Re: Valves/Windsaversand serious music

[Hugh Messenger <hugh@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> >and/or valve kits through their retailers.  Otherwise, Suzuki is going to
> >end up with an awful lot of Hohners business because they had the
> >foresight to see an incredible innovation that makes "serious" music on
> >diatonic harmonica much simpler.  ("SERIOUS"= all notes readily available
> >in a polished and pleasant sounding form.)
> >
> > 	
> > -- mike
> 
> Ouch, ouch. Mike, that hurts when you step on my toes like that, cause you 
> see my friend, I play serious music all the time and I don't like valves on 
> my diatonics. In fact the only music I play is "serious".
> 
> Tim

Seconded to the n'th degree.  Valves on diatonics are, to my mind, a way of working around a lack of technique.  We all talk about overblowing as something Godlike and hard to achieve, but it's just a matter of practise.

Hell, it took me 6 years to get to orchestral performance standard on the flute, and that was practicing 4 hours a day.  I'm now a year in to being a keyboard player, and I know it's going to take me another five years to learn that.

It's taken me about two years to get conversant with overblows and overdraws, and I'm still missing a couple of notes.  Give me another two years and I'll have the full 3 octaves, with all notes in "polished and pleasant sounding form".

Mike might say "well if you used valves you could do it without all that time and effort", but to be honest I just plain don't like the tone of valved diatonics, and I don't like the whole mess of restrictions it places on the rest of my technique.

As a last point, it wasn't Susuki's inovation.  Many diatonic players have been adding valves to their instruments for years before Susuki "invented" the idea.

   -- hugh