Re: Music and the Misses

[Mike Curtis <wd6ehr@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> 
> Hello harpers,
> 
> I have been married for almost 21 years. My lovely wife Anne, does not much
> like the harp, or the concertina, (an Anglo). She says, they are too loud,
> and hurt her ears!
> 
> We have to cats (brothers) Beano and Dandy, named after my favourite English
> childrens comics. When I get the harp or concertina out, Beano gives me a
> pointed, dirty look, gets off the front room radiator and goes upstairs.
> (Cats can be *so* cutting as music critics). :-(
> 
> Dandy will sometimes stay on my knee, as long as I don't get too carried
> away with it all and play loudly. But he always was his daddies boy.:-)
> 
> Anne loves me to play guitar, and sing for her though. (I just *LOVE* hero
> worship).:-)

This brings up a very interesting point about harmonica.  Because of its 
small size, and the minute flare of the "bell opening" in the front, it 
does tend to produce a lot of high harmonic content.  Some people have 
very sensitive hearing in the highest registers, and this will prove 
annoying to them.

A good acoustic tone will help round out the sound, but even with the best
tone, the acoustic harmonica (especially if not hand-cupped) will still
have a lot of high harmonic content. 

The "normal" range of hearing is assumed to be 20 Hertz (vibrations per
second) to 20,000 Hz.  However, some of us have very little beyond 5,000
Hz, or even less.  Some hear well below 20 Hz.  And some hear well beyond
20,000 Hz.  Often, there are lapses in the frequency coverage, especially
at the extremes. 

I'll take a wild guess that your wife is a smaller lady.  Physically
smaller individuals have smaller auditory systems, which affects their
range of hearing (smaller = higher.) There's a story about a man showing
his friend his new "dog whistle" that "only dogs can hear".  He blew it at
his old, large German Shepherd, who ignored it - but his three year old
child started crying! 

One of my TV's is an old Sharp Linytron color set with a "mechanical" 
remote control.  These have tuned metal cylinders that, when "clicked",
produce pretty intense ultrasonic bursts.  These are probably well beyond
20 kHz.  Oftentimes, when playing my harp acoustically (I use a rack, i.e.
no hands, Ma!), I'll change the channel on the TV.  This well shows the
very significant ultrasonic content of "raw" harmonica. 

What can be done about this?  I'm sure this is one big reason amplified 
harmonica is so popular, and probably the most popular microphone is the 
very midrangey, trebleless Green Bullet.  If you like to play 
acoustically, you might want to look into modifying the sound, ether by 
cupping it more tightly, or maybe by using a "Silo" type device, which I 
would assume works mainly as a resonator and bell extension.

I'm not a good candidate for empirical analysis of high harmonic content. 
My high hearing is pretty well shot, thanks to a few too many years in
front of large amplifiers, and many miles of driving with the windows down
(VERY hard on hearing, especially in the left ear.  If you have to drive a
lot with the windows down, I highly recommend foam hearing protectors.)

 -- mike