[Harp-L] re: ten hole german...

["Jim Alciere" <jim.alciere@xxxxxxxxx>]

One tough part of playing a big 16 hole chromatic is getting the thing
far enough into the mouth. When you do that, the tone improves a lot.

I play electric and with the chromo I need to move the mic as I go up
and down the harp.

The repeating blow tonic still trips me up but in pop music you don't
need to make multi octave runs, you can stay put find a few holes that
work and just play a four or five note melody.

You don't need to use the button a lot and you can figure out the
pattern pretty quick. Like blues in E. You want to use the button for
the blue note on the D so you can get the Eb and you want to use the
button on the A for the blue note Bb. That's it. Kind of weird having
the E on a blow note.

With that being said, I use the same technique for tone with both
diatonic and chromo. I toungue block, warm up a little until I get
nice warm single notes and then I play. Once I've found the sound
toungue blocking, I can pucker and get the tone as well but I have to
tongue block to find the tone first.

Rainbow Jimmy
http://www.spaceanimals.com
http://www.myspace.com/theelectricstarlightspaceanimals