[Harp-L] Ghost notes

[Steve Baker <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John refers to the additional notes created when playing intervals as  
"ghost notes". I prefer the term "difference notes", which I believe  
is more generally musically accepted. These notes occur naturally (at  
a greater or lesser amplitude) when playing intervals and are  
actually the note generated by subtracting the lower from the higher  
of the two frequencies involved  -  higher frequency minus lower  
frequency = difference note frequency. A neat way to use this is to  
play fifths, e.g. 2 & 4 draw while blocking 3. The difference note is  
then one octave lower than the lower of the two notes actually being  
played, so that you hear a note which is lower than any note  
available on the instrument. It can be hard to hear this  
acoustically, but playing through a hand-held mic will allow it to be  
amplified and it can sound very effective and unusual. There are  
quite a lot of examples of deliberate use of this technique on my CDs  
with Chris Jones, especially on the "Slow Roll" and "Smoke and Noise"  
albums, as well as on my CDs with Abi Wallenstein and with Dick Bird  
(I often use it to fatten up the final chord of an ending, for example).

I use the term "ghost notes" to refer to the percussive exhalations I  
play in between draw notes by breathing out while moving the harp  
slightly off my lips to create a breath noise which doesn't cause the  
reeds to sound. This is very useful for accentuating the rhythmic  
components of your phrasing and is an integral part of my style. This  
is described in detail in vols. 2 & 3 of my Blues Harmonica  
Playalongs series,

Steve Baker
steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.stevebaker.de