Re: [Harp-L] re: ten hole german...

[Mark Russillo <jruss433@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I also need to place the Chromatic deeper into my mouth and find it does improve tone, but orientation comes with time.  
   
  When I practice Blues on the 16-hole Chromatic or the 12-hole tenor, I go to the 10-hole to sort of map it out first.  Playing diatonics for so many years, I find that it helps to "ground me" to the feel  - then I can move over to the 16 or the 12 tenor and mess around with other octaves.  It has also helped me to conquer the spatial relationships between larger holes, reaching farther down the mouthpiece, etc.
   
  Admittedly, my tone is better with the 10 and I have better control, but I hope to work those bugs out in the future and transfer what I've learned to other genres of music.
   
  Mark Russillo
  a.k.a. The Rhode Island Kid
  


Jim Alciere <jim.alciere@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
  One tough part of playing a big 16 hole chromatic is getting the thing
far enough into the mouth. When you do that, the tone improves a lot.

I play electric and with the chromo I need to move the mic as I go up
and down the harp.

The repeating blow tonic still trips me up but in pop music you don't
need to make multi octave runs, you can stay put find a few holes that
work and just play a four or five note melody.

You don't need to use the button a lot and you can figure out the
pattern pretty quick. Like blues in E. You want to use the button for
the blue note on the D so you can get the Eb and you want to use the
button on the A for the blue note Bb. That's it. Kind of weird having
the E on a blow note.

With that being said, I use the same technique for tone with both
diatonic and chromo. I toungue block, warm up a little until I get
nice warm single notes and then I play. Once I've found the sound
toungue blocking, I can pucker and get the tone as well but I have to
tongue block to find the tone first.

Rainbow Jimmy
http://www.spaceanimals.com
http://www.myspace.com/theelectricstarlightspaceanimals
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