Fwd: [Harp-L] Re: Removing windsavers from chromatics

["Winslow Yerxa" <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

The gap between Bb and D is one of many awkward little spots on 
chromatic.

Toots Thielemans, arguably the most successful at integrating the 
chromatic harmonica into jazz, is pretty much a pure pucker player. 
For him the matter might have several possible solutions:

1. Play something else that avoids this leap and will sound idiomatic 
without fighting the instrument - what he once called the "look, ma" 
way of playing - a stunt to impress your mother but not musically 
valid.

2. Gliss over the Bb-C-D (all draw) scale fragment, incorporating it 
in a musical way.

3. Work your chops up to where you can make that leap smoothly 
without switching.

However, Toots is not the be-all and end-all. However succesful his 
approach may be, it is only one of many possibilities - if it were 
the only one, everyone else might as well give up.

Someone like Bonfiglio (and perhaps he'd care to weight in personally 
on this - he is a listmember) might be inclined (certainly I would) 
to use double embouchure, playing the Bb on the left side side and 
the D on the right, switching back and forth as the situation 
required.

However, I've noticed that at first, there is a tendency use the 
technique in a fussy way, inserting these corner switches at every 
possible spot where there might be a leap, however mild the bump in 
the road might be. Later on I decide it's too much fuss and 
complication, and instead start using one side (not necessarily the 
right) for longs passages that may include some leaps, leaving the 
switches only for the more drastic leaps or series of rapid back-and-
forth alternations.

Winslow

--- In harp-l-archives@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Jonathan Hill 
<jonathan.f.hill@xxxx> wrote:
Thanks to those who've responded so far to my questions about
windsavers. I actually have a performance coming up in a couple of
weeks, so maybe I won't mess with it for now.

More questions about the chro, though:

I'm finding myself becoming more and more serious about the instrument
(harmonica in general, not just the chromatic) and really want to
learn to play some jazz using sax-like lines on both instruments. To
that end, I'm practicing my arpeggios and noticed on my C chromatic
that a B-flat major 7th has a jump over a hole (and I'm sure some of
the others have some tricky spots, but I only really noticed it with
that particular one). So if I try to play that arpeggio with ANY kind
of speed at all, the gap in jumping that hole is pretty noticeable. Is
this one of those situations where Bonfiglio and others use the
tongue-switching method? I'm sure its an easy technique once you get
used to it, but at the present its giving me headaches trying to work
it out. As always, thanks for suggestions.
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