I attended a Bluegrass Festival last week to see Ralph Stanley (he still
sings like a bird, but has to lower the key of his songs when he is a little
hoarse - he is in his mid 80's - real sharp dresser, too).
One music vendor had two harmonica DVD's on the table, one of them being
David Barrett's Blues Harmonica instructional. I asked the vendor how well
harmonica instruction books/DVD's sell - he told me there was very little interest
in harmonica at these festivals and that harmonica was not really part of
this music scene (after all, Bill Monroe didn't have a harmonica in his band).
It got me thinking about how this music came together and the instruments
involved.
Upright bass - plays roots/fifths defining chords and plays on downbeats one
and three.
mandolin - plays rhythm chops on upbeats two and four
guitar - plays bass note (roots/fifths) on one and three and strums chords
on two and four
banjo - plays "picky" notes constantly throughout
violin - reinforces beats two and four and arcs melodic lines during tunes
of course, the vocals are unadorned (no vibrato, for the most part) and are
straightforward and clean
harmonies - nothing really denser than dominant seventh or a sus chord and
sounds like angels
It occurred to me that this really covers all the bases w/out duplicating
efforts using five instruments. Where would a harmonica fit in - what would it
add to the structure? I concluded that it would duplicate something that was
already in place and was therefore unnecessary to the overall sound. At most,
if the mandolin player was absent, a harmonica could add that back beat on
two and four.
So, harmonica is an odd man out, at least in this format. Therefore, no real
interest or focus on harmonica, unless it is the bandleader's instrument a
la Buddy Greene or maybe Mike Stevens.
Bluegrass may be considered a sub genre of CW music.
In a message dated 1/6/2009 10:46:09 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
gonz1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Dear Harp-l
After watching the CMA awards recently, I was disappointed that there were
no harmonica
players at all. At least I didn't see any. Most of the recent country
releases I have heard do
not have any harmonica on them either. There is still plenty of violin,
steel, guitar and the
rest of the traditional instruments found in CW music.
Does anyone know who, if any, new or current harmonica players are coming
out of
Nashville? Who IS playing on any new releases out there. I hear plenty of
new blues players
out there but no C&W. Any names?
regards, Roger Gonzales _______________________________________________ Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l
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