Re: [Harp-L] Ghost Notes on Harmonica

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

V,

The guitar player and i were working something out before we played,  
so no tape was rolling for that.  The recordings were made on a tinny  
sounding mono cassette player with pretty indistinct sound quality  
that was placed next to the guitar amp.  i don't remember what the  
particular chord was that i couldn't get until i played the split  
interval, but i play split intervals like that all the time and it's  
not actually very hard to do, although it may take a little practice  
to play them cleanly.

Just put the tongue on the harp and blow or draw out of either side.   
Adjust so you are getting only one hole on each side of the tongue.   
Start with the 1-4 draw and 1-4 blow which are octaves.  The ghost  
notes are most powerful and pronounced playing octave stops, but are  
present for all split interval double stops.  once you can play those  
relatively clean, just move up and down the harp playing different  
split intervals and listen to the different ghost notes/differential  
tones that sound.  None are dissonant, but if BOTH notes are in the  
high end it can sound harsh, although the 7-10 blow octave sounds  
cool. Play around with it.

Now, once you're relatively comfortable playing split intervals up  
and down the harp, slide the holes of the comb inside the mouth past  
your teeth when you do it.  If you are primarily a LP player, as i  
am, it helps to have a deep embouchure to start with.  But, anyway,  
playing split intervals with the harp in past the teeth produces   
really BIG FAT smooth tone. Then,  if you lean on it hard with a  
slight almost bend and a tight cup, you'll drive the hell out of the  
mic element and speakers. So once you can play split intervals clean  
and deep, you can apply controlled air pressure (throat constriction  
actually works best) and get some pretty interesting sounds. You can  
also vary the mic cup to change texture.  Using different breath and  
mic technique, you can make the split intervals  sound very sweet and  
clean or really distorted and wild, all of which will  fit better on  
most material than the chords actually available on the harp. You've  
got to think out of the box a little and have a feel for what tonal  
texture fits with what the rest of the band is doing, but it's really  
not very difficult to do.

Btw, for grins you can play clean deep split intervals through a  
decent rotary sound unit, and you WILL sound like an organ.

If you play this stuff through some bullet mics or dirty amps, all  
you may get is a lot of indistinct dissonant shit coming out of the  
speaker(s). But using a mic with wide frequency response (like, for  
example, a 545, an Audix Fireball, SM 57 or 58, EV re 10 or 15, etc.)  
through a relatively clean to moderately gritty set up, it works  
well.   Try it.  You may be surprised.

JP



On Jan 20, 2009, at 5:44 PM, <venkyr@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> If this was recorded by someone in that room, would you mind  
> sharing with us? Thanks John!
> www.myspace.com/harpdad