[Harp-L] What am I doing?



As most of you know, improvement comes incrementally and so one day you are
here and the next thing you know,  you are there.  It didn't happen
overnight.  It's hard to put your finger on it, but there it is - you've
gotten better (or at least something is different).

 

So let me tell you about a three experiences over the past two months and
perhaps some of you harmonica gurus can help me make sense of it all.

 

After Christmas I took an eight day road trip with my wife and kids.  My
wife and kids, how shall I say it..... are not as enthusiastic about harp
music as I am.  So unfortunately, being in a confined vehicle with them for
much of the trip significantly reduced my playing time.  I have found with
golf that sometimes just putting the clubs down for a period of time will
actually improve your game.  You get out of bad habits.  You are refreshed
and revitalized - whatever - something feels different and better.

 

So when I got back from our trip and went on my usual nightly walk with my
dogs (one of my primary times to play), I noticed something different about
my breathing technique.  There must have been something about that mountain
air in upstate New York.  For some reason, I felt like I was creating my air
flow from way down deep in the bottom of my lungs.  It really improved the
tone on my 1, 2 & 3 draw bends.  I had always thought that my breath control
was pretty good, but I do remember reading that the ability to move air in
and out of a harp simply by moving your throat, tongue, cheeks,  etc. was an
important skill to develop.  Perhaps I misinterpreted.  Perhaps I went
overboard, but somewhere in there I must have gotten off track.

 

A few weeks later, I was just goofing around and noticed that if I blew on
the 4 and 5 holes together I could bend the tone down slightly - not a full
half tone but enough to make a difference. (sounds like a train whistle) It
occurred to me that if I could blow bend the 4 & 5 together then perhaps the
reason I was having trouble with the over-blow was because I was "trying too
hard" and forcing too much air into the hole.  I reasoned that if I was
covering two holes and could blow bend sort of) then I should be able to
bend a single hole with less pressure.  So I tried it and lo and behold, it
worked!  Or so I thought.  I could produce a sound by "over-blowing" the 5
and the 4 holes.  Additionally, the incremental changes sounded the same on
every harp I tried this technique on.  It is not a squeal.  It is a good
clean note, but for the life of me I could not figure out how I would
actually use it to make music because it just seemed out of place.

 

And then came the third part of this trilogy.  I bought a Suzuki ProMaster
350 half-valved harp.  All of a sudden, I could easily blow bend the 5, 4
and 3 holes - but it is a different sound than I am getting from an
un-valved harp.  What's more is that the notes make sense.  They fit in the
chromatic scale.  So apparently things have come full circle and perhaps I
am not really over-blowing on the un-valved harps at all.  But if it isn't
an over-blow then what is it?

 

With regard to the ProMaster - I really like this harp.  Not only does it
make the over-blows "do-able" for me but the draw bends seem to have a much
"crunchier" sound - even without being amplified.  It seems to me that when
I am draw bending the 3 or 4 holes I can let a little air "leak" into a
neighboring hole and get a little of that reed bending too.  It seems to
compliment the main note nicely.  I'm not even sure if this makes sense but
I am not able to get this affect on my other un-valved harps.  That said, I
am thinking about buying some valves and experimenting with half-valving
some of my other diatonics.

 

I would appreciate some words of wisdom from the oracles.

 

Thanks,

 

Tom Halchak

Clearwater, FL

 





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