Re: Huang harmonicas

[John Galvin <johngalvin@xxxxxxxx>]

I saw Norton Buffalo at this year's SPAH in Dallas and was, like 
everyone else I suppose, mightily impressed by his ability to move from 
Bluegrass to Samba, from Samba to Blues, from Blues to Pop and so 
on--and to do so with such feeling authority. During his teach-in and 
seminar, however, I noticed that Norton had some difficulty in playing 
things softly. You could hear a full second or so of air rushing 
through the harp before the reed would finally respond--and rather 
thinly at that. I'm sure this was do the high action of the reed as 
opposed to the general quality of the harp. But I had the impression 
that Norton's dynamics were then governed, for the most part, by what 
he could do with his hands. When, for example, he demonstrated his 
"runaway" solo or an equally difficult passage from a Bluegrass piece, 
he would sandwich four harps between the thumb and index finger of both 
hands; as a consequence, he was unable to mute and/or shape the sound 
as it came out. And it all seemed to be delivered at one--admittedly 
impressive--pitch.--In any case, I'm simply wondering what he would 
sound like if he played a harp of some other make and set his reeds at 
a height lower than that which he obviously--and probably 
wisely--prefers.

John



On Thursday, August 28, 2003, at 02:20 AM, G. wrote:

>
> Hello,
> Is it true that Peter "MadCat" Ruth does or used to have his Filisko 
> harmonicas
> made by Joe Filisko fitted with Huang reedplates because he loved 
> their response
> and tone.
>
> And Norton Buffalo only plays Huang diatonics.
>
> Both of their playing sounds great to my ears.
>
> Cheers
> G.
>
> --
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- -------------------------------------------
John Galvin
Translation:	French into English
			Italian into English
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