Re: [Harp-L] Augmented Spanish Tuning : still anyone else playing?

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bjorn Sigurdsson wrote:
<This reminds me of something... I saw that Winslow and Hunter did Ode
<to Joy challenge a few years ago. However I was not able to listen to
<recordings posted to them (search the Internet and you will find some
<information about this), I ran in to it when I was searching
<information about Ode to Joy with harmonica because I basically had
<the same idea - that it would be a good piece to try something like
<this on. So if the recordings still exist I would love to listen to
<them. (Btw. I was pleased to find out that two harmonica players light
<years ahead of me picked the same song for the this purpose - even if
<they played it in second position on a richter short harp.)

Hi Bjorn,

The whole purpose of the Ode to Joy Challenge was to provide a test of whether a "difficult" bent note like the draw 3 double bend (B down to A on a C harp) could be played in an exposed setting without disrupting the flow of the musical line with poor intonation, noticeably different tone, etc.

In general, nobody who entered the challenge was able to make that bend perfectly transparent in terms of tone and pitch.

In other words, there are limits to what can be done with bending technique.  Or at least there were at the time.  It would be interesting to re-run the challenge and see whether something has changed.

Regards, Richard Hunter
latest mp3s and harmonica blog at http://myspace.com/richardhunterharp