[Harp-L] New to list (and to harps)

["Doug Essinger-Hileman" <greypilgrim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings. I am new to both harps and this list, so I suspect an 
introduction might be in order.

My name's Doug. I am part of a family that includes my wife (also a 
presbyterian minister -- see below), three kids, all engaged as 
students at the moment, and a cat. 

For those interested, our oldest, Tom, is following in the footsteps 
of Albert Einstein, studying physics as a graduate student at 
Princeton, after graduating from the Schreyer Honors College of Penn 
State with majors in physics, math and philosophy. Our middle child, 
Beth, is studying forensics, chemistry and math at the University of 
New Haven. And our youngest is our schizophrenic, studying aerospace 
engineering and elementary education at the Schreyer Honors college 
of Penn State. If you cannot tell, I'm fairly proud of my three kids.

Professionally, I spend my time working as a presbyterian minister. 
In our most recent parish, my wife and I served as co-pastors for the 
first time in our 24 years of ministry.

My non-musical hobbies include reading (as you might tell from my 
email address, one of my favorite books is JRR Tolkien's _Lord of the 
Rings_ trilogy), sharing in the administration of an email list for 
devotees of the writings of Patrick O'Brian, particularly the novels 
of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, cooking and baking, and 
photography, bicycling, sailing and, camping (sometimes combining two 
of those three together).

My musical endeavors go back to my elementary school years, when I 
sung with my church's children's choir. In junior and senior high, I 
played the trombone, sitting first chair for all but my freshman year 
in high school. I haven't kept up much with the trombone since then, 
but learned to play the recorder as an adult and taught recorder to 
the youth of several churches. 

Considering the difficulties of carrying around a trombone while 
bicycling, sailing or camping, and a general tendency for youth to be 
uninspired to sing along with the trombone, I've thought about 
learning how to play the harmonica for years. This year I finally did 
something -- dropping a hint to the kids that I'd love to get a 
harmonica for Christmas. They obliged, along with a book of 
information and instruction. Thus, on Christmas morning, I was the 
proud owner of a Hohner No. 1896 Marine Band diatonic harp in the key 
of C. About halfway between Christmas and New Year's Eve, I went out 
and bought myself a Lee Oskar Major Diatonic harp in the key of G.

I've been practicing diligently, and believe that I've gotten fairly 
proficient at playing single notes as well as two- and three-note 
chords clearly and with fairly good tone. I've memorized (mostly) a 
couple of simple songs -- "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Twinkle, 
Twinkle, Little Star." And I'm beginning to develop a practice 
routine.

Now I've got a couple of questions. I hope you can help me along my 
journey towards becoming a harp player proficient enough to give 
myself some basic enjoyment playing for myself, and eventually 
accompanying campers (sometimes elementary age, sometimes high school 
age) while singing camp songs.

I quickly noticed that on the Hohner harp, it is very difficult to 
get good sound out of 2draw. (I'm not sure that is the correctly 
notation, but I hope you get the idea.) Instead of a good clean note, 
I get a very wispy, raspy, faint sound. I thought that this might be 
my particular harp, but I've discovered the same thing happens with 
my Lee Oskar harp, too. 

I know that this might be difficult to diagnose simply from reading 
my description, but I'm hoping someone might be able to point me in 
the right direction. Particularly, I am wondering if this is a 
peculiarity of diatonic harps, since it is common to two different 
harps, in two different keys, made by two different manufacturers, 
and I'm getting good sound out of all the other holes. Or might it be 
that the technique of drawing for holes 1 and 3-10 is slightly 
different than that for drawing hole 2?

As a second question, I'm wondering if you anyone might be willing to 
comment on the practice routine I'm developing. 

1. As it turns out that my lungs don't work quite as well at the age 
of 50 as they did when I was in high school, I'm begin with breathing 
exercises. I start with the 1 hole blow for a count of five, then 
draw for a count of five. Then I move up a hole and repeat the 
process, and continue this until I finish with the 10 hole. At that 
point, I usually take a break to fully catch my breath (the length of 
this break is shortening, so I think it is working) then repeat 
starting with 10 and ending with 1.

As I do this, I work consciously on playing just one note with good 
tone. I think this practice is working, as my tone, according to my 
family, is improving.

2. I repeat this exercise, but hold each note for a single count 
before moving up. Sometimes I am able to go up then down without a 
break to catch my breath.

3. Then I practice playing a moving smoothly from a two-note chord to 
a three-note chord and back again. (For instance, I start with the 1-
2blow chord, move to 1-2-3blow, then back to 1-2blow. Then I'll move 
to 2-3blow, 2-3-4blow, and back to 2-3blow. Repeating up and down the 
harmonica.)

4. Then I work on playing some songs.

The book I have includes arpeggios (at least, that's what I called 
them when practicing the trombone and recorder), some aimed at the 
entire range, some at low notes, some at high notes. I have begun 
adding these. And the book has a couple of practice exercises that 
are adaptations of Hanon's exercises for piano.

Does this strike you as a sound means of providing a sound foundation 
for future playing?

Also, I kinda like that Hanon exercises, but the book I have only has 
two. Is there a repository of adaptions of Hanon exercises for harp?

I think I've rambled on enough for a first post. Let me thank 
everyone in advance.

Doug