[Harp-L] Re: Jazmaan's Powerbender YouTube

[dmf 273 <dmf273@xxxxxxxxx>]

My thanks to all of you who took the time to critique my renditions of
"How Can I Be Sure".   I think I learned a few things from my
admittedly flawed experiment.

First off,  I regret that I didn't choose a blues as my first demo of
the Powerbender tuning.   Most people are understandably more
interested in knowing how the Powerbender might be applied to their
bread and butter blues tunes than to some obscure 60's ballad!    And
if my rendition of the tune was flawed,  its not fair that people's
first impressions of the Powerbender be tainted by that.   So my
apologies to Brendan.

Secondly,  a few people have commented on my tone, or lack thereof in
that video.    Given that I've gotten very good feedback on my tone in
my other YouTube vids,  I have to wonder whether the model of
harmonica itself (not the tuning), is at least partially to blame.
The Powerbender comes on a Suzuki Harpmaster and this was my first
encounter with that particular model of harp.   I like the sound of
some Suzuki's - the Pure Tone especially.   But the Harpmaster - not
so much.   Sounds kind of harsh, thin and metallic in that video and
maybe that's partially my own fault, but my other diatonic videos use
Seydels and to my ears, those Seydels sound more mellow and warm.

Lastly,  I just want to thank you all again.   I really don't mind
being criticized, especially by the likes of you all!    Harp-l has
such an enormous wealth of talent.   Being able to get pointers from
you all on the nuts and bolts of playing is what makes this place
great in my opinion.   It's the same spirit that pervades SPAH when I
can sit down with somebody like Jason or Rob and ask them directly
what I'm doing right or wrong.     SPAH only comes once a year, so in
the meantime Harp-L is the next best thing.  I encourage others to
post their own experiments too.   I'm always trying to push the
envelope on what kind of material our instruments can take on.
Sometimes I may not succeed, but I probably learn more from my
failures than my successes.

--Jazmaan