[Harp-L] Re: Overblows in the blues - check this out



Jerome writes in regards to overblows and tone:

"Doing the same thing in the same position, you can have of course exactly
the same tone."



Except you aren't "doing the same thing". When you bend a note, overblow a note or are playing the given notes you are doing three different things and there are noticeable tonal differences between the three. Indeed, not only are you doing something different with your oral cavity to play these three types of notes, the reeds themselves are behaving in three different ways. That's why you can tell just by listening to a record what notes are bends, what are given notes and what are overblows.


Note, this difference is not a bad thing per se, the exploitation of the tonal difference between bent notes and given notes is a defining feature of blues harmonica, for example. And, there are two things I am differentiating here: personal tone (which tends to be recognizable across technique) and timbral differences between techniques as outlined above.




JR Ross





This archive was generated by a fusion of Pipermail 0.09 (Mailman edition) and MHonArc 2.6.8.