Fwd: [Harp-L] XB40 tutorial

["Winslow Yerxa" <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- In harp-l-archives@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "K R Larkin" <senecasam@xxxx> 
wrote:

I've tried to be good all year, and therefore am anticipating that 
the big old guy in the red suit is gonna deliver an XB40 on Christmas 
morning.

My question is, has anyone put together a basic tutorial on this 
instrument to assist someone in getting off to a decent start in 
learning its idiosyncracies?

============Winslow writes:

Pat Missin has written a few articles for Harmonica World magazine 
about mastering the intermediate bends - that is the bends of only 
one semitone, as every note bends two semitones (except Draw 3, which 
bends 3 semitones like a regular diatonic).

http://harmonica.co.uk/index.htm

(this is a link to the publisher, UK's National Harmonica League. The 
articles are not reprinted online).

Other than some discussion here, that's about all I know of.

Some main points:

At first play, this harp may sound sort of muffled and distant, and 
the reeds may feel sort of sealed off. In fact the XB-40  can be 
played much louder than a regular 10-hole and you have much more 
control of the reeds' pitch. But the fact that this is a bigger harp, 
with the reeds farther away from the ears and the mouth of the 
player, makes it seem more distant. Just accept that, and start to 
work on getting music out. After awhile the impression of distance 
will go away. It will always feel and sound different, but you'll 
find you can gain good control and response with plenty of volume and 
tonal richness.

Get used to the fact that all the blow notes bend. This may throw you 
a curve, as the non-bending character of the first 6 blow notes can 
be used as a sort of "bounce-off board" - they're stiff, you can hit 
them hard, then bounce off them on the way to a draw note. This 
doesn't work on an XB. You have to treat them as soft and squishy 
like you do the draw notes.

I'd start with bending the notes you already know. Draw 2 and 3 bend 
like a standard diatonic. Draw 1 may or may not bend down two 
semitones. This is especially true in the lower keys of XB - the 
lowest notes are a little ponderous and hard to get a purchase on for 
bending purposes. Try playing some rhythm patterns that involve both 
blow and draw notes in Holes 1-3 and also involve bending Draw 2 and 
3.

Next, head up and on the draw notes in 4, 5, and 6. These all bend 
down two semitones, more than you're used to. Try playing normal 
lines that use the usual bends. This may be tricky as the notes bend 
farther than you're used to.

Here you face two sets of possibilities. One is to duplicate the 
shallow bends you're used to that are no longer the full depth of the 
available bend. The other is to explore the full bend. 

But first, let's look at the blow notes.

The blow notes also bend, but you're probably not used to this in the 
middle range. You can sort of surround the problem by adapting both 
your draw bending technique for that range - which has the right 
mouth chamber sizes - and your top-octave blow bending technique, 
which has the right sort of wind dynamics but needs bigger chamber 
sizes for the lower notes.

At first, just try to do some shallow bends to make your unbent blow 
notes more expressive. Try getting a pitch-based vibrato on the blow 
notes the way you do on the draw notes. Then try diggin in for the 
full two-semitone bends.

Full two-semitone bends in the middle register yield a lot of 
possibilities. For instance:

4Bbb = 3Db 

4D = 4Draw / 4B = 4Blow b = 1 semitone of bend

4Dbb = 4B

5Bbb = 4D

5Dbb = 4Bb

6Bbb = 5D

6Dbb = 6B

Now, note that some of the full two-semitone bends duplicate some one-
semitone bends. Generally the two-semitone versions will work better -
 stronger volume and tone, easier to control.

Note also that several of the full bends duplicate unbent notes. One 
way to use this is to go between two notes of the scale, like from 
4Dbb to 4D. Sam notes as going from 4B to 4D but you can make it an 
expressive bend getting from one to the other. This has a lot of 
expressive possibilities.

Try playing a scale in the middle range (Holes 4-7) where at least 
one note in the scale is replaced with a bent version (like 5Bbb for 
4D). Once you get used to using that one, try playing the scale with 
a different one. Then try using two of them in a scale. Then see how 
close you can get to playing a complete scale in bends.

One way to explore using expressive bends - bends played more for 
expressive purposes than for creating specific notes - is to play 
first-position blues in the middle register. Your home chord is the 
blow chord and now you can bend those notes just like you can in the 
top register.

The top register - holes 7-10 still has bendable blow notes. In the 
higher keys (C, D) the top two holes tend to have pitch problems - 
the notes tend to play at a depressed pitch that is not caused by the 
player. I'm not sure what has been done to address this by the 
manufacturer. If you experience this problem, be aware that it may 
not be you.

Aside from that, of course all the blow notes bend two semitones, so 
you've got the same job of getting used to that. You've got similar 
duplications of non-bent notes and ways to use that expressively.

The other thing is that you now have bendable high draw notes, which 
will take some getting used to. You usual attack on draw bends is 
adapted for notes much lower in pitch. Your blow bending technique is 
better adjusted for high notes, so you may be able to use elements of 
both to find the draw bends.

One way to ease into the high draw bends is to find some second-
position I-chord licks that involve BLow 6, Draw 7,8, and 9. Play 
these and work in pexressive bends on the draw notes. Try imitating 
licks you're used to playing an octave lower that involve Draw 4, 5, 
and 6.

Try playing some first position blues with bent notes in the top 
register, then work your way down to the middle register, bending the 
blow notes there the same way you do in the upper octave.

That enough for now?

Winslow