RE: [Harp-L] why i play the blues

[Christelle Berthon <christellester@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Harp-L

Time to be honest here.

My past of a classical/folk musician, and the music of my childhood  
was leading me everywhere else but the blues. My first contact with  
the blues was in 1994 I was 25 years old something like 6 months after  
I  bought my first harmonica, very late though. It was a LP that I've  
borrowed from my father's friend: American Folk Blues Festival, and  
the track was "Sonny Boy Williamson blues" (played on a F harp). And  
beleive me for a french girl who has no cultural background about what  
was done in the USA, all these sounds produce by this guy was so WEIRD  
and disturbing, but SO GOOD....I was at the end of my 1st step  
classical study playing oboe something like 5 to 8 hours a day... And  
Classical music is VERY FAR from the blues. So the only 2 years I've  
tried to play harp in the 90's were attempts to imitate the tremendous  
shock I've had while listening to Sonny Boy and Jean Jacques Milteau.

Now that I'm back with the harmonica for a bit more than 1 year, I  
just discovered that I've done a mutation... Forgetting EVERYTHING  
about my classical studies (theory harmony, and so on) and focusing  
more on the feeling and what you american guys called the groove.

Deep inside me and to be honest I still don't know if I'm a blues  
player, because of the cultural aspect of this music. I mean that I  
know some of you guys like very much the way I'm playing the blues  
from the @mails and comments I've received, and I know that I've  
understood some things that allows me to play with the spirit of this  
music, but saying that I can play the blues sounds to me EXTREMELY  
PRETENTIOUS. Muddy Waters, Paul Butterfield, Sonny Terry, Sonny Boy  
Williamson, all these guys were bluesman, there are some modern  
bluesman like Jason Ricci, who keeps the spirit of the blues and  
adapting it to the 21 st century.

As I said previously my only goal is to produce the note that will  
give shivers to me and people, to provide emotions and feelings, since  
I 'm so bad at words... This definition is leading to something very  
dear to my heart, for me the blues can be found in ANY music if this  
one is the expression of the feeling of someone being excluded from  
love, society.