[Harp-L] Blues as a vehicle, harp as a convenience

["Robert Laughlin" <harmonicaman1968@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I like playing harp. I like playing harp a lot.

I started listening to John Mayall, back in the late sixties, and "Little Stevie Wonder", before that, playing "Fingertips", which gained him wide recognition at the time. I liked both styles; blues, and the more melodically lush style of little Steveland Hardaway Morris, nee Steveland Hardaway Judkins, later to be known as "Stevie Wonder".

I had classical training on cello, and had been exposed to a ton of classical music, day in, day out, from my father's record collection, which was on-going. Mom and Dad were both accomplished operatic professionals, having sung in New York and L.A., and then with the USO overseas, just after WW2, in Okinawa, the Phillipines and Japan.

I find both, and to be honest, all forms of music interesting. I'm a listener, primarily, who has found a way to also recreate some of the things I've heard, and enjoy the process of creation.

Both blues and classical can be full of feeling, though the main premise in classical music is firstly to get the notes right, note for note, just like the composer wrote it. Either that, or it's called an "arrangement" of the original. Many arrangements have come to be well-received, and become part of the list of great classical pieces, played exceptionally well, by a particular orchestra or soloist.

At first I was primarily attracted to the rhythmic and tonal nuances of the blues, but eventually I became familiar with various and sundry country, popular, and classical pieces on the harp as well. I've found, now that I can bend fairly well on the fly, that I can pull off parts of Scheherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov)  on my little ten-hole diatonic, major tuned. It'd probably work better with a minor tuned or other harp (don't know the name of the particular modalism, but it sounds "middle-eastern"). It only gets more and more encouraging when familiarity with the harp increases, and bending skills improve.

What I like about blues is, as Warren Bee (distant cousin to Aunt Bee, of Mayberry, no doubt) stated, it has a structure, however flexible, something that a group or an individual can wrap their head around, in the pursuit of putting more "frosting on the cake", laying on some improvisation to the already laid out blues patterns. I like that about forms, structures, that they set up a decent pattern for people to follow while getting their boogie on, allowing each to "say something" personal and unique. (Though there are those who would insist on playing things exactly as they were first recorded,,).

Classical is less able to offer that kind of freedom, within a structure, except perhaps in subtly nuanced differences in performance, from one artist to another, perhaps in tempo or dynamics, the only real freedom a classical musician has, if any, to "improvise".

But neither form can be said to be "lacking feeling", from what I've listened to. I'm moved by classical music (some pieces, not all), and I'm taunted and attracted by the rhythmic and tonal variations available to the harpist playing blues patterns.

It's all good.

My youngest graduated from university with honors, achieving a degree in classical guitar/performing. He started playing guitar by copying Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin licks from tablature he found online. Then he learned Mason Williams' "Classical Gas", and expressed a desire to learn to play classically. When we found a teacher in the neighborhood, he had to un-learn and re-learn technique, since he was self-taught up to that point, and tended to let too few of the fingers available do most of the work. Those few fingers were very busy indeed, and would have been all used up too soon, unless his teacher had re-directed him in using good technique.

He's teaching now, and doing gigs here and there, making a living, which is good for him, and for me,,haha.

But he got tired, after 7 years, of classical performing, and the focus on perfection, from the audience, the teachers, the classical genre itself, simply wore him out. I know that, from having been to many classical performances. The audiences tend to be real nit-pickers, and understandably. It comes with the territory. One note out of place in classical music can ruin a performance, both personally discouraging for the performer and unsettling for the highly "sophisticated" audience, who often pay a high price for tickets to a classical gig. The typical classical listener gets irritated by any imperfection, whether it be someone coughing in the audience, or the performer hitting a bad note. There's no "bending" or "sliding" into the right note, "on the sly", as there is in blues performing.

So now, he's built up a recording studio in his bedroom, filling it with various keyboards, all used synthesizers, mixers, drum machines, etc. He's really getting into the 80's,,haha.

He still plays classical guitar, and well. He's been working on something by Bach,,,the violin partita, the "Chaconne", a real ball-buster of a tune. But he works on it, and eventually gets it. He hopes to return to college, in the master's program, after a few years to build up financial support.

But what I always wondered about, since his approach to music was different than my own, was, can he/we improvise? Can we just "jam" together, himself and I? Interestingly, I've noticed, each time he visits, that his blues skills are getting better. He's branching out. It's encouraging. He didn't used to be able to improvise much. I can, only because most of what I learned, I learned by just playing along with recorded music. I learned harp and guitar entirely by ear, contrasting with my classical training on cello.

He used to sound like The Edge (U2 guitarist) when we used to jam together, mostly that high, ringing sound. I heard him goofing around with some blues licks last time he came around. He's sounding better all the time. It seems that his classical training kind of helps his ability to understand the science of intervals, and find ways to do things that I'd never imagine. And he can explain it all. I just can't understand it, necessarily. Oh well.

Now he needs a decent electric. I gave him my cheapie, a 200 dollar Danelectro. It works for him, until something better comes along.

But again, it seems that blues, and the more "folks" derived forms of music, make it easy for people to get together, without that taskmaster of 'perfection' hanging over them, as much,, That doesn't make blues "better" than classical. It's just another aspect of music, and less challenging, at least on the surface, that is.

RL

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