Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Man with what harmonica? Video

[EGS1217@xxxxxxx]

Pretty much the definitive response from the original guy: Franco de  
Gemini:
 
 
http://youmedia.fanpage.it/video/ab/UeuSx-SwOOp7dnGF
 
(this is a rough quoted English translation from an Italian blog)
"  
Franco  De Gemini talks about of the idea's origin for the film Once Upon a 
Time in the  West: Sergio Leone a day asked him if he had any ideas for a 
movie, and he  replied that it would be nice to do a film having like 
protagonist the harmonica  . 
So,  De Gemini explains the significance of the variations of the 
harmonica's theme  in the film. 


-The  film begins with Bronson (Harmonica) and all those bandits which are 
waiting for  killing him.At the train's departure, they see that he's on the 
other side of  the tracks. So Bronson began to play his harmonica as if it 
were a  threat.

De  Gemini says: "The three notes which Ennio Morricone gave me hadn't 
something  inherent in the division, music, ecc. I must invent anything which 
every time I  play the theme, it must to be different, though still using the 
same three  notes. " 

-The  scene in which Bronson (Harmonica) is in the Posada, with Claudia 
Cardinale and  the bandit too, he played the harmonica in a different way, 
making fun of the  bandit .
De  Gemini adds: "Bronson had to play the harmonica and I had given him one 
of mine.  Anyway he didn't really play it. 
I  showed him how to hold the harmonica in his hands, partly because there 
was a  piston, something which wasn't in the harmonicas of the time (so this 
piston had  to be concealed by his hands). 

EGS:  Note, De Gemini is speaking of the period in which the movie is 
set--and using  'piston' to describe the slide button of the chromatic. He 
demonstrates this in  the video clip.
 
"They  started the movie with my harmonica, but in a second moment, this 
was replaced  by another harmonica (without piston). The public didn't notice 
this change.  They made a hole in the harmonica and Bronson can took it to 
the neck. " 

-The  final scene: 
The  hanging of the Harmonica's brother.
Harmonica  remembers when Frank puts the harmonica in his mouth. 
De  Gemini says: "If the kid can not move himself (his hands are tied) It 
is assumed  that the harmonica has to be out of tune. 
So  I had to invent a special harmonica ... in the middle of it I arranged 
a  semitone with a tone, to make it out of tune. 
Many  harp players asked me how I had to produce those two notes 
because  one is blown and the other is aspired.So I made fun of them by 
saying that I  shared my mouth in two parts, one for blowing and one to aspire 
to. " 

-Frank  dies with the harmonica in his mouth. 
De  Gemini said: "This was the hardest scene, around an hour to realize it, 
not  because there were difficulties with harmonica, but because I had to 
play like i  was dying. "
Sergio  Leone said: "Now I'll kill you to to play so perfectly for this 
scene "and I  replied" If I am dead, who'll play it? " 
The  notes were always the same, but it needs to be interpreted in a 
different way  every time."