Re: [Harp-L] Performance setup - hearing and feedback

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Iceman wrote:
<I like to simplify...check out the great blues bands of the 40's, club bands...before <the advent of festival stages and concert arenas. Harmonica is always easy to hear <because the rest of the band does not play loud. Simply put, without the contemporary <monitor mindset, stage volume is determined by the drummer. As long as he doesn't <bash or HIT the drums, the guitars, bass, keys, etc can wrap their sound around the <drums. As long as the musicians have a sense of groove and confidence, they won't <have to substitute LOUD for any lack of getting it over to the crowd. You can hear <great guitar tone in the era before guitarists said "Uh, I haveta turn my amp up to 8 <in order to get 'that sound'."
<
<Of course, it is hard to find 21st century musicians with this sort of insight. They <grew up with monitors in front of each and wanting a separate mix for each monitor, <leaving the individual stage amp volume open to excess.
<
<As long as bands are willing to try the old school method, you will be able to blend <in your harmonica through a stage amp without competing for volume. 

and John F. Potts wrote:
<...the bands that I ran had a simple rule set:
<Above all listen,
<If you cant hear an instrument, then turn down and ask the front of 
<house engineer, what's it's sounding like front of house.
<
<the idea of turning down and not up still holds good.
<
<You can do so much more by inviting your audience to listen, rather than 
<trying to overwhelm them with the weight of sound. 

I appreciate the importance of restraint in volume, especially when I'm playing with the band. I have always found it difficult to compete with loud guitars--everything's fine until they really crank it up, and then it's pretty tough to cut through no matter what you do.  I succeed in cutting through with at least some timbres most of the time, but I don't usually enjoy playing really loud even if the band is balanced and I can easily be heard. (Sometimes you're just really rockin' and it gets loud, and that's fun.)  Electric guitars fill up an enormous frequency range, loudly, especially if you add distortion, and I don't think there's an effective limit to how loud you can make one of those things.  So like I said, it's tough to compete.

However, I think these messages both miss an important point--1940s/50s/60s blues styles were relatively low-volume compared to more modern styles, not just because the players now are using different technology, but because current styles scale all the way up to pieces that are intended to be played at very high volumes in live settings that include an audience of tens of thousands.  Chicago blues was developed in bars, and it's chamber music compared to a lot of modern stuff.  The volume level is an intentional part of the music in every modern rock style; it's not just four or five guys trying to be louder than each other, it's an aesthetic decision.  For a band like Metallic or Nine Inch Nails, the decision puts the volume north of what most of the people on this list consider loud.

I think most of the people on this list would resist playing that loud. But I don't see why younger harmonica players wouldn't want to.  Metal and its children are part of their era.  If guitar players are playing through huge amp stacks, why wouldn't a young harp player want to?  If a singer can be heard above that kind of big noise, why shouldn't a harp player?

It's nice if everybody decides to turn down to the point where a small rig will cut it.  But I think the big issue is the opposite one: how do we get the harp to work with modern band timbres and modern volume levels, both of which are very different from traditional blues?

James Antaki is working on one solution to that problem.  I'd like to be able to do it with a mic and an amp, but I dunno.  I wonder again: how do singers manage to be heard over that stuff?  Not because the guitarists are turning down, I bet.  I suppose the answer is that the singers are screaming up at the top of their range, so they're above the big frequency explosion the guitars are laying down.  Guess we all have to throw away our double low F harps and load up on High Gs.  Or at least the kids do. 

Regards, Richard Hunter



 




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