[Harp-L] Re: Playing the harmonica - in a *rack??

[Snaruhn@xxxxxxx]

Hello, Rebecca,

obviously, you sticked into a hornets´ nest with your remarking:

< Have there ever been any serious harmonica players who utilized a rack?
< How could one ever achieve a decent tone using a rack? >

The protest wave was only higher when the materials debate
rushed over harp-L about 10 years ago. Then only a small group
of "scepticists" (me included) defended their view point that the
shape makes the music and not the material.

Me seems that your scepticism against using a rack points
into the same direction when you misses the sound influencing
hand-cupping. 

Only Vern showed some understanding:
 
< If you refer to a rack player performing with a band, then I can see your 
< point that without hand-cupping, the tone and color can suffer a little. >
 
In this connection I´d liked to point that our "harponicas" are also
called "mouth organ" and not "hand organ". In German we have a
clear definition when distinguishing "Mundharmonika" and "Handharmonika".

Though the hands may play an important role at the blues players 
as a harp customizer I would say that the cover shape should be
the main feature to influence the sound besides the "hardware" as
Harri formulated.

Once I made a special rack for a disabled young lady who wanted
to play a chromatic by all means. She was a so-called 
"Contergan child" born with rudimentary arms and hands. Her
handicap was even more complicated because she was
right-handed but had only power in her left hand, so, couldn´t
serve the slide knob.    

I built a massive harp frame mounted on a mic tripod, removed 
the harp spring and fixed the slide knob at a long photographic
cable relase so that the poor girl could now move the slide
with her left.

I mention this only to show that a rack can also has a quite
other function than to get the hands free to play other instruments.

I hope, Rebecca, that you won´t consider this girl not to be a  
"serious harmonica player"

Siegfried