[Harp-L] Ghost Notes

["jazmaan@xxxxxxxxxxx" <dmf273@xxxxxxxxx>]

Have you all read Pat Missin's "Why Does Just Intonation Sound So Good?" 

http://www.patmissin.com/tunings/tun0.html

Have you read Pat Missin's "When I Play Two Notes together I often seem to hear a third note,
what's going on?"

http://www.patmissin.com/ffaq/q26.html

I wonder how many harp players striving to achieve "The Sound" have ever tried playing an
amplified just intoned harp.   

Now admittedly, the trend in harp these days seems to be towards lightning fast single note runs
and overblows.   If that's your approach then a just intoned harp is only going to hinder you.  
But if you're going for a more traditional Chicago blues sound, and most importantly if you ever
play two or more notes at the same time, you really need to listen closely to what's happening
through your amplified rig when you hit those double stops.    

If you're using a Golden Melody or a Special 20 or just about any  off-the-shelf harp other than a
Hering Vintage, every time you draw two notes simultaneously you're producing one or two
additional bum notes which sound like buzzing dirt.  Maybe you've grown so used to them that you
don't even notice them.  Or maybe you just ignore them.  Maybe you're thinking those gritty
out-of-tune notes are your amp's fault or your microphone's fault.   (You don't really need an amp
to hear ghost notes, but an amp can often make them far more apparent.)

Now please try a Hering Vintage through the same rig.  All of a sudden those bum notes are
perfectly in tune and it sounds like you've got some kind of octave doubler or harmonizer in your
rig!  Your sound is now FAT!   Maybe you can even learn to manipulate those "ghost notes" like
with the "Hush Hush" trick.

OK, I'll get off my soapbox now.  I'm only ranting because I was just listening to a recording of
two good players with similar styles using the same amplified setup.  One of them was using a
Hering Vintage, the other wasn't.  The difference was gratingly apparent to my ears.