[Harp-L] Who Is Good

[Robert Eberwein]

In talking about 'who is good.' (SO many). Didn't mean to disparage
chromatic players- most professional harp players do at least some
chromatic, to varying degrees of understanding it. Me, I never mastered it
and I tend to just do the Little Walker thing of tongue blocking up and
down on it in third position. Nothing wrong with that (and I don't long for
any increased division between diatonic and Chromatic). On the contrary,
part of my point was that chromatic players tend, frankly, to be more
actual musicians; that is to say, they have a relational understanding of
the notes on the instrument to a musical score that they are trying to
reproduce, are more likely to read music and employ theory. No value
judgment in all that- just my guess of if we 'crunched all the data.'
Having said all that, and me being diatonically (and Blues) oriented, I
think Kim Wilson is as good as it gets. Lots of people have mastered all
the technical stuff/tricks, have good honk and tone, and don't sound
anything like him [I don't either, btw! By a long shot]. But we get very
mixed, far afield disjointed discussions when we compare Toots Thielemans
(sp?) to Steve Guyger or William Clarke. BTW (and just to show how hard it
is), I think there are probably things Kim Wilson couldn't do on harmonica
that Blue, Popper, Levy, Junco or Ricci can/could do... and yet I still
have always aspired to play like Kim Wilson or Paul Delay (and not Little
or Big Walter- though, those are their influences). Just how it is, no?