Re: Re: [Harp-L] kim wilson,rick estren,mark hummel,etc overblows

[Richard Hammersley <rhhammersley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I am confused again by the overblows versus blues debate. People use words that seem to mean something, but when I think about it, don't make any sense:
    Overblown notes are not properly in tune (except perhaps on the lips of the best overblowers). Since when was the blues properly in tune? Jokes aside (good enough for the blues etc), blues particularly pre WWII blues makes use of microtones, glides etc and is often not 'properly' in tune. Straightening out blues on to standard written music notation can have way wrong results. Overblows can fit in the blues, both as ornaments and as melody notes. I am sure Little Walter etc thought a lot about what they were doing, but I doubt that they pondered the intonation of the tuning of their harps or the bends they laid upon them. 
     What is "traditional blues" in 2010? Up until the early 1960s, maybe blues was predominantly a music associated with black American musicians and often segregated onto "Race" record labels. But professional 'blues' musicians always played other music too, particularly if they got paid! Jazz got mixed up in there. So did country,  gospel, the polka etc. etc. The idea that blues was the folk tradition of simple unlettered sharecroppers was largely the ethnocentric fantasy of white men. Since 1960, the playing of blues has internationalised and moved beyond boundaries of race. Like it's more complex sister jazz, blues nowadays lives where ever it is played well and this often involves mixing it with other local musics, as seems appropriate.    Cliche number 1: Blues is a feeling NOT a set of notes. People can and do play "the blues" whilst breaking all the rules about the "blues scale" and "what notes to play over what chords" etc. In fact jazzers have been pushing the boundaries of how the blues works since jazz began. For instance, listen to Mike Cooper and Lol Coxhill "play the blues" (not that Mike Cooper is exactly a jazzer). Brendan Power plays the blues like a guy who knows Irish music - long fast fluent runs of notes. Collard Greens and Gravy sound Australian, while the Mississippi Alligators put in Spanish stuff because they are Spanish.
      Those who can play overblows well can and should use them. Others may choose not to. At the moment I favour valved harps to get chromatic scales on a diatonic, but sometimes a standard diatonic is better when I just want to blow the blues because I can batter at the bends etc. for colouration of the music, whilst keeping broadly in key. Wasn't that the original idea of the blues harmonica? I'm starting to try and pop off the odd overblow in the midst of this, but I wouldn't rely on one for a critical note yet. 

Blow in peace
Richard