[Harp-L] Overblow out of the box

[Michael Rubin <rubinmichael@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think one thing that is missing in the readings so far of the Howard story is that Howard could not overdraw out of the box.  Not to take anything away from Howard, the question is do harps need to be doctored or not.  To me the moral of the story is yes they do.  Overdraws produce 3 valuable notes that leave the harp diatonic without them.  As an overblow player I often find 4, 5 and 6 easy out of the box and 1, 7,9 and 10 hard.  Except for 1 blow, sounds like Howard experienced the same thing with this particular harp.  For the record, I consider myself a terrible machinist, yet in 10 minutes I can almost always gap a harp to full chromatic status.  The moral- gapping is easy enough that even I can do it.
  Michael Rubin
  Michaelrubinharmonica.com