Re: [Harp-L] Rack players

["Vern Smith" <jevern@xxxxxxx>]

----- 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