Re: Subject: Re: [Harp-l] Re: 7-10/ Now - Harmonica players as sidemen

David Payne <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> · Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:32:54 -0800 (PST)

I don't know what all's going on here, but in the post I read that started 7-10gate ordeal, she specifically said ''beginning" players, not "blues players"

----- Original Message ----
From: Bob Laughlin <rlaughlin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: EGS1217@xxxxxxx; leone@xxxxxxxx
Cc: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2008 10:38:43 PM
Subject: Re: Subject: Re: [Harp-l] Re: 7-10/ Now - Harmonica players as sidemen

We really should take this offlist, Liz.

I disagree with the manner in which you relegated "blues players" to a lower place by inferring that by and large, they couldn't "finish a song", or seemed "lost" when asked to.

I love you. I just don't love the implications.

I'm not a hater. Not not not.

Just one opinionated man.

BL
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: EGS1217@xxxxxxx 
  To: leone@xxxxxxxx 
  Cc: rlaughlin@xxxxxxxxxxxx ; harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2008 5:55 PM
  Subject: Subject: Re: [Harp-l] Re: 7-10/ Now - Harmonica players as sidemen

  Well, thanks for that SmoJoe.  Appreciate you realizing I was focusing more on why some harmonica players may be thought of as 'only sidemen'. 

  I in no way intended to 'castigate' your take on harmonica playing, Bob, nor was I remotely 'dragging you to the gallows' for having a difference of opinion to my own....geez...I thought I'd made it clear enough to you long before this that I'm a fan of your definitely outre sense of humour?  Did you perhaps miss the 'smileys'?

  Have YOU castigated so severely everyone else who takes a differing point of view to an idea expressed in a post of yours, or was this especially reserved for me?

  ....I sought merely to point out that this might well be a possible reason why many blues players 'might' be looked upon as 'sidemen' instead of as lead players, while using a couple of famous 'other style' harmonica players as good examples of those who seem to function very well indeed in the harmonica world while playing lead quite satisfactorily.

  It isn't something I'm merely guessing about.  When a certain young ami of some of the List members' acquaintance stayed at my home for a few weeks after SPAH one year, he gave a diatonic class to me and another harmonica player.  At one point while the two much further advanced players were discussing something well beyond my ability, I kept myself occupied by quietly playing "Oh Susanna" on the harp I had at hand (basically to see if it played at all..since I hadn't used it  before).

  ..(Hey!..does that mean I was 'gussing' them? But then, it was on my patio, at my table, so does that let me off the hook?)  ;) 

    They both stopped what they were doing and asked me to play it again, and our mutual ami told me that he 'could not do that'. The other 'student' (a very good harp-l blues player who didn't really seem to need the lesson at all) said he couldn't either.  And when I reacted with amazement to something that seemed so basic and simple to me, he explained that it was because they really do focus more (as blues players) on learning techniques, methods, riffs and so on...something I know nothing at all about -  and would very much like to learn.  

  Next to either of them, my playing is 'babe in the woods'...yet neither could play such an easy and simple song?  How could this be?

  So while I still feel I'm very much at a disadvantage by not having grown up learning any chromatic or diatonic techniques, methods, 'riffs' and very basic playing knowledge just about everyone else seems to know... I do think players who focus solely on one OR the other, leave themselves at a distinct disadvantage, and might even contribute to furthering the impression to other musicians of the idea that a harmonica (any kind) is not a 'serious' instrument. 

  And I'm not letting chromatic players off the hook either...a badly played chromatic is as much an instrument of torture to my ears as is any other.

  Elizabeth

  On Feb 10, 2008, at 11:42 AM, EGS1217@xxxxxxx wrote:

  >
  > Perhaps part of the problem is that too many beginning blues harmonica
  > players focus only on learning 'riffs' the way their heroes  
  > did...don't want to
  > actually learn to play full songs..or instrumental pieces from  
  > beginning to
  > end.  If one asks them to actually play a song..they're lost.
  >
  > Elizabeth
  >
  As the professor said of Eliza(beth) Doolittle..... 'I think she's  
  GOT it'

  smo-joe

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