Re: [Harp-L] Basic overblowing question - and why overblow - long

[Pierre <slavio@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

George said:

One piece of advice I have heard is that you should be able to hit and
control both of the hole 10 blow bends before tackling overblowing.  I
do not want to discourage anyone from exploring overblows, heaven
knows, but I think it is good advice.

Good advice, but in my experience it is sufficient to be able to control the 
do 8 and 9 blow bends before tackling the 6 overblow. The 10 blow bend is 
difficult, the reed is very short and must be gapped right. I saw Carlos Del 
Junco play last night and he gave a "Harmonica 101" lesson to the audience. 
Anyway he wasn't able to hit the 10 blow bend. He had to use his backup 
harp.

The 10 blow bend is still very hard for me on the C harp, much harder to hit 
clean than the 6, and 4 overblows. Could be a gap thing though, I hate 
gapping. I have to be in a great mood to do anything mechanical on my harps.

One last thing, once you can blow bend 8 and 9, much of the task is to gap 
the harp right for overblow. This is 1/2 the battle of 'initial' 
overblowing.

There is info on Howard Levy's site on how to do the overblows, he gives 
good tricks to get started. Tinus's site is good too, look at both. See G's 
site on how to set up harps (arcing). Can't find the page.

So lets say you spend a couple of week gaping and overblowing, you will have 
it (well weakly), at least the 6 hole. Not that hard really for initial OBs, 
so what's the big deal: The big deal is being to play fluidly. Coming from a 
6 draw to a 6 OB is great. Try and do 5 blow, 6 OB, that's harder. Try 6 OB 
followed by 6B, that's hard - the hole is choked and does not want to 
un-choke (fast). Gapping and technique need to be just right to use OBs in 
many contexts.

Here is some free advice, before you overblow or even blow bend, make sure 
you are good at all basic 2nd position stuff. You should be able to do 12 
bar blues easily as chords or arpegios or as blues scales and be able to 
play tunes with bends on 1, 2 and 3 and 4 and be able to play these fluidly, 
with nice pretty tone and also with dirty tone. Also you should be able to 
play all bends in key. The first bend of the 3 draw hole is a bixxh to get 
and hold in tune with good tone. Also start on vibrato, partial chords and 
splits etc.

My point is that before you learn to play overblows and blow bends you 
should be a competent 2nd position player. Once you can play decently with a 
band in first and second position, go for the next step.

Why you say? Because IMO if you start too many things at once you will not 
get good at any of them. The exception being if you are willing to practice 
2 to 4 hours a day. Some people only play second position and do it really 
well, I wish I could do just that, that would suffice for now.

My goals have changed, I am backtracking, to fix all my second position 
weaknesses and to improve my musicality and my sound. When I am decent low 
1/2 harp player, have a decent repertoire and play cool stuff, I will move 
on to the next thing. In the meantime, I will just maintain my blow bends 
and overblows and use them sparingly.

Five or 6 months ago, I posted stuff about my initial success at overblow, 
the thread went on for a few days, various people chipped in and someone 
posted something and said: "Listening to this thread I have decided to quit 
overblows"

I think I get it now. Its about having fun with the harp and developing 
musically, not just learning techniques to show you can do it.

Hope this helps someone.

Pierre.


Addendum:

2nd position proficiency test:

This is from George Brooks, looks like a good proficiency test for a 1/2 
harp:

A night in Tunisia first few notes:

For those wanting to try the tune in seventh position, the first 9
notes are as follows:

hole 1 draw bend;
hole 1 draw;
hole 2 draw bent all the way down (a whole tone);
hole 3 draw bent down a whole tone;
5 blow;
4 draw;
hole 3 draw bent down a whole tone;
4 blow;
4 draw bend.

Now do it musically.










Pierre.
























----- Original Message ----- 
From: "George Brooks" <gbrooks1@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "Harp-L" <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2004 12:05 PM
Subject: [Harp-L] Basic overblowing question


> Michael Peloquin wrote:
>
> >6 OB gives you the minor 3rd note of the scale-
> >BLUE NOTE #1! this is the same note as
> >(1 octave below) 3 draw bent down 1/2 step
> >(1stbend)
>
> MP can really play, and he knows a lot more theory than I do (he's a great 
> tenor sax player as well; almost all of the harmonica players that know a 
> lot of music theory play another instrument, but that's a discussion for a 
> different time).  I would simply add, for those with little or no theory, 
> that the 6OB gives you the minor 3rd *in crossharp*, also called second 
> position.  This is the most commonly used position for the blues.  In 
> other positions, the 6OB fulfills different roles.
>
> Let's take a C harp as an example.  The root notes *in crossharp* are the 
> 2 draw/3 blow, 6 blow, and 9 blow (all "G").  The G major scale is G A B C 
> D E F# G.  The third note (or third degree of the scale) is B.  The 
> *minor* third is the third degree flatted by one semitone (a half step): 
> Bb.  On a C harp, this is hole 3 draw bent down a semitone, hole 6 OB, and 
> hole 10 blow bent down a whole tone (two half steps).
>
> There are two blow bends available in hole 10, a half step bend (B on a C 
> harp) and a whole step bend (Bb on a C harp).  The technique for 
> overblowing is similar to that used to play the high blow bends.  One 
> piece of advice I have heard is that you should be able to hit and control 
> both of the hole 10 blow bends before tackling overblowing.  I do not want 
> to discourage anyone from exploring overblows, heaven knows, but I think 
> it is good advice.
>
> George
>
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