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

["michael rubin" <michaelrubinharmonica@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for the kind words Brad.
Michael Rubin
Michaelrubinharmonica.com

On 8/22/08, Bradford Trainham <bradford.trainham@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
> Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx
> http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l
>