[Harp-L] Re: amps for beginners?

["John F. Potts" <hvyj@xxxxxxx>]

Rick,

You pose the following question:

Seriously, where is it written that a new player cannot learn good  
"chops"
and good habits while dabbling with amped tone?
***
The students I take on are all Blues players who want the nasty amped  
tone.


No harm in dabbling, but there is a real impediment to learning with  
a mic and amp set up for that nasty amp tone. Using myself as an  
example, I play a diatonic reasonably well.  Well enough that i have  
enough standing invitations from different bands to sit in that I can  
play out 3 or 4 nights most weeks if i want to and have the time. i  
also get an occasional paying gig.  Anyway, every now and then a harp  
player with a set up for that Chicago style nasty amp tone will  
invite me up to play through his rig.   When this happens, I cannot  
play as well as I am capable of playing because:

	1) I have to slow down.  16th note runs are out of the question  
since it's impossible to get clean articulation and separation  
between the notes with all that nasty distortion going on. 8th note  
runs are not impossible, but are problematic for the same reason:  
Hard to maintain articulate separation between notes played at fast  
tempo.  Not that i play fast all the time, but i can play clean lines  
with proper meter hitting bends chromatically at the same speed as a  
sax when i want to, unless i have to play through a Chicago style  
rig, where the distortion makes that sort of speed and articulation  
impossible.

	2) I can't use a full spectrum of techniques for differing  
presentation of notes and other effects to vary the tonal texture.  
Sure, a bullet mic and a distorted amp will respond to tight cup,  
loose cup and other mic handling techniques, but there are all sorts  
of subtle and not so subtle tonal effects and variations in sound  
texture i can get from a diatonic harmonica using different throat,  
breath and embouchure variations (sometimes in combination with mic  
cupping techniques) that are out of the question with a Chicago rig  
because most of the subtle changes in breath pressure employed to get  
those effects are lost in the distortion and indistinct tone  
reproduction one gets from that sort of rig.  I've sometimes been   
asked by people in the audience if I was using an "electronic  
harmonica"  because of the wide tonal and textural effects i can get  
purely with breath, embouchure and mic handling technique.  Suffice  
it to say no one has ever been sufficiently impressed to ask me a  
question like that if I happened to be playing through a bullet mic  
and guitar amp.

	3)  i can't get controlled distortion when i want it.  If I'm  
playing through a cleaner set up, I can use throat and embouchure,  
sometimes in combination with a tight cup, to get a really funky  
distorted tone when i want it.  If I use that technique with a  
Chicago style set up, all i get is a lot indistinct shit coming out  
of the amp.

	4) No dynamics. Inferior response to changes in volume produced by  
the player's breath pressure. This is one reason that volume controls  
are so popular with players who use this type of rig.

	%) No tonal variety.  A nasty amp set up gives that nasty distorted  
chicago sound on every note in every measure of every song, every  
set, all night long which make it close to impossible for the player  
to change sounds, tonal texture and moods to fit different material  
and to a certain extent also inhibits phrasing.


I've got pretty good chops. But i would NEVER have been able to  
develop that sort of technique if i had learned using a Chicago style  
nasty amp set up, because it wouldn't have allowed me to discover the  
full spectrum of what the harp can be made to do. One learns this  
stuff and how to use it through trial and error, but this type of amp  
set up makes just about every sophisticated technique sound like an  
error, thereby preventing the beginning player from discovering how  
to do this stuff or even recognizing that it can be done.

A beginner should not learn using a set up that defines his tone,  
because it will inhibit his development  A set up that RESPONDS to  
what he is doing is preferable.  I acquired a good mic long before i  
ever got am amp, but, unfortunately, not everyone gets to play  
through a PA board while they are developing. What sounds good in  
one's living room. or jamming with friends in the basement, doesn't  
always work playing live, on stage in public.

if a competent player wants to use a bullet mic and an overdriven  
guitar amp to achieve a sound he hears in his head (or on some  
record) that is an informed decision and more power to him.  But if a  
beginning player learns on a rig like that, that player will never  
discover the full scope of what the harmonica (or the player himself)  
is capable of doing.

Just my opinion, FWIW, based on my 30 or so years of practical  
experience playing live, on stage, in public.

	JP