Re: [Harp-L] Octaves and Partial Chords

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mike Fugazzi wrote:
<I tried searching the archives for more info, but only found gear 
<posts.  I was wondering about the use of octaves and partial chords on the 
<diatonic.  Does anybody here use these in comping?  I know I can play 
<the 3blow and 6blow octave on the one chord in cross, but how else can I 
<use the harp to fill in some organ or chordal type sounds?
  
This is an interesting question.  A few Harp-L'ers have already replied with detailed discussions of partial chords, where those notes lay on the standard Richter tuned diatonic, and how they relate to various keys.  I think that to make full use of that approach, you really have to know your keys and related chords well, so the first answer to the question "how can I use the harp to fill in organ or chordal type sounds?" is: learn your scales and related chords very well.

But harmony is only part of accompaniment.  The key point to keep in mind is that when you start thinking like an accompanist, you're really thinking like an arranger--thinking in terms of how your part is reinforcing everything else that's going on to create a better overall band sound.

Other stuff to think about in this regard: 

1)  Tone.  Comping by definition is something that happens in the background, while soloing happens in the foreground.  In psycho-acoustic terms, things that are bright, hard-edged, and loud tend to be heard as being in the foreground, while things that are softer, with less distinct edges, and quieter tend to be heard as part of the background.  (That's the way it works in nature, right?  You hear something loud, clear, and bright, and you know it's right behind you...)  So when you shift from lead to comping, usually your tone needs to change too.  You can play softer (which means your tone will be less bright), you can reduce the amount of distortion in your tone, you can adjust your EQ to take out some of the highs, you can play lower on the harp, etc.  Effects pedals really can help a lot here--just turn on the chorus effect, and you're moving to the background instantly.

2)  Register.  When you're comping, something is in the lead, and it's not you.  The easiest way to bury whatever is in the lead (which is what we don't want) is to play in the same register.  To comp, you either need to get UNDER whatever's in the lead (e.g. by playing in the low end of a low harp) or ABOVE it (e.g., by playing a high-end "chicken scratch" rhythmic part, the way James Brown's guitarist might).  Either way, the point is to provide a frame for the picture that the lead (vocal or instrument) is painting--and the frame is around the picture, not on top of it.  Keep in mind also that when you move out of the range of the lead, you may be moving into someone else's space (like the guitar or bass)--so you need to think about the whole picture.

3)  Approach to accompaniment--the function that you're trying to fulfill.  The question to ask in this regard is, what does this piece--what does the sound of the band--need that it doesn't already have?  In other words, how does the harp complete the sound of the band?  The answer to that question might be something that harmonica does easily and naturally, or it might be something that requries you to add effects processing, or play only in a certain register in certain places--or even to put the harp down and pick up a shaker or a cowbell.  Anyway, if you figure out what function you're trying to fulfill with your comping, you're going in the right direction.   Are you trying to emphasize the rhythm, as per the chicken scratch example above, or lay down a big "pad" sound that functions basically as sonic mortar, or add some color to another part that's already going on (maybe with just a single note), or...?   Once I sat in with Spider John Koerner, who plays acoustic guitar and sings, and he had a lot of guitar going on; not easy to lay something on top without getting in the way.  The best approach I found that night to accompanying him was to double his bass line, which put more color into the music and emphasized the rhythm without making things too busy. 
  
4) Choice of harp.  To get the right sound at the right place in a song, you may need to change harps.  As a simple example, if the band is playing a tune in C, why not have a standard F harp and a low F in your hand ready to go?  Or a low F and a standard C?  Or whatever set of keys and tunings will give you the right sound at the right place in the song?  George Brooks once suggested to me, in regard to my piece "Blues for Charlie," that I might set up a harp with exactly the notes needed for that piece--in this case, tuning the 1 exhale reed up 1/2 step, so I wouldn't have to use a bend on the 1 inhale reed for a certain note.  I didn't go that route, but it makes sense--if you need a certain chord voicing for a certain piece, tune a harp to play that voicing!  Using off-the-shelf alternative tunings like the Melody Maker or the Natural Minor also opens up a lot of great accompaniment sounds.  In particular, these tunings allow you to play big, wide, complex chords that aren't possible on a standard diatonic.  On a Natural Minor, for example, you can play the entire range of draw notes from draw 2 to draw 6 at once as a big, beautiful, minor 7 +9 chord.   On a Melody Maker, the same notes give you a Major 7 +9 chord.  Did I mention that these chords are beautiful?  They're great for comping, because they have a lot of character and fill up a lot of space.

5)  Effects.  I alluded to this earlier, but most harp players really don't use the effects that are now available at historically low prices just about everywhere, so I'll mention it again.  Time-based effects like reverb, delay, chorus,  phase, and flange put the harp in a different space, pushing it into the background and adding tonal interest at the same time.  Listen to the Police's records, and hear how cool Andy Summers's guitar parts sound with all the chorusing, phasing, and flanging going on there--the harp can do that too!  Pitch-based effects like pitch shifters and octave doublers can add a lot of bottom or top end to the harp, and make it easier to fill in big holes in a band's sound.  Good quality multi-effects units that do all these and more can be purchased new for less than $100, and any harp player who's not working in a completely traditional style can use these effects right out of the box to achieve some dramatic changes in tone.  Blow a sustained chord on the low end of any harp with the flanger on--that's sonic mortar, man.

6)  Size.  When you play chords, octaves, etc., they fill up more space.  So you need to think about how you're going to use the big sounds to complete an arrangement--for example, saving octaves until the chorus of a song, so the big sound makes the chorus even bigger.  Effects help here too.  Play an octave with a pitch shifter set to duplicate the tones down a major 4th--holy mountains in motion, Batman, we just played a power chord!

There's more we could say about this subject, but I think this is enough to get started.  I'll look forward to reading other posts on this topic.

Regards, Richard Hunter
hunterharp.com