[Harp-L] Ghost Notes on Harmonica



True story: I have a friend who plays guitar who is an excellent and very disciplined musician. Many years ago he had several opportunities to work with some big time acts, but personal excesses and bad habits cost him those jobs. Now, clean and sober, he teaches guitar and jams in his basement with friends for fun. But, even when just jamming for fun, he records everything and expects everyone to play the right notes.

Anyway, we're doing some rock tune in a key i don't use much and he wants me to play a particular chord. I'm not familiar enough with the names of the chords in that key anyway, so i just start blowing and drawing groups of notes in the area of the scale where I'm guessing that chord would be found. No luck. Then I play a split interval on the same part of the harp, and my guitar playing friend smiles and says "thats it!" The double stop I was playing combined with the difference tone(s) or ghost note(s) being produced to create the desired chord.

I have no idea what i did, but i do know this: Playing split intervals will produce summation and/or differential tones (what i and some others call "ghost notes") that are not actually being played and that may not even be available on the harmonica. I'm not sure if this generates a chord inversion or chord substitution, or what. But what i do know from experience is that the when playing split intervals difference tones generated combined with the notes actually being played will fit with a much wider variety of material than the chords available on the instrument will. When performing, i almost never play chords on a diatonic harmonica. i almost always use split intervals instead. I have no idea what i am doing, i just do it by ear. But it sounds great and works well with all kinds of material. Much better than the primitive chords available on the instrument.

i don't understand the physics of what happens, and, frankly, i do not have a sufficiently well developed ear to be able to identify the pitches of the ghost tones i produce. But it works.

JP





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