[Harp-L] Marine Band surprise, and don't give up



A story that I must tell.

When I first started learning to play I bought a Hohner Special 20. I liked it alright but then a friend who played harp said, "If you're gonna play, you've got to have good equipment" and he gave me a Lee Oskar. I liked it, and bought more. I'd read that they were not good for overblows, but I was struggling with bends and decided that overblows were just for the harp gods anyway.

I've been playing a while, far too undisciplined in my approach, but making progress. I would occasionally try to overblow. Nope, just the chosen few can do it thought I. Then I discovered Adam Gussow's YouTube lessons. He mentioned the Marine Band, a harp that I've avoided because of the negatives that I've read on the internet. What the heck, I bought a couple of them.

SUTPRISE! He gave a technique for learning the overblow; draw 6, bent draw 6, keep your mouth the same and reverse the wind to a blow. I tried it and it choked. I had read that that's the first step to learning overblows. Kept trying, whoa! Some horrible sounding screeching and then, there it was. Didn't sound so great, but the pitch that I was looking for. It was an overblow.

I may be writing this too soon, I can't do it reliably yet, but I've done it a few times, with out of the box Marine Bands, which by the way seem quite playable to me, and I like the sound.

The moral of the story. Don't assume that anything is beyond you, don't give up, and don't believe everything that you read. You don't know if a harp is right for you until you try it, and if you assume that something is beyond you and you give up, you'll never get there. I'm quite delighted even if I do sound like crap. I just had to tell someone. :0)

Peace and music,
Dave





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