Re: [Harp-L] RE: Is it all Howard Levy's fault?

[Arthur Jennings <timeistight@xxxxxxxxx>]

This discussion reminds me of the apocryphal story of Columbus's egg:

> Columbus was dining with many Spanish nobles when one of them said: 'Sir
> Christopher, even if your lordship had not discovered the Indies, there
> would have been, here in Spain which is a country abundant with great men
> knowledgeable in cosmography and literature, one who would have started a
> similar adventure with the same result.' Columbus did not respond to these
> words but asked for a whole egg to be brought to him. He placed it on the
> table and said: 'My lords, I will lay a wager with any of you that you are
> unable to make this egg stand on its end like I will do without any kind of
> help or aid.' They all tried without success and when the egg returned to
> Columbus, he tapped it gently on the table breaking it slightly and, with
> this, the egg stood on its end. All those present were confounded and
> understood what he meant: that once the feat has been done, anyone knows
> how to do it.
>

 Sure people played overblows before Levy, but he was the first player to
develop* and publish* a system of playing chromatically on a diatonic
harmonica using them. If anyone else had such a system, they kept it to
themselves.