bending damage

[Robert Johnston <JOHNO@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Gordon

I just thougt I would make this contribution to the idea that bending
damages harps.

Bending on diatonics does damage reeds as every hard player knows.
This is especially true of hanging on the bottom of the bend and
overblowing. This is because when you overblow or are playing the
bottom of the bend (full bend as you say) on a diatonic you are
actually playing the wrong reed in the air way as an opening reed
(that is instead of playing the reed that is pushed closed by youre
breath you are playing the one that is pushed open). The closing
reeds that are normally played have a sort of natural limmit to how
hard you can play them because eventually they go in side the plate.
But the opening reeds do not hqave this guard. You can just go on
playing louder and loader with the reed vibrating through a bigger
and bigger angle until they break off (well nearly - at least they
will be fatique damaged)

However when you play bends on a chromatic (with the valves on) you
are playing the closing reeds. This is why you dont get the same type
of bend. This means that there is basically no difference between
what happens to the reed when bending and normal playing. The
vibration is just *pulled* away from its normal pitch by the mouth
resonance. So I beleive you can safely bend to youre hearts content.

Does any body dissagree?