Date: Wed, 07 Jan 1998 14:53:26 -0500 From: Frank Brault Reply-To: frbrau~ome.com Organization~ome Network X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en]C-AtHome0402 (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: robert bonfiglio Subject: Re: Chromatic positions References:
Most members of Harp-L, I think, would agree with Robert that learning music theory is beneficial. However, the reason for doing so is the potential to improve your own music and it is good to encourage others to learn theory because it can help them improve theirs. Robert, however, also seems to believe that it is a personal insult to him, and other professionals, that some people choose to play the harmonica without learning music theory and/or without his dedication to practicing scales, arpeggios, etc.. That somehow, no matter how well he and other professionals play, the harmonica will not be taken seriously, as long as there are others who take a different approach to their music. If this were true, many instruments which are taken seriously would not be (e.g. piano). The harmonica is clearly a folk instrument meant to be played by people who may be musically "illiterate" in a formal sense, but who intuitively and emotionally understand music. Music is far more than what is played by professionals to classical audiences. We will all be deprived if only people who learn their scales in all keys, etc., play the harmonica. Imagine what this world would be like if the only people who sang were "professionals" fully conversant with music theory.
Frank
robert bonfiglio wrote:
> Dear list, > > ...> > Please folks, learn your scales and in all keys and stop talking > about positions on the chromatic. It's an insult to those of us who did > the work and play the instrument. Technique is not a series of tricks that > you pick up, but quite a defined pedagogy just as with every other > instrument. The sooner we stop supporting this ignorance as being "cool" > and the only way to true feeling, the sooner the instrument will gain > acceptance. No other instrument has so many players that don't know > scales, harmony, theory, how to play over chord progressions, etc.
