Re: Fwd: Re: Re: Harmonica range - and tremolo harp bending

["Winslow Yerxa" <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

Sorry- my last attempt at a reply was goof - I sent the quoted 
message with nothing added.

Joe Mahan:

I agree with the above. But I also think the risk of damage (esp. 
when 
bending single reeds on tremolos) is high for many players, because 
bending 
with too much force or the wrong oral cavity resonance is probably a 
common 
practice. I also agree with the statement on the cited page, "that 
bent 
notes on a tremolo sound a bit nasal, are not as loud as unbent 
notes ".

=========

Winslow:

It's true that many players bend poorly. But that shouldn't function 
as a blanket discouragement from a range of practices as if to say 
that the results will always be the same for everyone. As to the 
tonal quality and volume of bent notes on a tremolo, they sound the 
same as bent notes on single-reed instruments. Volume, again, is 
something entirely in the player's control. It is true that a single-
row bends (i.e. on the upper or lower row of a tremolo), whether 
isolated-reed or dual-reed, will have a different timbral quality 
from a dual-reed tremolo note. It's up to the ingenuity and taste of 
the player to figure out how to make this work artistically.

I guess I'm a little frustrated with some parts of Bruno's approach. 
I get the impression he tries to come up with reasons to close off 
avenues of inquiry, assuming that the limitations of his experience 
are the limitations of what is possible with the instrument for 
anyone, and that it is therefore proper to discourage people from 
doing anything that he doesn't do. But his experience and his 
technical limitations (or lack thereof) are not the same as mine and 
may not be the same as yours. 

=====

Joe Mahan:

I think that perhaps the best way for most players to accomplish 
single-reed bends would be to use your discrete comb and regular ten-
hole 
reedplates. Do you think they are going to get a good feel for how a 
single-reed bend sounds by trying it on a tremolo? (That's an honest 
question, not a jab, I haven't yet tried your discrete comb, but I 
know how 
my bends sound on a tremolo...)

======

Winslow:

It's true that you can get completely isolated reed bends on a 
Discrete Comb. The DC enables every kind of reed behavior that is 
possible - isolated closing reed, isolated opening reed, and dual 
opening-closing combinations.

As long as the holes on the tremolo are not vertically punched and 
the player can isolate the top or the bottom row, there's no reason 
not to experiment with bending. Go buy a $5 dime-store tremolo and 
play around with it. If you break a reed, no big loss.

I should point out one thing that is very easy on a tremolo reed that 
is very awkward on the Discrete Comb. In the regular Richter setup 
used with the Discrete Comb, the blow reeds are mounted directly 
above the draw reeds. 

Let's say you want to have a blow-draw combination of the blow reed 
in Hole 6 with the draw reed in Hole 5. This would let you bend blow 
6 down a semitone in a full dual-reed bend. (It doesn't matter if the 
blow and draw reeds are in different holes. As long as they're in the 
same airstream, they will function as a bending pair). This is a very 
awkward and fussy thing to achieve on a Discrete comb due to the reed 
layout. You'd have to have Holes 5 and 6 in your mouth while blocking 
off the upper half of Hole 6 and the lower half of Blow 5 - a narrow 
diagonal tongue block.

On a tremolo it is very easy because the blow and draw reeds are side 
by side in separate holes. Assuming no top-bottom punches, you could 
have the reeds that correspond to Blow 6 and Draw 6 in you mouth at 
the same time, and bend Draw 6, as is usual on a 10-hole. But you 
could shift over so that instead you have Blow 6 and Draw 5. Now Blow 
6 becomes the bendable note. Likewise you could make the note 
coresponding to 10-hole Blow 5 bendable by pairing it with Draw 4 
instead of Draw 5. 
====

Joe Mahan:

>The top-bottom punches in low-pitched reeds on some tremolo and
>octave models seems to be to allow for the reeds to speak without
>really wide gaps. I remember Cham-Ber Huang specifically telling me
>this for his octave double reed models. Heavily-weighted reeds need
>more air moving underneath them to get them to budge than reeds with
>less wieght on the tips, and having a common airspace for a pair of
>reeds always makes it possible to gap lower. I tried blocking off the
>punch on the lower holes on one of his octave models and finding the
>reeds starting to choke at much lower pressures. The same is true for
>both double-reed harps and for single-reed harps with a blow and draw
>in the same hole. Two slots can absorb more force than one.
>
>Perhaps this is the reason for the center-range punches on Hohner
>Echos (my earlier sloppy-player rationale could be another reason).

I would hate to see the sloppy-player rationale become another bit of 
"unfounded lore". (Unless of course it can be founded in fact.)

=====

Winslow:

You are right. I thought that I had framed this as a speculation and 
not as a statement of fact. I'm usually careful to do so. Not that 
someone else won't run with it and start quoting it as gospel - or 
even completely mis-read what I write and start quoting something I 
never said at all (it's happened, and in print). But there's only so 
much I can do to qualify my statements. Thanks for the reminder, 
though.

Winslow