harp mailinglist

[<brand@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

|
| I was wondering if there is a F.A.Q. list for this group...
|

	Here's a little note I wrote to trim the volume of "Why do
	harps come in different keys?" questions on rec.music.makers:


|  Newsgroups:  rec.music.makers,rec.music.bluenote
| Followup-To:  rec.music.makers
|     Subject:  Re: Harmonica recommendations <Some Straight Dope>
|    Reply-to:  brand@xxxxxxxxxxx


  Queries about beginners' advice / proper technique / the best harp come
  up every month or so on this group.  A FAQ seems in order.  I'm not
  volunteering one, but this sketches out answers to the most common
  questions.  The answers are not comprehensive or definitive---in many
  cases I've omitted distracting information---but simply meant to be
  helpful:


    Harmonica Parts

      Comb: the body, which partitions the instrument into small
	chambers.  Normally made of wood or plastic, sometimes metal.
	Wood combs can be a nuisance.

      Reed Plates: 2 metal plates which sandwich the comb and hold
	the reeds in place over and under each chamber.

      Cover: 2 stamped metal shells which cover and protect the reed
	plates.

      Stop:  In chromatic harmonicas, a mechanical arrangement
	to shift the flow of air into an alternative set of sounding
	chambers, which typically sound a half-tone higher.


    How it Works

	A player forces air over a small metal reed, causing the reed
	to vibrate at or near its resonant frequency.  The player
	blows or draws air through an opening in the front of the
	harmonica.  Each opening is backed by a small chamber, which
	usually has two reeds: one which vibrates when you blow, and
	one which vibrates when you draw air.


    How to Play

	Use your lips and tongue to select one or more holes, blow
	or draw through them to produce sound, and modify the sound by
	adjusting the air flow and the resonant cavities of your
	mouth, larynx, and hands.


    Kinds of Harmonica

      Diatonic: This is the most common harmonica.  Used in blues,
	country-western, rock, but rarely in jazz.  Available in all
	keys.  Normally it has ten holes, twenty reeds, and covers
	three octaves, or registers.  By design, the first register is
	playing chords, and the middle and the high are for individual
	notes, although the high register is often neglected by
	players.  This is the layout of a C diatonic:

			Notes on a C harp		Major Scale degrees

	register	low   mid   high		low   mid   high
			----- ----- ------		----- ----- ------
	hole		1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10		1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

	draw		D G B D F A B D F A		2 5 7 2 4 6 7 2 4 6

	blow		C E G C E G C E G C		1 3 5 1 3 5 1 3 5 1

	Note that the 4th and 6th scale elements are missing from the
	low register, and the 7th is missing from the high register.
	These, and all accidentals (flats and sharps) are filled in by
	note bending.

	The diatonic harmonica attained its modern design before it
	was adopted by blues musicians, and the registers are now used
	quite differently than the way Mr. Hohner (the inventer)
	intended.

	You can also get extended diatonics with a low-low register,
	repeating the pattern of the low register an octave below.

	Most of what follows below will pertain to playing diatonic
	harmonicas.


      Chromatic: Used mostly in jazz, occasionally in blues (notably by
	Jr.  Wells and Billy Branch---I will be Chicago-centric in my
	choice of musicians) and in symphonic music (!).  This has 10,
	14, or more holes, a stop, four reeds per hole, and covers 3-6
	octaves.  Normally available only in C, occasionally in G.  In
	most chromatics, each octave takes four holes, repeating the
	pattern of the middle register of the diatonic.  The stop will
	raise each pitch a half tone, giving you the full chromatic
	range.  This arrangement makes some tones available from more
	than one hole.  This makes playing certain chords and intervals
	possible.  Some chromatics have a diatonic low-register
	arrangement in their lowest octave.


      Minor:  Used mostly in playing eastern European folk music,
	some classical pieces in minor keys, and occasionally by jazz
	and adventurous blues artists.  As far as I know, these are
	only available from Lee Oskar, which every once in a while
	tries to market a harmonica in some odd scale.


    Harmonica Makers

	The world's largest manufacturer of the harmonica, as well as
	its inventor, is Hohner.  This is a German company that owes
	much of its success to the popularity of the harmonica in the
	19th century American West.  They make a full line of
	harmonicas, from professional chromatics to childrens'
	harmonicas.  Their main diatonic lines are the Marine Band,
	the Blues Harp, the Special 20, the Golden Melody and the Pro
	Harp.  I recommend the Special 20.  Personally, I consider it
	better than any other harmonica I've ever tried.  It is also
	the favored by most of the pros I know who play the clubs here
	in Chicago.  Retail it goes for about $20, although last year
	I was getting them for $15 apiece from stores that were
	selling near cost.  The Golden Melody is also pretty good for
	low keys, such as G.

	Lee Oskar is a pro who designs harmonicas for Tombo corporation
	of Japan.  These harmonicas are sturdy, well built, modular,
	nicely packages, and have replacable parts.  They are popular
	with beginners because the holes are large and it's easy to get
	a clear tone without much control.  Some accomplished players
	like them, and I know one pro who says he plays them only
	because the company sponsors him.  I hate them.  I find them
	leaky (see Harmonica Repair), stiff, prone to stuck reeds, and
	slightly larger than comfortable.  Also, when I tried some two
	years ago, the cover was so close to the reeds that sometimes a
	reed would bang against the cover, making a very unpleasant
	buzz during my bends.

	Huang is (I think) a Korean company that makes very inexpensive
	harmonicas that have a reasonably good sound (though often not
	in tune), and, in my experience, take to bending rather nicely.
	The Huang is a half-priced knockoff of the Golden Melody.  They
	don't last very long, though, and the comb is made out of a kind
	of fiberglass that can disintegrates, leaving very painful
	splinters in your tongue.  My doctor said they can't be removed;
	you have to wait 2 months for them to work their way out.  If
	you buy a Huang, be careful not to chip or bang the front; this
	is what starts the splintering processes.

	Suzuki makes high-priced, fairly high-quality harmonicas that
	are supposed to have some sort of revolutionary internal valves
	to enhance your sound.  I tried a few, thought they sounded
	very good, but not much better than a Special 20.  I didn't
	take one apart, but my guess what they mean by valves is a
	small plastic cover which prevents backflow of air over unused
	reeds.  This has been common in Hohner Chromatics for many
	years, and it interferes with a rarely used technique of
	bending called overblowing.


    Keys and Positions

	A diatonic harp is designed so that you can play a major scale
	of a certain key in simple progression: 4-blow, 4-draw,
	5-blow, 5-draw, etc.  Playing the harp this way is called
	playing straight harp.  If you are playing country-western or
	bluegrass music, and you want to play a song in C, you play
	straight-harp on a C harp.

	In straight-harp, you take the first scale degree of the
	harp's key as your tonic.  This is called first position.
	There are twelve positions you can play a harp in, resulting
	in different scales and different keys.  The most common
	positions are straight-harp (country), cross-harp (blues), and
	third-position (jazz).

	Cross-harp takes the 2-draw hole (or 3-blow) as the tonic.
	This is the fifth scale degree: on a C harp, it's G.  Playing
	from there on up gives you a major scale in G with the seventh
	flatted: G (A) B C D E F G.  (The A you'll have to produce by
	bending the 3-draw reed.)  In scale degrees: 1 2 3 4 5 6 b7 1.
	This makes it very easy to play a blues scale: 1 b3 4 b4 5 b7
	1.  In notes on a C harp: G bB C bD D F G.  Finally in holes:
	2draw 3bend 4blow 4bend 4draw 5draw 6blow.  Since you are
	starting on the fifth scale degree of your harp's original
	key, you'll have to compensate by using a harp a fifth below
	the key of the song.  If the band leader says "`I'm a Man' in
	G," grab your C harp.

	Third position takes the 4draw as the tonic of a minor scale,
	which is useful for jazz.  You can also play a blues scale over
	this (4draw 5draw 6blow 6bend 6draw 7blow 8draw), and then go
	on to do interesting things up in the high register (this is
	nice if you want to play over an overenthusiastic electric
	guitar.

	Sometimes you will also hear a blues or jazz solo in fifth
	position, or country music in seventh or twelfth position.  For
	the theoretically inclined: The system of positions really just
	refers to local traditions for playing various scales on the
	harp.  The numbering scheme comes from a post-hoc analysis which
	recognizes the relationship between these scales (actually
	modes) and the circle of fifths.

	The most common keys in blues are E G and A, which means you
	should have A C and D harps.


    Playing Notes

	There are two ways of playing individual notes on a harmonica.
	You can pucker up so that your lips narrow your mouth to fit
	just one harmonica hole.  Or you can place your mouth over the
	harmonica, and block all the holes but the one by your right
	cheek with your tongue.  This is called tongue-blocking, and
	it is somewhat harder in general, and quite harder when it
	comes to draw and blow bending.  It is easier to begin
	puckering, but you should switch over to tongue-blocking as
	soon as you have mastered basic skills such as bending and
	riffs.  There are many things you can do tongue-blocking
	(accompany yourself, play intervals, octaves, etc.) that you
	cannot do puckering.  When I asked Sugar Blue (a local blues
	hero and harp player for the Stones) about it, he said he
	didn't know anybody at all (meaning any pros) who puckered.

	A good harp player can tell from listening which style of
	playing is being used.


    Bending Notes

	Note bending is a way of forcing reeds to vibrate below their
	resonant freqency.  You do this by adjusting the intensity and
	direction of the air flow, and by changing the resonant cavity
	of your mouth.  A good harp player can do a bend on every hole
	in the diatonic, although bending 7 never turns out well, and
	bending 5 is a good way to ruin the reed.  (I do know of one pro
	(Howard Levy) who claims to be able to play a chromatic scale on
	a diatonic harmonica.  Never seen him do it though.)  In terms
	of ease of attainment, I would put draw bends first, in the
	order 3, 2, 4, 1, 6, then blow bends, in the order 9, 8, 10, 7,
	5, 4, 6.  There are other bends, but they're not very useful,
	and even the blow bends in the middle range aren't used much.

	There is no sure way to teach bends, so I won't give any
	guaranteed recipes.  Start trying to learn 2bend or 3bend on a
	C or D harp.  These are the easiest.  Drawing only one hole,
	increase the air flow and pull the middle and back of your
	tongue down into your neck.  Practice the motion by saying
	"Eee-oh."  Trying doing it without moving the tip of your
	tongue.  If changing the resonant cavity doesn't work, trying
	tilting the harp slightly up until you can hear a drop in
	pitch.  Once you've heard the pitch drop, you'll know
	(kinetically) what you are striving for, and you should be
	able to make progress.  Blow bends are usually learned by
	pressing the tongue hard against the front bottom teeth.  I
	can't be any more scientific than that.

	Once you have mastered bending, be judicious with it; too much
	and you will sound loose, sloppy, or even out of tune.  Use
	bends to fill in missing notes, for inflection in riffs, and to
	darken your playing, but play so that they audience can tell
	which notes you are bending away from.


    Regional Harmonica Styles

	The major split in blues harmonica styles is between Delta blues
	and Chicago blues.  Delta blues is an acoustic tradition, with
	many lineages and styles of its own.  From the perspective of
	the harpist, the emphasis is on slower, more carefully sculpted
	tones.  The use of tongue blocking is quite evident, as well as
	shaping the sound with the hands.  Chicago blues is an amplified
	sound, with an emphasis on quick riffs, loud wails, and tremolos
	from the chest.  If you are pursuing a Chicago blues sound, you
	will soon be worring about microphones, amps, distortion boxes,
	etc.  Always practice acoustic; like electric guitar players, it
	is easy to bury a lack of virtuosity under layers of sound
	effects.


    Tone

	Once you have mastered the basic skills---picking out single
	notes, bending, and riffs---your major concern should be tone.
	Tone is largely a matter of what you do with your tongue,
	larynx, and hands.  You want to achieve clarity of tone before
	you try for any sound effects.  Experiment.  Sing low tones
	and then try to play the harmonica with your larynx in the
	same position.  The larger the resonant cavity the better your
	harp growls will be (people with big heads often have a better
	sound).


    Learning Riffs and Songs

	Once you have the basic skills, do not buy any harmonica
	songbooks.  They are uniformly useless.  The only ways to pick
	up new songs and riffs are 1) learn from someone else, 2)
	learn from a recording 3) invent them yourself.  My advice is
	to pick one record by an artist that you like, listen to it
	carefully (at half speed if you can), and try to copy every
	detail of inflection.  Avoid the pyrotechnic players.  I began
        with Sonny Boy Williamson II and Paul Butterfield.


    Maintenance

	A harmonica, played heavily with ample bending, will probably
	last 6 months to a year.  Typically, a reed will have a stress
	failure, and go seriously flat.  Overstressed reeds can also
	snap, and once in a blue moon someone will inhale a little
	strip of metal and have a fit.

	If you are good with your hands, reeds can be tuned and even
	replaced (provided you have a spare reed plate to raid).  To
	lower a reed's tone, delicately shave it near the base.  To
	raise its tone, shave it at the tip.  To replace a reed, use
	needle nose pliers to pull its attachment plug out of the
	reed plate.  The reed will come off with the plug.  Then use
	the same pliers to squeeze a new plug and reed into the plate.
	Crush the plug so that it firmly grips the plug hole.  Of
	course, if you have a Lee Oskar, you should just order a new
	plate and save yourself the trouble.  Doctored reeds never
	last very long.

	Ways to kill your harmonica: Eat and then play without rinsing
	your mouth out.  Let it get dusty and then play it.  Keep it
	in your pocket and let change get underneath the cover.  Play
	while drinking beer.  Spill beer on it.  Insist on
	draw-bending the 5-hole.  Best way:  keep it in you back pocket.

	Ways your harmonica can kill you: If you let your teeth touch
	it, it will strip the enamel off of them.  Try to draw-bend a
	shot reed.  Try to draw a hole that has a reed stuck with dried
	food.  Bend the cover so that a sharp metal edge is exposed to
	your lip.  Let a wood-comb harp soak in water, saliva, or
	whiskey, and then play it when it dries.  Best way: play while
	driving.


  enjoy,
  matt brand