Re: [Harp-L] Rack players




----- Original Message ----- From: "martin oldsberg" <martinoldsberg@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 6:03 AM
Subject: [Harp-L] Rack players



"Marvin Monroe played a pair of XB40s, F and F#".
Was this done in a rack? Two harps in the same rack?

Yes. They were side-by-side but tangent to the arc made by his mouth when he turned his head. He made the ad hoc rack himself. An interesting feature of the rack is a strap that goes around his back to hold the yoke stably against his chest. The rack is made of soldered copper pipe and looks funky but works really well.

Marv is the person to tell you about his playing technique. He told me that he frequently plays crossharp in the key of C. It appeared to me that he used the F# harp infrequently. He played an impressive version of the Wm Tell Overture which is written in mostly F and Dm! His guitar is a nylon-stringed Baby Taylor.

Marv can play almost any song. His ability to remember or "feel" the correct chord on the guitar is awesome. Marv attends almost all of the Harmonica conventions and frequently runs the open-mic sessions. He is modest and unassuming but if you hang around him for a while, you learn that he is one hell of a musician.

> Every now and then I´m thinking that a half-step combo of two diatonics would be a good thing (and no, I don´t have to be told that there already is such a thing, called a chr ...)

Even though you don't have to be told about the chromatic, do you know that the Hands-Free-Chromatic allows you to switch between the C and C# reeds with only a 4mm vertical movement of your mouth?

...but I can´t get around to any workable idea of how this could be achieved. Particularly if one also is interested in amplification.

I have two tiny electret mics and my guitar pickup wired into a tiny little passive mixer that I made for myself on my rack. (My rack is attached to my guitar, not to a neck yoke). One of the mics is behind the harp and one is above it in front of my mouth for vocals. The output of the mixer goes to a Sennheiser wireless transmitter on the rack. I can walk around freely with harp, voice, and guitar all wirelessly transmitted to my amp.


Vern
Visit my harmonica website www.Hands-Free-Chromatic.7p.com







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