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From: Emma Waghorn
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 10:50:03 +0100
Subject: Re: World harmonica music

Thank you, Benoit, for so much useful information. You are a veritable font
of knowledge. I'm going to have to do a lot more browsing -- and travelling
- -- just to hear a fraction of the music that's "out there". But thanks for
pointing me in some promising directions.

On Wed, 21 Jun 2000 19:28:31 +0200 (CEST), Benoit Felten
wrote:

>I don't know exactly what Rebetika, Merengue, Son
>or Banghra are so I couldn't comment.

They were just random examples, really, not ones that I was particularly
expecting to be associated with the harmonica. Rebetika is the popular
music of the Greek urban subculture. There are lots of different kinds of
Greek musical traditions, but that was the only one I could remember the
name of. I had seen contributions to harp-l from someone from Greece, so I
wondered ...

Merengue is the national dance music of the Dominican Republic (and Haiti,
I think), but it's also popular in Puerto Rico and elsewhere in the
Caribbean. I think it uses accordions, so harmonica is a possibility. Son
is Cuban. But that seems less likely, since it's mainly percussion, piano,
guitars and lots of brass. And bhangra -- well, that was a bit of a long
shot. Bhangra is a popular dance music among Punjabi immigrants in Britain.
It's a hybrid of Punjabi folk tunes with techno, reggae and other kinds of
popular dance music. Unlikely, I think, to employ harmonicas. But you never
know ... ;-)

>The French Café Music is called musette ...

Thank you! That had been bothering me.

>In France, we have a number of harp players who have
>more or less specialized in World Harp. These are mainly
>styles of music or cultures that have a historical link to
>France. Harmonica is traditionnaly featured in Malagasy
>music (ie music from Madagascar) ...

Great. This is the kind of thing I was after. I'll definitely look into
Malagasy music. This also fits in with what Tom Cunliffe was saying about
the harmonica being popular among poor people, given that Madagascar is one
of the world's poorest countries.

I came across the name Jean-Jacques Milteau for the first time on your
Planet Harmonica site a couple of months ago. And I *still* haven't heard
any of his music. Must remedy that. I very much enjoyed your interview with
him, though (http://www.planetharmonica.com/ph1/ve/interviewEN.htm ).

Although world music is fairly popular in Britain, it tends to be
understood as African and Latin American music. I'm ashamed to say that we
have very little in the way of music from other European countries,
including France, in British record stores. I think I'm going to have to
plan a little trip over the channel for some musical enrichment. As J-J
Milteau says, "After all, the harp is traveller's instrument!"

Emma