RE: [Harp-L] Changing the Way You Hold the Harp (long)

["MLeFree" <mlefree@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

drori hammer <drori_hammer@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> ...  I was at spah in dallas 2003 and was blown away by Phil Wiggins
> sound and realized that he was doing a lot of muting to get a
> good resonance. Phil - who is a GREAT harp player, as well as a
> nice guy - showed me how he holds the harp, making a sealed cup
> with some resonating space by actually keeping the right hand
> sealed to the CHEEK. kinda hard to describe, but the point is -
> it is hard to change old, basic habits, but I think this really
> helped me develope a nice acoustic sound, with a lot of
> variations in tone. Worth the effort
>   Hammer

Ditto on your assessment of Phil as a player and a gentleman, Drori! A true
pleasure to be around, especially if you both have harps.  Of course, it's
no small consolation if he's the only one with a harp.  8^)

The topic of hand grips is one that I've been interested in for some time,
and that interest was amplified fer sure at SPAH. The fact that hand effects
are not on the list of the many different aspects of playing blues harp that
I have been concentrating on became painfully obvious at the blues jam
circles. The caliber of the players I had the audacity to sit down with made
my lack of skill that much more obvious. Suffice it to say it was a lesson
in humility as well as superb harpsmanship. So more recently I have been
working on my own hand grip and hand effect techniques. It's really paying
off in a way that has helped to pull me out of the harmonica doldrums I'd
been in prior to SPAH. I thought I'd share a bit if what I've learned.

The SPAH jams circles are fantastic to behold, let alone to participate in.
It's a real shame that you so rarely get a chance to see even one great
player play acoustically. Not that I dislike amplified harp, it's just that
acoustic harmonica is my personal favorite style to both play and to listen
to. So, one of the things that amazed me the most at SPAH was the
opportunity to see one great player after another play acoustically in a
circle of maybe 30-40 players. Believe me, I was taking notes.

At the beginning of my learning curve I had seen only 3-4 harp players who
all used the thumb-forefinger type grip (in the hand that holds the harp,
with the other hand being the "free" or "wah-wah" hand). I assumed that that
was how one grips a harp and sorta got stuck with that grip by habit. Since
then I've seen great players like Phil and P. T. Gazell (as well as several
players at the SPAH jam circles) who use the "water cup" grip to amazing
effectiveness. I've tried that grip but it seems wholly unnatural to me plus
I am simply unable to make an effective cup. It's just not for me.

However, I realized that I could learn how to improve my own grip's
effectiveness if I understood  the water-cup grip, even if I didn't intend
to use it directly. To my way of thinking, it boils down to two factors: 1)
(and most importantly) is the completeness of the seal of the chamber you
form with your cupped hands pressing against your lips/cheeks; and 2)
maximizing the size of the chamber you are able to form with your cup and
still maintain that seal. At SPAH, Dennis Gruenling emphasized the
importance of the seal and demonstrated to a couple of us how his seal is
completely airtight. It's important to be perfectly clear here that I'm
talking about his acoustic grip. Everyone knows that you have to have a near
complete seal to get the compression/distortion you want when playing with a
mic'. I have found it really amazing how important the completeness of the
seal is for an effective acoustic grip as well. You can ~see~ the
compression and rarification that Dennis achieves inside his grip by looking
at his cheeks and the flesh of his hands as he plays. Whatever air goes in
or comes out of his lungs comes through that harp, period--no leakage around
his cheeks or his hands whatever.

As to maximizing the size of your "cup," some of us have a greater natural
advantage than others. Walter Horton and Rice Miller both had humongous
hands. Phil Wiggins has a pair of pretty good sized meat-hooks himself. Our
own Warren Bee looks like he could crush baseballs barehanded. I guess you
just do the best you can and experiment with making your cup as big as
possible without breaking that all-important seal. Whatever you do, you have
to seek and eliminate any leak around the harp, your hands, or your cheeks.
Each little leak diminishes the effectiveness of your seal and hence, your
tone and the quality of your hand effects.

P.T. also uses a water-cup grip. He has a way of cocking his right index
finger in a way that makes it almost look like it's dislocated, as it forms
a near 90 degree angle with the back if his hand. He grasps the harp inside
the crook in his index finger. That right index finger is all he needs to
hold the harp. He then uses the rest of his right hand and his left hand to
form the "water-cup" that he presses quite positively against his cheeks. I
learned two things from P.T. that I could apply to my thumb-forefinger grip.
One was that you should nearly always cup your harp to some degree. It takes
away some of that harshness some listeners complain about and makes the tone
a tad darker. P.T. holds his grip open a fraction of an inch where the heels
of his hands come together to complete his "cup." That's also where makes
his hands open and close to form his wah-wahs and where he places a
mic'--from underneath, right beneath that opening between the heels of his
hands. The other cool thing that I learned from watching the master play was
that you only need to move your hand(s) very slightly to get a nice wah-wah
effect. No need to have your hand(s) flapping in the breeze.  P.T.'s opening
and closing of his hands is almost imperceptible.

Back to Phil Wiggins...
I happen to have a picture of Phil's grip, owing to a similar situation when
it was me who was quizzing him. For want of a better place, I've posted it
on the Yahoo Groups Harp-l "Photos" page. His grip is interesting in that
the right end of his harp is cradled in the crook of the first joint of his
~second~ finger, not his index finger like P.T.'s. The left end of the harp
is nestled against his left thumb. He presses that grip against his cheeks
quite forcefully, especially at the right side as Drori says, and makes a
seal that is, like Gruenling's, "positive." I guess that holding his harp in
the crook of his second finger keeps the sharp edges inside his grip, far
enough to be away from his right cheek.

One thing that seems to be a common theme with the greats I've queried about
hand grips is the use of some surface where the hands or cheeks meet as a
"hinge." Madcat actually shaves his beard in a pattern that leaves the spot
where he clamps his hand against his cheeks clean shaven. That's the site of
his imaginary "hinge," that spot where he pivots his hand against his cheek.
Using the device of the imaginary hinge helps me control my hand motions.

Another note on hand effects, this time from the recently passed great,
Douglas Tate. Douglas points out in his book, "Play the Harmonica Well"
(which every harper should have), how your hands form a Helmholtz Resonator,
and that the size of the chamber formed can be adjusted to the base
frequency of the note being played to create a natural amplification. It
really works if you try it. You can basically tune the size of your cup to
the pitch of the note being played. Because of this effect, your cupped harp
can actually be significantly louder than your uncupped harp.

Lastly a note on the importance of timing your hand motion with the onset or
diminution of a note you play. In order to achieve maximum "wah" effect, you
need to carefully time the opening/closing motion of your hands with the
time at which you initiate or cut off a note. The opening of the hands
cannot be in perfect synchrony with the onset of the playing of a note. You
just have to play with your timing to see what I mean.

So that's my take on the all-important hand grip. Hopefully they might help
someone "grappling" with their grip. Another thing y'all might try is
putting Warren Bee's feet to the fire to extract his schweeet hand effect
secrets... You may have better luck than me.  ;^)

Michelle