[Harp-L] Annie Raines responds fwd

[2738540@xxxxxxxx]

This from Ms Raines by way of forward.

> How are you?  I hope you're well.  We've been hanging in there, though work is
> scarce at the moment.  
> A student of mine - an excellent student, in fact - Bob Vivona, alerted me to some
> curiosity on harp-l about my rig, and I was happy to have the opportunity to respond
> through him.  Then I remembered your earlier offer to post messages from me, and I
> thought I'd take you up on it.  My interest in sharing this information has been
> heightened as I'm doing a lot more teaching these days.  I'm working on making some
> sort of instructional video though I have no particular plans for how to produce or
> distribute it.  At this point it's all in my head, as they say.
>
> So I wanted to respond to Spec20's posting to the thread, which reads: 
> "In Gary Smith's videos, Joh Gindicks books, Brian Purdy's website,  (and about a
> zillion other places), pro blues players stress the vital importance of the tight
> cup on the bullet mic.  So which is it?  It it important or not?"
>
> I think there are two meanings of the word "tight" that are being confused here. 
> One is "airtight" and the other is "tense."  One does not necessarily imply the
> other.  You can get a more airtight cup around the harp and/or mic by keeping your
> hands relaxed (and therefore fleshier, covering more space), as opposed to being
> tensed up (muscles contracted, compressed, covering less space).  I think Madcat was
> the first person to point that out to me.  
> Also, if you base your positioning around being relaxed, it's easier to tense up and
> tighten up the aperture than it is to go from being tensed up to a relaxed position.
>  The only tension you really need is just enough to keep from dropping the mic!
>
> -Annie