[Harp-L] Really doing it

[George Brooks <gbrooks1@xxxxxxxxx>]

Who is really playing music using overblows?  Who's really doing it?  
With apologies, I cannot go there.  I have some definite opinions, but 
any discussion of them would soon proceed to "What about [insert name 
here], why don't you think he/she is really doing it?"  And I would not 
care to reply in a public forum.

I would, however, like to share my thoughts on what really doing it 
means.  For me, it comes down to three T's:

Tune
Tone
Time.

First and foremost, you have to play your notes in tune.  Most people 
play their overblows flat and their overdraws sharp.  And a lot of 
players are shaky on the intonation of their regular bends, 
particularly the intermediate draw bends in holes 2 and 3, the hole 6 
draw bend, and the hole 10 intermediate blow bend.  If you can't play 
in tune, you're not really doing it as I define "it."

Second, the notes must all be strong.  That is not to say that all of 
the notes must have the same focus and timbre, because that is 
impossible.  Such consistency is unattainable even among the open notes 
and the ordinary draw and blow bends.  But these differences can be 
minimized to a great degree, and they must be minimized in order to 
really be doing it according to my conception of "it".   While an 
overblow will never sound like an unbent note, it can nonetheless be 
played strongly and with confidence just as a bend will never sound 
like an open note but can be played strongly and with confidence.  On a 
well set up harmonica, overblows and overdraws can be played with a 
clean attack, can be sustained indefinitely, and can be played with 
vibrato.

Finally, the techniques used in producing the various notes must be 
well enough developed and **internalized** that they do not interfere 
with the musician's time.  The hard bends (including, but not limited 
to, the overblows and overdraws) can be stumbling blocks.  In playing a 
passage with a difficult bend, it is a common experience to be able to 
play the passage perfectly until the bend, then require a tiny amount 
of extra time to execute the bend.  Meanwhile, the music has moved on 
and the player is lagging behind...now playing out of time.  I think 
this is what Ben Felten (bless his plain-speaking soul) means when he 
says "lost rhythmic patterns."  Playing out of time is obvious even to 
people who are not sensitive to poor intonation.  It sounds bad to 
everyone.  You're not really doing it unless and until you can play 
what you play in time.

Venturing out onto thinner ice, I skate over to a fourth T:

Temerity.

This is defined in my dictionary as heedless disregard of danger (or, 
alternatively, foolish disregard of danger).  Overblows are just notes, 
but they are dangerous notes because it is easier to play them out of 
tune or to play them weakly or to "crack" them.  Many people approach 
them like they're poisonous spiders.  Hunched shoulders, furrowed brow, 
weak attack, thin tone, out of time....I have even been counseled by 
one highly respected player to carefully pick the places I use 
overblows and overdraws so that they don't stand out or weaken the 
musical line.  This I reject; it is not really doing it.  Picture the 
harmonica as a sprawling city.  Really doing it is walking fearlessly 
through all its neighborhoods, at all hours, with your head held high.

George