Irish music on the XB-40

["james conway" <harp3333@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On the train ride to the Dallas SPAH I had the pleasure of trying out an 
XB-40 in the key of G, and I found the harp to be an excellent axe for Irish 
tunes.
It has good volume and I'd say it'll have no problem being heard along with 
other instruments at an unplugged Irish session. When Rick Epping plays the 
XB in the rack with his concertina(a relatively loud instrument), it can be 
heard loud and clear. I'm looking forward to testing it in my neck rack 
while I play guitar, and taking it out to some  Irish sessions.
Having whole-step bendability on every hole gives you great control of the 
overall "slurriness" of a tune. There's a variety of different Irish fiddle 
styles depending on where the fiddler is from in Ireland and certain styles 
are very "slurry". In the few hours that I played the XB, I found it to be a 
great harp for imitating a fiddle. When I get one for myself, I'm going to 
put on those "slurry" fiddler recordings, and I'm anticipating on being able 
to imitate the fiddle dynamics note for note. Similarly, I bet there's going 
to be some real tasty slide guitar/XB-40 work happening in the future!
Lastly, the XB worked like a champ on Irish tunes that modulate or have a 
lot of accidentals. On a regular diatonic, I use overblows/overdraws in 
Irish tunes, but at my current skill level on these techniques, I'll just 
use them for brief passing/neighboring tones. Using overblows/overdraws in 
other contexts in Irish tunes usually effects my rhythm or causes other 
problems for me. Again, that's just my personal experience at my current 
skill level. Getting back to the XB-40, I tried a tune called "The Flogging 
Reel" which is in G major and has a phrase in it that uses an F natural.  
This a phrase in which there's jumps from non-adjacent holes, so it's a good 
opportunity for tongue-switching, which for me is really tricky while using 
overblows/overdraws. On the XB, the phrase came out beautifully with no 
rhythm or melody problems. This opens up the door for me on a lot of tunes. 
I can't wait to get a few keys of this harp.
cheers,
James
www.jimmyconway.com

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