Re: [Harp-L] RE: Blowing too hard....



Loud volume does not require blowing hard. You *can get loud volume
without amplification by blowing hard, but it's *not the only way.



To get a big acoustic tone - and plenty of volume - you can cultivate resonance in the air column inside you body.



The sound of a harmonica is NOT the sound made directly by the
vibration of the reeds. Even when you play with a lot of breath, that
vibration is not very loud.



Here's what really gives you volume.



Every time the reed swings through its slot in the reedplate, it
"chops" the air flow, momentarily interrupting the passage of air.



Each time you chop the air flow, the chop sends a vibration forward
from the harmonica, and back into the air stream coming from your body.



You can amplify the ripple from the chop by opening up your throat to
widen the air passage to let lots of air pass, and by breathing as
deeply (but as gently) as you can to let the moving column of air be as
long as possible for maximum amplification. All that width and depth
gives the ripple coming from the reed chop plenty of space to vibrate.



You can further focus and amplify the sound by shaping your mouth cavity and hands to favor specific pitches.



I'm not saying that I never play hard - I do play hard. But playing
hard alone could never do for me what air column resonance does.



Playing with resonance, I can easily hold my own acoustically (i.e.,
with no amplification at all) with several fiddles . Even in a very
large fiddle group (80+) players tell me they can hear me several rows
away.



And I don't break a lot of reeds (on average, about 2 reeds a year).



Even when you play softly, having a lot of resonance behind your
playing gives you power and control (including control of bends, both
valved and unvalved). It's like the difference between a hard blow with
a tiny hammer, and a gentle tap with a huge hammer.



Winslow

--- On Wed, 7/9/08, Larry Marks <larry.marks@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: Larry Marks <larry.marks@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] RE: Blowing too hard....
To: MundHarp@xxxxxxx
Cc: chriscanning@xxxxxxxxxxx, harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wednesday, July 9, 2008, 8:25 PM

Man, playing ensemble acoustically means having an amp, at least for me. 
Doing 1 -6 blow bends and particularly 7 - 10 draw bends with a valved 
harp requires playing very gingerly if you want a stable, good sounding 
note. Dynamics is the volume control on my mike. At $20 for a set of 
reed plates, I simply refuse to damage my instrument to satisfy someone 
else's idea of acoustic.

  -LM
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