RE: [Harp-L] Why am I killing the 4-blow reed so quickly?



Winslow wrote:

<Howard Levy was not the first to show that the blow reed participates in draw bends. That was shown in a scientific paper by Robert Johnston ("Johno") published in Acoustics Australia. Dr. Hank Bahnson illustrated in video what Johno had already documented through experimentation, by using fiber optics to demonstrate this using Howard Levy as as a test subject.>

I'd like to point out that the fact that the opposing reed is actually the one which produces the bent note was documented (with diagrams to illustrate exactly what happens) for the first time in harmonica literature in the Harp Handbook, which I wrote in 1989. While the first edition was at the printers I met Robert Johnston at a harp workshop I gave in Melbourne. He confirmed my account of how it works and told me about his paper in Acoustics Australia, which I referred readers to in subsequent editions of the HHB. Bahnson & Antaki cite both Johno's paper and the HHB in their later work with Howard Levy on this subject.

I reckon the reason for the frequent reed breakage is that you're forcing the reed to bend. My experience is that opening reeds (bends, OBs) require no more air pressure than closing reeds. They do however, as Johno describes in detail in his paper, require an air column in the player's vocal tract which exactly corresponds to the wavelength of the pitch of the opening reed.

If you create the appropriate throat shape, you need use no force at all and the reed will open immediately. If you use an inappropriate throat shape, where the length of your air column doesn't really correspond to the wavelength of the note you're trying to play, you may well stress the reed. I only break opening reeds through playing too loudly on stage and have harps I've bent and overblown like crazy for literally years without reed breakage. Try creating the bend in your throat above the larynx and whatever you do, don't try to "suck" it out of the harp. Whistling the true pitch of the bent note is a help in getting the air column right. If you find the right throat shape you can bend at any volume level, from very quiet to very loud without damaging the reed,

Steve Baker
www.stevebaker.de
www.bluesculture.com







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