Re: mic&amp

[icepick@xxxxxxxx (Christian Laferriere)]

>This is absolutely true.  If your acoustic tone stinks, you can't improve 
>it by buying all the boxes and amps in the world.  If your tone is 
>excellent, you'll sound great through anything - even playing with no 
>hands in a bare rack.
 
This says it all. I have come to this conclusion myself. Only having two 
solid years in as a harp player, I was at my mentor's place this week. He 
has been playing for over 30 years and I was wondering about his killer 
tone. We sat down and he walked me through it and I got it ! I was not 
opening up my throat and lungs enough. First of all this guy is a tongue 
blocker. The tongue block combined with a diaphragm vibrato makes all the 
difference IMHO. I started drawing the notes from the diaphragm instead of 
the mouth and throat and I can really hear the difference. And in this 
business, if you have no tone you are dead in the water !
I have an old ASTATIC (don't know the number but it had a metal handle built 
in) and I could get decent tone from it, but my mentor friend got a much 
better tone. I have seen the light !  I am a born again harp player ! All I 
have to do now is really practice using the diaphragm technique and get this 
down.

Just thought I'd share this with everyone...
  
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                          Christian Laferriere
                           Gatineau, Quebec
                          Icepick@xxxxxxxx
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