[Harp-L] (no subject)

[Jonathan Ross <jross38@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Drew wrote:

"The more you know and the longer you play, the more you can hear what's
going on. "


I'm not a newbie and I have pretty good ears trained to hear minute  
differences in timbre, volume and pitch.


"A TB bend on
the 2 draw has slightly less power in it than hitting it with a pucker."


It does?  Funny, it doesn't when I play it.  I think this gets to my  
point that often people make assumptions from their own playing and  
generalize it for when they listen to old records.  Which is a  
natural thing to do.


"When I get a minute I'll post Kim Wilson's segment where he  
discusses this
and hits a few low end draws to demonstrate the tonal differences."


Which is nice, except that he knows what he's doing while he does it,  
thus if he's looking for differences or even just expecting them it's  
likely that he will create them.  It's not intentional, it will just  
happen as you play.  It's the same effect as what happens when you  
have the harp upside down and try to play and the reeds won't  
respond.  You subtly change the shape of your mouth in anticipation  
of what you will play.

I just tried a bunch of 2 and 3 draw bends, some pucker, some right  
tongue-block, some left tongue-block, some u-block.  The right-block  
and pucker sounded identical to begin with, the left-block and u- 
block were hard to control and sounded different--weaker, a bit fuzz  
with a fair amount of air loss involved in the bend.  I almost never  
use those two embouchures so that's to be expected.  Within a minute  
I had familiarized myself with them enough that all four sound the  
same (though u-block still is harder to control--which makes sense  
since it is the least used, and never used in a song or piece).  I  
also tried top-hole blow bends.  They sounded the same either way,  
and were easiest for me to control with tb, because that's how I play  
them 99% of the time.




 ()()    JR "Bulldogge" Ross
()  ()
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