Re: Levy, overblows & passing notes

[haandruss@xxxxxxx (Harvey Andruss)]

At  9:58 PM 3/29/95 -0800, Mike Curtis wrote:

>Does anyone have information to the contrary?  Is there any overblow
>player who gets _every_ overblow/draw as perfectly as all the other notes?
>If so, I stand corrected.  If not, then what I stated is true - at least
>until someone perfects it - and this well may be possible.  If it is, I
>may remove the valve from my 9 hole and use an overdraw to "fix" the lack
>of the perfect Ab in my valved C :-)

The issue for me is defining your term "perfectly" -- from what I've heard,
Christian Michalek obtains most if not all of these OB/OD notes very
solidly and sustainably. I don't think that equates with "easier" though.
The timbre and harmonic content are obviously different than purely
blown/drawn notes or the bent notes. I imagine that your valve bent notes
are also subtley different sounding than the conventional bent notes 9may
not be discerable on tape, but only ~live~). All of these factors add even
more color to the instrument and for me is its main charm  -- all the
different tones you try to get as a matter of course.

Some people prefer consistency in tone and that may be what you are
refering to in your use of the term "perfectly", that is, most notes
"sound" the same from a timbre standpoint (you said "full, fat,& fast").
The color you add is just in phrasing, glissando, volume variation, etc.

We have tossed around the name "Kenny G." on this list, mostly in jest, but
in association with this concept of tonal choice -- much of what he does
sounds the same tonally and the main interest in his music is note choice,
phrasing and speed, but not tonal variation. I recently made reference to
John Popper as also lacking some in variation of tone, yet he has great
speed and consistency of tone (perfect?), nice percussive phrasing.
Contrasting this, I luckily got dragged out of the house last night and
took in a local blues harp player who continues to play fairly boring
textbook blues riffs and phrases, but he did delight me with a good command
of tonal variation using just conventional bent notes.

So it's in what you like to hear and play that helps you decide which
technique to develop.  If you're comfortable in certain areas but not in
others, you work on your weak spots, but you shouldn't ignore your
strengths, and finally, one person's view of a weakness is another's
strength, etc.