[Harp-L] Pop harp and creativity

[Mike Fugazzi <mfugazzi67@xxxxxxxxx>]

1.  The harp will probably never be a popular
mainstream insturment.  

2.  Creativity is the main cause of this.

I will not argue that there hasn't been a lot of
creativity in the blues idiom with harmonica.  In
fact, I feel the opposite.  It has also made some
great strides in jazz.

However, ever since Little Walter laid down a few
successful singles, the harp's popularity in the
mainstream has been on the slide.

Here's my explanation: In the last 50+ years, our
insturment has failed to make the adaptations other
insturments have to find a mainstream audience.  

Pop music is popular music for the times.  Right now,
that doesn't have much to do with "traditional" blues
sounds.  Many insturments have been able to find a
role in music that allows them to fit into whatever is
going on.  You still hear guitar, bass, drums, horns,
keys, and vibroslaps on top 40 radio stations today.

I would wager that a large reason, but not the only
one, for the absence of harp is the overall harp
player attitude of staying close to traditional blues.
 That doesn't mean blues is bad (I play blues too),
but it is what it is.  Blues music isn't popular in
the mainstream (this is a whole other topic of
discussion).

There simply weren't the musical gains on harp that
there were on other insturments when music went to a
national pop scene (as opposed to being a local or
regional scene).  For example, who tried to keep up on
diatonic with Chuck Berry?

Fans of Little Walter will point out that Chess and
the gang did try to make him more mainstream and pop
oriented.  However, there were probably ten guitar
players pushing the envelope and making new sounds for
every one harp player.  The odds were against him.

That harp is a hard insturment to master.  Up front,
it is easier to learn to be a good drummer, bassist,
or guitar player.  Not as many people play it and
having a unique voice on the harp is maybe a harder
thing to do.  That being said, IMO, if you're not
trying to rewrite part of the harmonica text book in
you playing, you're not doing the insturment justice.

Every single "master" (even the blues ones) found
their voice and it spoke to a larger audience.  I'll
stop there due to the attitude of the list towards
philosophy and the art of making music, but you
probably know what I mean about finding a connection. 



Mike Fugazzi
http://www.myspace.com/mikefugazzi
http://www.niterail.com

"Music should be healing; music should uplift the soul; music should inspire. There is no better way of getting closer to God, of rising higher towards the spirit, of attaining spiritual perfection than music, if only it is rightly understood."
-Hazrat Inayat Khan


 
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