so I'll try to clarify.

Always welcomed, though I'm not sure I agree that I misunderstood.


I wrote:
All true, but my main point is that the harp
players who break
through, for the most part, are the guys who
aren't doing the same
old s--- in bands that are putting out the same
old s---. If you
want to break through, you do something different. 

To which Jonathan replied:
<I haven't noticed anyone really breaking through as
of late.
<Moreover, I find the entire idea of "same old s--"
offensive and
<indicative of a really sad way of viewing music.  I
appreciate those
<who try new things as much as anyone else, but I also
appreciate and
<respect those who want to work and play within a
tradition.

First, the title of this thread is "future harmonicas
and all that." My comments in the thread titled
"Creativity" -- a different subject, don't you think?

Not really, actually, seeing as how I titled both threads and wrote them at the same time. The two overlap quite a bit in their evolution on harp-l. Moreover, the title to this thread was intended as being ironic, thus the "all that".

-- should make it clear that I enjoy and respect
traditional music as much as any other kind, and find
it to be just as creative as any other.



But this
thread is about FUTURE harmonicas, and the thread
started out being about how harmonica players are
going to break through with a mass audience. Or did I
misunderstand that?

No, that was the original intent of the post to which I replied. I stand by my general belief that the harmonica is not going to "break through" to a mass audience for the reasons I first outlined, and no particular playing style is going to change that, which it seems is where we disagree.

So this is about mainstream acceptance and the
importance of harmonica in mainstream styles.

OK, in which case the former won't happen and the latter can be summed up with "the harmonica will be unimportant". Perhaps this won't be the case, but as almost all instruments are an afterthought to modern pop music I see little reason to think the harmonica won't be even moreso.

I say
that the more future bands diverge from past bands,
the less need there will be for players of any sort
who play in traditional styles, unless those styles
can be modified to work in a modern context

Sure, but for the most part bands seem to be on the decline--it's all about the frontman or woman. Take the band "No Doubt". They very quickly went form being an underground band to being Gwen Stefani and her back-up band, to disbanding and there just being Gwen Stefani. Sure, someone could use harmonica as Blues Traveler has and make it a centerpiece of their band, but if the lead singer isn't the harmonica player, no-one will notice or care, IMO.

(as, for
example, Wade Schuman is doing now with Hazmat
Modine)

Which is brilliant. But it's not what I'd call pop--it's too aimed at adults, for one thing (I wouldn't call Tom Waits pop either--in both cases the music defies easy classification, but most teenagers aren't going to listen to it which pretty much means it isn't pop).

Wade plays traditional styles through an
Electro-Harmonix Polyphonic Octave Generator, which
makes the harp sound roughly three times as big. Let's
just say it's different. And that's even before we
start to talk the various musical influences, or the
fact that there are two harps in the band, or...

I love Wade's playing and band. I've been meaning to write a review of the album for months now (almost a year, so that's still minor- level procrastination for me) and they just got a glowing review in Acoustic Guitar (with a truly great opening line which I wish I'd written). But it's not popular music by any means. It's highly idiosyncratic music, and I love that about it. Who knows, it could catch on like some more idiosyncratic projects (Buena Vista Social Club, O Brother Where Art Thou--but even then I wouldn't call those pop, and they are essentially popular but isolated incidents, not mainstream trend setters).

Further, given that harmonicas, according to a number
of comments on this thread, including Jonathan's,
weren't exactly mandatory in a lot of traditional
styles, even if the future has a lot of strictly
traditional music in it, that's no guarantee of
employment for harmonica players.

Which doesn't bother me at all. Moreover, while I pointed out that the harp isn't as central to the blues as is often claimed, IMO, that doesn't mean that traditional blues harmonica players seem to be having any trouble finding gigs or jobs--within that tradition there is a good-sized place for harmonica players, just not as good sized as for guitarists, for instance.

Either way, if
harmonica players want to be central to what's going
on, they've got to invent something new.

Not if they play in a traditional style where they can be central to what's going on. The harmonica may not be central to Jazz by any means, but Hendrik Muerkins (sp on both) for one is playing well within the range of what Toots has done and getting a good amount of acceptance as of late. Muerkins isn't really creating anything new with his harp playing, but he's having a good deal of success nonetheless. Now, I don't think there is that much room for others playing very Toots influenced harmonica in jazz, mostly because I don't think the audience is there (you can have fifty Bird clones on sax, but one Toots clone is probably more than most jazz fans want-- and I'm exaggerating with the usage of the word clone because it gets the point across well), but it does seem to go against the idea that you must do something new to have a seat at the table.

The phrase "same old s---" may be offensive to some
people, but that's what music in a 50-year-old style
is to the great mass of listeners out there AND to the
industry, no matter how well it's played.

Which I agree with. But I don't see that there is any chance of the harmonica becoming central to any new musical forms, and I don't view pop or modern musics as being inherently better than older forms.


You can make
a great swing record in 2007, or a great bebop record,
or a great country blues record, but it's not easy to
sell it. Mass market radio and MTV won't play it
(unless you're Tony Bennett).

Very true. And so what? I'll say it again, mass-market pop today doesn't care about any instrument, and that includes the harmonica.

Granted that traditional music has a place in the
future. In the Internet age, nothing ever disappears,
or so it appears for now. But it seems pointless to
focus on traditional music as the future of the
instrument, because over time the audience for
traditional music dies out.

I don't care about the future of the instrument--for one, it's doing fine, really. Sales seem steady, the internet is awash with harmonica lists and sites and frankly if everyone else stops playing it won't effect my enjoyment of playing at all. That's why I gave this thread the title I did--because I view the topic as rather sad, in many ways. Nothing you can do aside from playing what you want (traditional, non-traditional or whatever) can have any impact on anything, and for the most part trying to predict that impact is useless. But in the end, the instrument will have whatever future it has, and talks about altering the tuning or playing in new ways won't bring it into the mainstream with any greater success than traditional usage. Hell, the one mainstream genre where the harmonica is used with some frequency (country) tends to go for a fairly traditional usage of the instrument.

Look at the sad fate of
classical music in the 20th century. Composers keep
writing great stuff, and musicians keep playing it
brilliantly, but it's a rare audience that cares now
to sit silently and attentively for 2 hours while a
bunch of men and women in tuxedos play music without
guitars and drums. Never mind whether it sounds
good--that's just not the way people live anymore.

Things change, and sometimes that is a shame as great things are lost. But that is life. Cultures evolve over time as do musical tastes. The classical orchestra of today evolved over the course of the 18th and 19th century, but there was no reason to think it would last as a popular form of music (as much as it ever was) forever--it was and is a product of its time. Interestingly enough, one fairly thriving genre is the period-instrument orchestra, which recreates the sounds and instruments of specific times. In the end, if these things die they die, and adding drums and guitars to classical music won't make it any more likely to become popular again than using alternate tunings or new techniques will the harmonica.

All that said, the idea of a mass audience may also be
a relic of the past. There are those who argue that
starting now, instead of selling a thousand copies of
one book or record, stores will thrive by selling one
copy each of 1000 books or records. That may be true.

It may be, it may not be. Just as the record and radio changed the musical landscape of the 20th century, the internet is changing the distributive landscape of the current century. What the impact of that will be on music and musical genres is unknown and unknowable.

player. I've gathered that bands aren't actively
seeking harmonica players.

Probably not. While I argued that the harmonica is not as common in the blues as sometimes seems the case via harp-l, in the end it's still more common than in any other genre, and since blues is not as popular a genre as rock or pop, well, it makes sense you would see few ads for harmonica players, since those genres don't usually contain harmonica playing.

How will that change?

It won't. If it didn't change with such massively successful acts as War, The J. Geils Band or Blues Traveller, there's no reason to think it will change.

When harmonica players make
themselves indispensable. What will make that happen?
Harmonica players doing something new.

Those three bands mentioned all had players who were indispensable to their sound. Some were more traditional than others. It didn't make harmonica players any more common in other bands. We've had plenty of harmonica players over the last thirty years who have done some very new things (Sugar Blue, Madcat, Popper, Levy, Oskar, many more, but these are four very successful ones) so to say that for the harmonica to become "indispensable" will take "something new" seems to miss the basic point that the harmonica simply won't become indispensable. It's just not going to happen.

Or maybe nothing will change it, but I'd prefer to
think that doing something new will change it. I'm
pretty sure that doing the same old thing won't change
it.

And since people have done very new things and nothing has changed, then the logical conclusion is that the situation is as it is. The harmonica is and will be a marginal instrument in the various pop genres (as much as any instrument matters in those today). Perhaps a wave of new jazz players might make a difference in that genre (or a wave of new bluegrass players in that genre, etc...), but it is unlikely. Still, a wave of violinists has brought that instrument to greater prominence in jazz over the last decade or so, so it can happen. But even then it's not like violinists are anywhere near common in jazz, and won't be pushing sax or trumpet players out of jobs anytime soon.

I repeat that--as per the subject of this thread--this
is about mass acceptance of the harmonica, not
creativity.

But you made the argument that the former can only come from the later. I make the argument that the former won't come, and that if by some miracle it does there is no reason to assume that the later will be what makes the former happen. Who knows, it could be a revival of the harmonica trio that takes over the pop world, in which case it would decidedly not be the non-traditional which brings about your desired goal. And while that's highly unlikely, it's no more unlikely than any harmonica style becoming widespread in the pop world.

I make a lot of music in a lot of styles, 
and I don't expect much of it to be a mass market
success. But if I did, first, I'd get 30 years
younger, and second, I'd focus on music that was new
and and different enough to be noticeable in the
crowd. Not just good--different.

Makes sense. And that is what Popper did, for one. But that hasn't brought a wave of harmonica players into the mainstream, which seems to be what is desired. Being new and different is a good way to get success (or not to, really), but it also tends to be a one-off deal which doesn't spread beyond that band.

All clear?

I understood you before. But perhaps now you understand my points better.



 ()()    JR "Bulldogge" Ross
()  ()   & Snuffy, too:)
`----'





This archive was generated by a fusion of Pipermail 0.09 (Mailman edition) and MHonArc 2.6.8.