Re: AW: Re: [Harp-L] effects on tremolo harmonica

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

He starts the clip by playing the harp in single-row mode, isolating either the top or bottom row. He switches to both rows for a tremolo sound at about 00:15.

This way, he can play either single-reed bends with one reed completely by itself, or a dual-reed bend with the reed in the adjacent hole to the immediate right or left. (For anyone else reading this who may not be familiar with tremolo harps, each reed is in its own hole, with draw notes and blow notes in neighboring holes instead of in the same hole. The tremolo reeds are in a second row below the main reeds, fine-tuned just slightly higher in pitch to create the characteristic quavering tremolo sound).

While he is in single row mode, at about 0:06 he, bends the note A down. It sounds like dual-reed mode when he does the bend. As he's playing in C on a C instrument,  A is a draw note, so he's selecting a pair of adjacent holes with an A draw note and G blow note. Shortly thereafter he bends a draw D. It's too quick to say whether it's an isolated D reed or whether he's also directing air through the adjacent C blow note to get both reeds sounding the bent note. The last note in single-row mode is a held G, which he bends very slightly, with vibrato. This could be dual-reed (Blow G with Draw F) or simply an isolated G reed.

The dual-reed bend (or bends) may sound like dual reed bends to you if you're used to hearing blues players attacking the bends in a different way stylistically. But that's a matter of applying technique in aid of a particular style, not one of reeds or instrument type.

Winslow Yerxa

Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5

--- On Thu, 10/30/08, hannessch@xxxxxxxxxx <hannessch@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: hannessch@xxxxxxxxxx <hannessch@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: AW: Re: [Harp-L] effects on tremolo harmonica
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thursday, October 30, 2008, 3:42 PM

Thank you for the extensive answer, however, what I'm after is something in
the line of what you can hear in the first 
twenty-something seconds of this clip:
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=dlnvH_eRSYk - maybe I'm wrong but it
doesn't sound 
like single reed bends to me?
And, by the way, anybody knows where to get a CD from Maki Yamaguchi, the
harmonica player in the clip? Google didn't 
turn up anything ...

Greetings, Hannes Schneider
_______________________________________________
Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org
Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx
http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l