[Harp-L] Harmonicas and respect

["samblancato" <samblancato@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Wow - my hat's off to Richard Hunter.  Richard, you said what I was feeling
about that post - exactly!  And you stated it beautifully too; nicely,
smartly done.  I'm going to have to save that post.

 

Sam Blancato, Pittsburgh

 

Here it is again:

 


Well, I'm certain that these comments are going to produce a firestorm of
responses, which they should, because they're insulting and ignorant, not
necessarily in that order. There's so much nonsense in this post that it's
hard
to know where to start, but let me try.

The basic idea in this post is that Walter was an ignorant copycat--that he
simply played "by rote", doing nothing more than repeating what he heard,
and
was incapable of actual creation because of his lack of formal training in
theory.

First, it's ridiculous to claim that artists in general require formal
training
to express themselves. Of course more tools are in general preferable to
fewer
tools, and any artist can use more tools. But what matters most is how
effectively artists use the tools they have. Walter used his tools
brilliantly.
It's just plain silly to pretend that Walter's music doesn't have astounding
emotional power, which is really the point of any art form, isn't it? (I am
reminded of a series of letters to Keyboard Magazine in which a
conservatory-trained musician claimed that the music of Danny Elfman, who
wrote
the music for all the Batman movies, among others, couldn't be any good
because
Elfman didn't have a conservatory degree. Yeah. Right.)

Along those lines, it's laughable and ignorant to claim that Walter was
anything
but an innovator of the first order. If that's not the case, kindly produce
a
reference to the amazing player that Walter stole all his ideas from. Of
course
he had roots in traditional blues harmonica, but what's remarkable is how
far he
took the tradition from its starting point, not how much he copied from
those
who came before him. Walter's commercial success during and after his life
is
testimony to the audience's recognition that something special was going on
in
his music.

While we're on the topic, Walter was anything but ignorant of theory where
blues
was concerned. He had a very strong understanding of the structures that lay
beneath his music. The fact that his theory was acquired by ear and
apprenticeship rather than formal training doesn't make it any less valid.
It
was plenty of theory for what he was doing, which was composing and playing
blues, not writing symphonies. By the way, in most cases theory follows
innovation, not the other way around. The artists create, and the theorists
explain what they have done. Artists who take the opposite path tend to
produce
art that is essentially an argument in favor of their theories, not art
designed
to win an audience.

I'm always interested to see how the supposed ignorance of blues artists is
emphasized by two very different camps: the self-appointed guardians of
blues
for whom the ignorant, self-taught blues genius is a romantic ideal, and the
self-appointed champions of the formal academy who cannot allow for the
possibility that anyone lacking a conservatory degree might be capable of
creating brilliant music.
Unfortunately for both groups, blues artists know plenty about the music
they
play. There's nothing casual or accidental about Chicago blues--it's a
perfectly realized ensemble form, as internally consistent and convincing as
any
other small ensemble music. That's the reason why it was one of the dominant
musical forms of the second half of the 20th century. To argue otherwise is
to
argue that the mass audience just doesn't know what's good for them. I hear
that argument a lot, of course, but the fact is that the music that lasts
tends
to last because it's great. Walter's music has lasted and will last.

Regards, Richard Hunter