Re: [Harp-L] Totally bored with the blues genre

[Joel Fritz <williemctell@xxxxxxxxx>]

You don't have to like blues.  Nobody said it was mandatory.  I'm not 
that fond of ice cream, myself.

80% bad is pretty good.  Sturgeon's Law is sometimes quoted as "80% of 
everything is crap," and sometimes as "90% of everything is crap."  I 
like the 90% version myself.  Doesn't matter.  I listen to trashy music 
and read trashy books all the time knowing that they're not great art 
and enjoying them anyway.

I play harp for fun.  All of the organized music--you know, the stuff 
with sheet music--I've been involved with has been vocal. Sure, I love 
madrigal singing and choral music by folks like Bach and Mozart. Nothing 
like an 8 piece a capella vocal group singing in tune and getting the 
rhythm and dynamics just right.   Blues is my favorite form of 
disorganized music.  I love singing blues more than anything else.  It's 
story telling.  I like playing blues harp too.  I would never insist 
that anyone else enjoy doing it. If you're not playing what you like 
you're either getting paid a huge amount of money to do it or you're 
playing the wrong stuff.


On 4/30/2015 10:11 AM, Randy Singer wrote:
> I'm going to come out of the closet and state emphatically that I cannot stand 80% of all the blues music that I hear.
>
> With the exception of Little Walter, Paul Butterfield, keb mo, derek trucks, William Clark, mitch Kashmir, howard levy, Robert Cray, The Allman Brothers, thiago, dennis gruenling, muddy Waters, rob Paparozzi, sebastian charlier, eric Clapton and other progressives, I find the state of the blues is a useless circle jerk of mind numbingly repetitive musical clichÃs and nursery rhyme chord changes. (please pardon the misspellings I'm doing this on my iPhone)
>
> JOKE
> How many blues musicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb in? 145145145145
>
> In other words how many times can I keep hearing a I-4-5
>   or progression with basically only diatonic notes? Imagine telling that to a professional musician of any other instrument that they can only play pentatonic and scales, they would look at you like you were absolutely crazy out of your mind and they would be correct. Imagine telling a piano player he could only use the white keys!!!! LOL. You would be laughed out of the room. Yet seems like almost all the harmonica players only use those scales with a couple colorful over blows as if that would be sufficient
>
> Most harmonica players have stopped growing and we deserve the gimp reputation that we have.
>
> Where is the Maceo Parker of our harmonica age? very few harmonica players could go head-to-head note to note with a player like him or Gerald Albright another great blues jazz player. Playing precise blues/chromatic lines is a extremely rare breed in our community yet in the horn community it's the easiest thing to do.
>
> If you keep recycling the same thing over and over again a copy of a copy of a copy becomes faded and ludicrous
>
> Also having performed and lived extensively in Brazil, Paris New York Nashville and now Miami I have come to revere the art of songwriting using predictable yet unpredictable changes and I see none of that in the harmonica community.
>
> The Beatles set the standard for creative and inventive songwriting and that seems to have TOTALLY escaped the blues and harmonica community.
>
> The elephant in the room is the so-called blues Nazis and I am sure that when the blues musicians and songwriters attempt to create a song which sets the songwriting bar higher, they would be shut down by the blues natzis!! I believe when Robert Cray put out his strong persuader album which features some of the best blue songwriting I have ever heard, he was shut down as not being a blues artist any longer ---that's a bunch of BS!
>
> I believe that there is a absolute necessity to keep the tradition alive and I applaud and appreciate what the traditionalists are doing but as far as the general state of the blues and harmonica players it's a big ho hum.
>
> I fully expect to get a lot of hate mail so feel free to vent your anger or better yet do something about it and learn to play your next evolution of music while retaining your blues roots. Also if there are any other progressives that I have missed please list them.
>
> I will consider leaving the country or getting a bodyguard once I hit the send button on this.
>
> I love the harmonica more than anything else that's why I wrote this.
>
> If I have hurt anyone's feelings I apologize.
>
> With love, RANDY SINGER
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone