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

[Bob Cohen <bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 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.

I missed the original post and grabbed this from somebody else, but what you said Randy was spot on as far as it goes. And if it means anything to you, I've got your back in a fight with "the blues nazis.." I love the
blues and blues harmonica. I completely agree both have been stuck in a self-imposed prison for a very long time. I also agree that people should be rewarded for pushing the boundaries.

The only thing with which I might quibble is that the true genius of blues and blues harmonica come from its very strict form, limited palette of notes, and the innovators’ lack of formal training. All art with strict forms demand creativity of a different sort.

Take sonnets,for example. IMHO, that form peaked during the English Renaissance. What is there to do with sonnets after writers like Shakespeare, John Donne, Andrew Marvell (and a few others) except to vary content, make highly nuanced changes to meter and rhyme scheme, and try to measure up to the best? When you break the form, the poems become something other than sonnets. Poems that deviate from the form are equally valid as art but the form is the form.

Arguably, the blues form reached its apex in the 50s. The great masters left us with a durable art form but they also only left with few avenues to push the form further: the idiosyncrasies of the musician, formal training and a more literate approach to the music. IMHO, human emotions are the true substance of the blues and, unless human consciousness changes, that too is a fixed palette.

When you think about it, blues and blues harmonica are trapped in an unavoidable feedback loop because they blossomed in their current forms precisely because its innovators had things to say but were limited by their illiteracy (both music and words) and lack of formal training.

Shrug. I think the final judge of the blues is whether a given performance makes its listeners feel, that is to say when they communicate authentic emotion. When that happens the blues are good. When it doesn’t which is most of the time, they’re not, and no amount of training, addition of notes, or new fangled technology can alter that basic fact.

Having said that, I do not think anyone should abandon proper training or musical literacy. The really great players, the one percent of the one percent, were musical geniuses and were going to find a way to express themselves in music whether they were trained or not. That is not true for the rest of us.

-Bob


Bob Cohen
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