[Harp-L] Bending and Stiff Reeds (was: Norton Buffalo Question)

[Jp Pagan <jpl_pagan@xxxxxxxxx>]

In speaking of Norton's chromatic playing, James Leo
recently said:

>
> On Mercury Blues (with Roy Rogers) there is some
incredible playing... >he has the most incredible pair
of lungs - as he is bending notes on its >stiff reeds.


i'm not one of those select few physicist or
metallurgists who happen to play harmonica, but i
think there's a misconception here. if i'm wrong,
please correct me (that means you, Winslow ;).

"stiff" reeds, as far as i know, have nothing to do
with whether or not one can bend a note on a
harmonica. when one bends a note, one does
not.bend.the.reed. 

forgive me for getting pedantic here for a second, but
i want to be sure i'm understanding/describing this
clearly: reeds produce sound by vibrating at a certain
speed (frequency) which chops up our airstream and
produces a certain pitch (a note). 

the concept of "bending" a note refers to making it
change pitch either slightly, so that it is just a
little flat or sharp, or alot, so that it becomes
another note. i can't be sure, but the term "bend" may
have come from the guitar, where one literally bends a
guitar string in order to alter the pitch of the note
(bending the string changes its tension, and it's the
tension, length and mass of a vibrating string that
determines the frequency it vibrates at, and therefore
the pitch of the note it makes. change one of the
three and you change the pitch). 

but that's a coincidence. other instruments, like just
about all the brass and woodwinds i can think of, can
bend notes. obviously, no one is bending the horn
itself (ok, Dizzie did, but that was different ;)

on a harmonica, what you "bend" is note, not the reed.
the reed simply vibrates at a different frequency,
creating a different pitch. it does so because we
essentially force it too by creating a cavity in our
bodies that resonates at some frequency other than the
fundamental pitch (horn players do something very
similar, as i understand it, to create pitches that
"aren't on" the instrument - sound familiar?). 

since a reed vibrates whether it is playing the
"regular" note or a bent note, the literal stiffness
of a reed shouldn't have anything to do with how hard
the note is to bend.

what does make a difference is that bending on a
chromatic is a single-reed action, whereas on a
diatonic it is generally a dual-reed action. for
whatever reason, it seems to be easier to do dual-reed
bends. for me anyway. at the very least, they tend to
sound alot better. also, because of the fact that
chromatics can be very leaky, it may be difficult to
create the proper resonant chamber for a bend on a
chromatic. of course, now i'm just speculating.

so... stiff reeds? bends? thoughts?

  --Jp

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