re: TONE [ain't ~sound~]

[Mojo Red <harplicks@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi gang,

Wow! What a great thread this has been... I've
deliberately kept out of this one, mainly because,
well, who cares what my opinions might be on this
wonderfully ambiguous issue? Besides, it's been too
much fun simply reading.

So. I'm gonna just add one thing... subjective...
truly my own belief... not an absolute... nothing
to do with semantics... Call it a personal ~tone~
experience.

There is a woman who belongs to Denver's Mile High
Harmonica Club who's been playing for maybe one
year. Truly a novice. Not a blues player by any
stretch. I don't think she can even bend a note
yet. She gets nice single notes, but a very weak
volume from her harp, and is pretty timid as a
player. Pucker player, if I'm not mistaken.

...BUT (ahh, you knew that was coming), when she
played this sweet little Irish ballad at our last
meeting, she nearly brought tears to my eyes... 

Her TONE -- small, timid and yet gushing with this
georgous, pulsing vibrato (vibrato I wish I had!).
I thought to myself... My god, what beautiful tone.
I realized that big, fat tone isn't the
end-all-be-all of what might constitute ~good~
tone.

Context. Part of this tone thing, I think, needs to
look at context. Now that woman, had she been
trying to play an aggressive blues number, would
have come off as having wimpy, terrible tone. 

But, for what she was playing, her tone was
beautiful. 

That's all I have to add here.

Harpin' in Colorado,
- --Ken M.

P.S. Just to be clear. This is IMHO, my personal
take, as I see it, one man's opinion -- and any
other "don't-yell-at-me" qualifiers I can think of. 

=====
"When you speak of Walter Horton, the first thing you think of is his tone, that big, fat tone."
- ---Li'l Ronnie Owens

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