[Harp-L] [Harp-l] Harmonica conventions in Europe - Some reflexion

[Sébastien Frémal]

That's in  the USA, I can't afford the airplane ticket. As I told, I'm not
a full-time worker, the price of the airplane ticket is my month salary.
And I've not talked about the hotel, the entrance fee and all extra fees.
What I'm talking about, is an affordable convention for common underpaid
artists ;)

2018-02-08 13:22 GMT+01:00 The Iceman <icemanle at xxxxx>:

> you may find what you are looking for at a SPAH Convention.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sébastien Frémal <sebastien.fremal at xxxxx>
> To: Harp-l <harp-l at xxxxx>
> Sent: Thu, Feb 8, 2018 7:04 am
> Subject: [Harp-L] [Harp-l] Harmonica conventions in Europe - Some reflexion
>
> Hi !!
>
> I was thinking yesterday evening about harmonica conventions in Europe and
> I thought maybe it's worth a message, a conversation. I don't know if it's
> recent, but I see many nice harmonica projects in Europe. Cain's UK
> harps, Brodur's french harps, french dom'y'seal... And behind these
> projects, there are interesting people with who we could
> have interesting chats. There are a lot of known or unknown harmonica
> players it would be great to hear and meet... I checked for harmonica
> conventions to see if it was possible to meet these people, to discover
> these projects, learn some harmonica technics... I'm in Belgium, I'm
> half-time artist (I need a half-time conventional job to pay the roof and
> the food), I don't have a lot of money. I checked the internet for nearby
> and affordable conventions. I found this page :
> http://harmonica.co.uk/diary.htm
>
> I won't go into details, but most conventions are far and expensive and
> strongly blues-oriented (I'm more interested in the chromatic
> Massolo/Charlier/Peyrelevade style). If I could reach the convention
> location, workshops are pretty all focused around blues and most are really
> really expensive (often half the money I have to hold the month, and
> sometimes they even ask all I have). And I found no conventions about just
> gathering, meeting and sharing innovations or thought on the instrument.
> There are no "harmonica markets" where you could meet people like Cain or
> Messier to discover and try their work. Or just meet people who are not
> necessarily blues players and who could share their knowledge with the new
> generation.
>
> And I'm from the country which gave birth to one of the most known
> harmonica player. But there is only one convention once every two years.
> And as their budget is pretty limited, they offer interesting but limited
> "content".
>
> There it is, some thought about the lack of opportunity to meet new people
> and to share about innovations and technics in the harp world. Maybe some
> things could be done, I don't know. I hope so :)
>
> Sebastien Fremal
>