RE: [Harp-L] closed covers

["Eric Neumann" <eneumann@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

That closed cover at the top end could lend itself to that trick you describe where blowing or drawing very hard at the top (although, why you wanna do that on a chrom?) could cause those lower reeds to sound as well.

Pretty cool.

-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Pat Missin
Sent: Monday, September 06, 2004 11:25 PM
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] closed covers


Douglas wrote:

>I'm sort of coming to the conclusion that the openness of the covers is
>literally a matter of choice. It seems to me to depend on how you use your
>hands. You need a certain volume/shape/ whatever of air to get a
>resonance on a note... you get that with a combination of in/out cover and
>your hands. Closed cover/ more air in hands, open cover/less air in
>hand can give same resonance but (IMO) different tone colour.
>My experience of this is solely on chromatics where it is much more
>difficult to get good resonances on 280 style designs than 270 designs
>because of the greater volume of air under covers and therefore a more
>limited range of movement for the hands.
>This is somewhat controversial and I expect to be shot at from several
>different directions :)))

Not from this direction.

Suzuki have addressed this point with an interesting cover design for
their SCT-128. The covers are completely closed in at the back of the
instrument for about half its length, only opening in the lower range
of the harmonica:

www.patmissin.com/sct-128.jpg

They claim this makes the tone more readily shaped with the hands. I
don't know if they have plans to introduce this feature on any other 4
octave models.

 -- Pat.




_______________________________________________
Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx
http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l