Re: Harp

[JOHN THADEN <JJTHADEN@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

  >...I'd like to ask is if anybody out there understands...overblowing?  I
  >thought it was bending a blow note....Could someone give me an example, a
  >lick maybe?
Hi.  T. McEvil from Chi-town wrote you a great reply covering much of the other
stuff you wrote.  I'll have a crack at overblows.  I love to overblow because
overblows (and the related overdraws) give you the missing notes on a diatonic
harp.  You can play them dirty and bad, or clean and sweet, and they can be 
some of the loudest notes you get.  They are essential for playing jazz on a
standard diatonic harp without wind-saver valves, but they open up new doors
for blues, rock, and country players too.  Nothing like leaning hard into a
6-hole overblow at the top of a blues riff!
	You mentioned tongue-blocking, and yes, right-, left-, and center-hole
tongue-blocking are VERY important for rhythmic and tone reasons.  But I quick-
switch to a pucker for overblows.
	To start, try the #6 hole, blow, on several harps.  The note you're
aiming to get is the half-step right between 6-draw and 7-draw (Bflat on a C
harp).  Take your top cover plate off.  Get the 6 blow note cleanly as a single
note.  Lay your finger across the reedplate, which will stop the sound.  Blow
a little harder.  A new note pops up.  It's produced by the draw reed.  That is
the overblow. Now to get it for real.  Put the cover plate back on.
	Don't cup your hands tightly behind the harp--leave it open, or lay
your finger across the top opening.  To "pop" an overblow, the mouth move is 
sort of like going into a blow-note bend on hole 8, 9, or 10--like saying "oy".
If you're doing things right, you'll feel the blow note begin to choke off.
That's what you want. Push past the choke and there it is.  At first, it'll be 
scrawny, flat, and dirty (mixed with the regular blow note).  As you improve,
you can tongue the note up to proper pitch, choke off the blow reed better to
clean it up, and get strong and loud without blowing very hard at all.
	For any hole where the draw reed is tuned higher than the blow reed,
you can overblow.  That is holes 1-6. I never overblow holes 2-4 because those
notes are already on the harp.  Overdraws are available on holes 7-10 (same
principle, only suck).  Overdraw 8 isn't needed because 9-draw is the same.
	To make these techniques easier, set the reed which makes the noise
fairly close to the reed plate.  I like Golden Mel's.  Check out Howard Levy
for non-blues applications (e.g. on Paquito D'Riviera's red album where he
plays Charley Parker licks, or on Bela Fleck & the Flecktones CD's).  I no
of no blues recordings yet that really highlight overblows.
	These are advanced techniques.  Don't despair, they take months.
John Thaden