Re: Acoustic Playing with Mic

[Steve Price <sprice@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chris, 

	I personally dislike the techie solution to acoustic harp with a 
mic.  I think the handheld mic sound has a distinct character whether 
you're holding an astatic, a bullet, or an SM57 or SM58.  I am unfamiliar 
with Will Jennings' mic, but that doesn't answer the question about how 
to get a good acoustic sound.  Will Jennings does what you're asking 
about, but he didn't really describe his way of holding the harp.  I 
suspect that, like me, Will spent a lot of time playing harp with no mic 
and learned to project to be heard.  There's a lot to that.  

	You want to project your sound forward, and you want to be able 
to conveniently cup the harp and uncup it for wah-wah.  The sound you 
hear won't be the same as the sound that comes out the end, but you're 
practicing with the speakers aimed so that you can hear what you are 
doing.  Butterfield used to play into a vocal mic (listen to his first 
three records).  He held the harp between thumb and forefinger along the 
bottom and top of harp respectively, and kept his fingers together.  Then 
he'd cup by flipping his other hand over, putting thumb against thumb, 
palm against palm and wah-wahing by opening and closing the clam shell.  
The wrist of the hand holding the harp is horizontal.  The wrist of the 
cupping hand is verticle going straight up and down, elbow near your 
belly.  

	I can't do that, I don't like that.  

	I hold the harp in both hands.  It is against my left hand at the 
joint where my thumb attaches to hand, thumb pointed up.  Right hand 
where my middle finger joint attaches to my hand, fingers pointed up.  I 
cup my fingers together.  I close it completely only rarely (but I do 
close completely).  Mostly I just open and close.  I get a really mellow 
tone by having the opening about the size of a half dollar (it isn't 
really round, but think of it that way) and getting about an inch from 
the mic.  Otherwise I'm between 2 and 10 inches from the mic.  I've 
become pretty good at not playing way louder than the other folks, I stay 
back and only come in to either play very softly or to kill my audience 
and alienate my band members.  

	The main thing to be aware of is projecting the sound forward.  
You can do that without a mic by playing in a room toward a wall opposite 
you and just listen.  Playing acoustically requires a different feel for 
the playing it's extremely hard to describe, but you'll feel your way 
around it.  In addition to Sonny Boy II, listen to Sonny Terry.  

	Steve Price