[Harp-L] Re: Gritty harp sound

[Ronnie Schreiber <autothreads@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tony,

One is tempted to give the answer for the question, "how do you get to 
Carnegie Hall?", since players spend decades working on their tone. 
However, I think a lot of what you call a gritty sound is inherent to 
playing a harmonica through a tightly cupped microphone. Your hands 
acoustically couple the harmonica to the microphone, which both 
overdrives the mic diaphram resulting in some distortion, and adds some 
echo to the tone (you can hear that just by cupping your hands in front 
of your mouth without a harmonica). Playing a cheesy 1940s style mic 
through and amplifier designed to work with electromagnetic pickups then 
introduces some more distortion. So that's the baseline. Playing 
techniques like tongue blocking/slapping will also add some grease to 
the tone.

Ronnie Schreiber

On 2/7/2015 8:47 AM, harp-l-request@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2015 09:17:34 -0500
> From: Tony Stephens<tnysteph@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Harp-L] Gritty harp sound
> To: harp-l<harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Message-ID:<78859466-B8ED-415F-AD25-32AB2058FE60@xxxxxxxxx>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> How do you guys go about getting that gritty harp sound?
> Thanks Tony
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>
>