RE: [Harp-L] Irish Tunes in Relative Minor.

[Steve Shaw <moorcot@xxxxxxx>]

> Steve Shaw nicely addressed your other queries, but I'd like to reply
> to your apparently confused understanding of my statements as quoted
> below.

> I said that I can be heard acoustically - no amplification at all -
> with a large group of fiddlers. While I do also play amplified, I did
> not state that I could be heard acoustically while amplified - that
> would be something of a contradiction.
>
> The video link I posted shows me first completely unamplified, and then
> amplified, in the space of a few seconds. First, I'm playing
> unamplified (a country-tuned Lee Oskar in D) while walking across a
> stage in a large theatre while six or seven percussionists and an equal
> number of cellists play a groove (maybe some guitarists were also
> playing; I couldn't say). Someone halfway back in the theater picks me
> up up loud and clear on their cellphone camera during my unamplified
> travel. Then I arrive at a microphone, and I'm not as loud as I was
> when I was playing directly the house acoustically. While all 120
> musician were not blazing away at that moment, it's nonetheless plain
> that a harmonica can be heard acoustically over a dozen or so
> supposedly louder instruments from quite a distance!
>
> Someone else posted link a to a clip of me in a quite different
> situation where I am amplified because I'm leading a large group. I
> didn't originally post this link because, unlike the first clip, it
> doesn't show me in a truly unamplified  situation.
>
> Winslow

I mentioned playing with a little battery amp, and over the years I've become reasonably nifty with it, but there's no substitute for being your natural self in an Irish (or Scottish) session setting.   If the pub's reasonably quiet you can just play unamplified and use all the best attributes of your own tone and projection to the full.  If you play well the other musicians will often instinctively back off a little, volume-wise, to allow you to blend.  I played in some sessions in Dublin once and the area immediately around the musicians was usually quiet, much more so than the rest of the pub - a sort of unspoken rule.  You just can't beat playing unforced and unamplified.   I sometimes get this at the end of a long, noisy evening when the pub's beginning to empty.   The harmonica is a vocal-volume sort of instrument, but so is a flute, a whistle and a fiddle.  Harmonica and fiddle must be one of the best couplings on the planet!   A couple of months ago I had the privilege of playing in a couple of sessions in Cornwall with Jean Sabot from Brittany.  He will never use any form of amplification.  But he's such a mighty player that his charisma (which comes entirely from his harmonica-playing - he has no ego!) creates a sort of force-field around him that enables him to be not just well heard, but also very much appreciated!  

Steve  


http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/trad_irish_harmonica
HEAR my CD clips: http://www.gjk2.com/steveshaw/cd.htm

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