Re: [Harp-L] 4 Blow Reed Failures - Is it just me?

["bbqbob917@xxxxxxxxxxx" <bbqbob917@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

-- fjm <bad_hat@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Quoted from a Barbeque Bob post:

> which is the single biggest cardinal sin of harp players and a  
> problem few players are gonna want to admit to. It not only hurst harp  
> longevity, it also hurts your tone control, control of bends/overblows, kills  your 
> dynamics, and kills your agility  on the  instrument.

Taking Mr Ross's role here.  All true but one of my absolute favourite 
players just beats the heck out of his harmonicas.  Steve Guyger is hard 
on harmonicas.  He does not lack subtlety and nuance.  I'd drive a fair 
bit to see him live.  fjm

Hi,
Let me make this straight here. First of all, I am NOT bashing ANYBODY here!!!!!! Now if everyone read the original question being posted CAREFULLY before coming to this "bashing" conclusion was that 4 blow on this person's harps in D & F were constantly blowing out, and upon further careful reading, it would happen REGARDLESS of what brand/models/manufacturer it was. For too many harp players, especially diatonic players, the first thing for them to naturally do is blame the instrument (not that there are no such thing as defects, which there are, in no doubt), and then after that, go blame the gear, or the sound guy or whatever, and too often the one person they don't want to blame is themselves for their own playing technique.

Many players often have NO idea that they may be playing with an excessive amount of breath force, even more so while bending notes and often do it so hard that they literally go right to the floor of the bend, and on harps pitched higher than C, they use a shorter slot reed, and that can put more stress on the reed, especially the 4 blow in the bending process doing things this way. I know because I used to do this and once I learned NOT to do that, I stopped having problems with it. It's a far more common problem than people realize and because many players aren't around good players very often who know and won't think twice about letting them know about it, these players will just keep on doing it and the longer one does it, the more it's ingrained, the more difficult it becomes to correct and get over it, much like durg, alcohol, or nicotine addictions.

I learned a lot about this from watching one player a lot during the 70's who I got to befriend, Big Walter Horton, and I'll never forget this one time a friend of mine was with me from NYC asking him after a gig was over with how he did his intro to "Can't Hold On Much Longer." He had just packed up his harps and so I let him use my stock Marine Band and unlike how he would be with some people, he actually, minus the distortion, played it like he did on his Alligator recording, and I'm sitting exactly 5 feet away from him and he's playing it very quietly. When I got home later that night, I tried this out, and lo and behold, there it was in all its glory. I then went back to all of my recordings him, LW, both Sonny boys, you name them, and found most of the stuff reallyw asn't played very hard at all. From then on, this was the revelation, and I also blew out FAR fewer harps.

I'm gonna go back to just lurking for the time being as it seems that (even if it gets me bounced from here by the moderator) that too often gear is the main topic for the diatonic players and actual playing technique too often seems to take FAR too much of a back seat here. There are a number of really knowledgeable people who've posted in the past here like Pat Missin who now rarely ever do because of this kind of thing and at times seems like things turn into a urination contest. Too bad. Just trying to help out.

Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
MP3's: http://music.mp3lizard.com/barbequebob/

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