Re:Tone

[Robb Bingham <robbingham@xxxxxxxxx>]

Some folks have sincere questions about ~Tone~ and
some enjoy crossing philosophical swords. Both are
okay, but this thread, for me, is now too muddy to try
to add any new points to it [suggestions for
constructs/measurement/definitions, for example].
Would been fun but it's already all over the place.

I just hope newer students of harp understand that
there is something called ~Tone~ out there and it's
pretty dang important. There ARE people posting that
are confusing it with a persons ~sound~. It's not, in
our case, synonymous. All that needs to be said,as far
as building ~Tone~, has now been best now by Iceman:

 <When the player moves his consciousness away from 
 <busywork at the front of his mouth (what hole am 
 <I on, do I inhale or exhale, how is my tongue
 <supposed to lie?) and focuses towards his lower
 <throat (the "Yawning" area), into his diaphragm,
  <and ultimately down to the soles of his feet
 <(feeling the push of the Earth upward), tone
  <develops/deepens/improves.

This is great advice. Add to it; placing the harp
deeper in the mouth [for some of you], allow a natural
subtle ~vibrato~ [for lack of a better word: allow the
resulting, deeper resonance to effect the sound] to
coat all your sustained notes, and slip from note to
note with as little unintentional, extraneous static
as possible- and you'll be on your way. Apologies if
my attempts at clarification made more mud. You CAN
work on your ~Tone~ and there is a large objective
element to it [which should be the basis of your
studies; objective standards to shoot for. The
subjective stuff comes after the homework].

Some folk are always watching out for anything that
sounds like a ~blanket statement~. They're useful when
drawing up contracts, but a pain in the butt when
trying to practice.

PS: Ron, your comments are fine, I wasn't thinking of
you in any of my above comments. I just think if I
made my suggestions for ~Objective Tone Criteria~ this
forum would attack semantical, philosophical and
psuedo-political aspects [~No one is EVER allowed to
call ANYTHING good or bad~ ~be yourself~, ~let's all
get along and ~Stop picking on the guy with bad tone~,
bla bla bla]. This list is the best- but it's always
been like that. 

Happy to discuss ideas for defining ~Tone~ after it
calms down. Or offlist.

Robb
http://mp3.com/robbingham



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