[Harp-L] Of The Harp... And the Blues

["Bradford Trainham" <bradford.trainham@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Okay...,
Since I just slept through an email... From a woman who wanted me to call
her..., I suppose I have tonight.., in a very limited but still real
sense... The blues. 
As I'm also going through an "instrument identity crisis" wherein the
harmonica slowly takes over the guitar's prized (for me) spot, maybe the
ensuing inner conflict gives me that edgy uncertainty we sometimes associate
with the Blues. 
But I don't think I'm in the school that says the harp and the Blues are
irrevocably wed and that the harp will never be entitled to another musical
form in the same way it is generally consigned to the provenance of the
Blues. 
Right now, I like the harp so much because of the constant sensation I get
of the previously occulted being revealed. 
But there is the whole aesthetic, the physical grace of the instrument I
like...  The way, when you've held a harp in your hand for a while..., it
has become somehow warm with your specific heat... 
And yes, I love the techniques we apply to the Blues on the harp... 
But I think for me, the harmonica is evolving from a place where I liked it
so much I wouldn't take it seriously as a musical instrument... (Like when
you whistle out of pure joy) into a place where the harp, the instrument...
Now could absorb more and more of my inner music.
When I say "inner music" I mean the expression of the music that lives
always in my head. 
This used to be "visualized" for me as coming into being on a guitar.
That is, when I'd think of some musical passage, or get a song stuck in my
head, I'd imagine it being played on a guitar.
Now, more and more, it's the harp. 
A lot of what's happening to me with the harp probably could be directly
attributed to Michael Rubin's instruction.
He's an excellent teacher, as was attested several times from post-SPAH
reviews on this very list...  But better than that, he likes harmonicas...
And his "liking harmonicas" is somehow bound up with what he's teaching you
such that when you're elsewhere with a harp, and you're trying to remember
what it was he said..., you often remember what it was he seemed to be
feeling when he said what ever it was he said. 
(It doesn't get any clearer than that, does it?) 

I think the first Blues song I ever heard was really a jump Blues or an R&B
tune "Tore Up over you" By Hank Ballard. 
And yes, there was indeed a harp wail or two in that song. 
But I think, even more than the harp, I imprinted on how the a-b-a musical
form gave one the right to say/sing something twice while (in this case
anyway) the music started out on one chord and then modulated to another. 
Though this song wasn't "pure Blues" with its verse departing from the
scheme, I always think of it as the first instance of something Bluesy I
ever heard. 
Well, I'm all over the place with this one now... I love to listen to Blues
harp.  I enjoy playing Blues on the harp.  But for me, the Blues is more
about a feeling that one couldn't confine to a specific instrument. 
It's like preaching/religious-experience for the man/woman/spiritual being
who finds himself/herself far away from the
church/synagogue/mosque/ministry-of-magic-mushrooms...???
But the harp, on the other hand strikes me as an instrument capable of
delivering musical forms I've maybe never even heard yet.
Okay, so I missed that woman's invitation the first time...  Maybe, if I go
back to sleep again, I'll miss her again.
Brad Trainham, A Living Unity of Conflict