[Harp-L] Musical competence (formerly Internet)

[Steve Baker <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks to Robert Bonfiglio, Larry Marks and the other correspondents  
in this thread for upholding their musical standards. I don't want to  
sound elitist, but I totally agree. One of the reasons why many  
"real" musicians have such a low level of expectation towards  
harmonica players is that they've had numerous bad experiences where  
our instrument is played by someone who is:

unaware of chord changes
doesn't know how to play to them
doesn't know the tune anyway
isn't listening to the other instruments or the singer and steps all  
over their lines
is unfamiliar with musical etiquette and plays inappropriately and  
way too much
is horribly out of tune due to poor intonation
encloses the vocal mike and so is way too loud
is plagued by feedback
and so on and so on.

These things happen so often that they have given the harp an awful  
public image and have led to the widespread expectation that the  
harmonica is actually meant to sound squawky, out of tune and  
generally unmusical. Chromatic players are often better able to avoid  
these pitfalls, but they aren't stepping up at the local blues jam  
quite so frequently.

The fact is, popular perception of the harmonica leads most casual  
listeners to expect an extremely low level of musicality. This is  
definitely at least in part conditioned by their experiences of the  
instrument. My personal point of view here is that the only way to  
change this is to prove the contrary by treating the harp as a  
musical instrument just like any other and to live by the same set of  
rules which govern all music and which all other musicians live by.  
Unfortunately this means that fast widdly diddly diatonic runs can no  
longer be passed off as "jazz improvisation", bad timing is a serious  
mistake and poor intonation will be called "out of tune".

On every instrument in the world there are many, many more amateur  
players at varying levels of competence than there are top  
professionals and I wouldn't want my comments in any way to be  
understood as a put-down of anyone playing on such a level. Music is  
much too important to be left to professionals and I'm a wholehearted  
supporter of amateur music performed at any level of competence. It  
can bring much joy to you and those around you and is a fundamentally  
life enriching activity. At home, at other people's homes and also at  
festivals I frequently enjoy casual jamming with amateur players and  
take great pleasure in this. The difference is, popular perception of  
other instruments is not defined by how players of that caliber play  
these instruments, but by how their finest exponents play them.

It's up to us to ensure our instrument is perceived in a more  
positive light. For amateur players, a good way to go may be to learn  
enough music theory to know which notes on the harp fit to the main  
chords used in popular music, and to work on improving your timing,  
intonation and tone. For professional players, it's up to us to  
ensure that our instrument becomes more highly regarded by behaving  
like pros and delivering on the level that our fellow musicians are  
expected to attain on their instruments as a matter of course. If it  
wouldn't be OK for a sax player, why should it be OK for me just  
because I'm "only" playing a harmonica?

Steve Baker
steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.stevebaker.de
www.bluesculture.com
www.youtube.com/stevebakerbluesharp
www.myspace.com/stevebakerbluesharp