Re: [Harp-L] Re: 9 draw raised Smokey Joe style


On Nov 27, 2009, at 11:43 PM, David Payne wrote:

Despite the fact it is now 11:12 p.m. and I am sitting within a stone's throw of my native river back home on the Elk, West Virginia's premiere River, where I am am staying for a short time to celebrate West Virginia's most important holiday... deer season... I just got in a couple hours ago... and I'm getting up in five hours to start it again... Despite all this, this subject of 9 draw raised, asks, nay, compels me to comment.

I've got this Db Special 20, one of the old handmade ones, that Joe Leone used to play "After the Lovin'" at Buckeye 2007. It is the one with the draw reed that Joe hammered from a .38 special cartridge, thus, in a single blow, fusing my love of firearms and harmonicas... so as you can see, I like this harmonica.
It has the 9 draw raised. 5 draw, also.

I think I gave you 4 junkers and the one you speak of was a Db, BUT the one I used for After the Lovin was the C (which you also have). The others were (I believe) a D and a Bb. I thought you could use some of the reeds. Although they played, I was ready for new ones. I had no idea you were going to actually play them.

Those of us who consider ourselves friends of Smokey Joe Leone, call this Smokey Joe tuning.
Me, I'm not a fan of raisin' 9 draws. You lose, on a C, that F. I like the F, and you can bend to get the F# anyway, so for me, it does no good.

Yes, on hole #9 you 'could' bend that note up, BUT, and here's the tricky part, I don't play the same music as you. For riffs, runs, country, folk, etc, you shuld have no problem bending that note up. I know I can. BUT when 'sweeping' UP the harp over a distance of 6-7 holes and then back down 8-9 holes, there is NO time to do that. Now if playing first position, you would want that #9 to be STOCK. But in different modes (I use mainly second, some 3rd, and a wee bit of 5th), the raised #9 is handier. For ME, that is. YMMV. lol

I do mostly pop and jazz with my diatonics. I use it as a lead instrument not a background instrument. As a matter of fact, I was using a Bb SJ tuned at the New Jersey jazz jam and while the other guys were using C chromos in the key of F, I was in second position, and staying right in there with them. I could NEVER do that with a Richter.

I don't like 5 draws raised, cause I wanna hit a tongue block octave and feel the grit of that F against the low G for the 7th.

The grit is good if the tune demands grit. But take 'Let it Be Me' (Everly Bros). On head part #1 I use the quasi-chord based on the #5 reed to resemble Don's voice, and then on the #2 head phrase, I use the quasi-chord based on the #6 reed to mimic Phil's voice. The corresponding draw chords I get are then melodious. If you tried that with a Richter, it would be a disaster. Even if you whipped out a can of my famous 'Snowjoberall', it still wouldn't work.

Now let me make it perfectly clear that I know nothing about positions. Carthaginian, Prestidigitarian, Fridgidaireian. I don't know what they are. So I always thought that the pleasant sounds that I was getting on these draws WERE chords. AND, I seemed to get 4 or 5 of them all the way UP the harp. Apparently I was wrong in my nomenclature. In any case it all came from the desire to do LEAD parts, AND try to do them true enough to the tune that it was obvious as to what I was playing. It opened up literally hundrteds of tunes AND a lot of times I used to have to have a second harp for the bridge?...well that evaporated. I was doing Londonderry Aire on 2 harps when Charley McCoy was using 4. I do a version of DYKWIMTM New Orleans. I use 3 harps.

I used to do mainly dance musics, and if I do 'Daddy's Home' (Shep & the Limelights), I want it to sound like it.

But let's talk about the Smokester. The fact Joe's raised those notes really changes the rules of the game. It changes the tone of the whole piece. Listen to this and you should get an idea of what I am talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4lBYzkW4kA

Like I said earlier, I've actually got the harmonica used in that video. I have TRIED to play that song like Joe. In my hands, 9 draw raised is a limitation, like red Kryptonian sunlight. In joe's hands it is pure awesome as Joe derives his harmonica powers from the raditation of Earth's Yellow Sun.

When I started playing harp, I started with chromo first. Reason? Simple, I couldn't get the notes I wanted from a diat. Most kids blow into a harp when they forst pick it up. 'I' sucked (still do lolol). This may be the result of sucking down meatballs (from my Italian side) and cabbage rolls (from my Polish side). I started listening to music in Vienna in the late 40s.. There were 3 kinds of music you could listen to. Armed forces radio out of Heidlberg Ger. (mostly stuff from the 30s). Italian music (pretty but too many mandolins), And MY favorite..radio Wien, Praha, Buda-Pesht, Sofia, Sarajevo, and yada yada.

Eventually I took up diatonic. After struggling through country/ wester (fairly easy), I needed to raise the #5 reed to play what I wanted to play (doo-wop ballads) at the dances. The 9 came along a few days later as a natural extention. Then a wind saver on the #5 draw for certain semi-chromatic note groups.

smo-joe


Gotta get some sleep... jist of what I am trying to say is something that is a limitation for some is an artistic catalyst for others.

Dave
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www.elkriverharmonicas.com



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