Re: [Harp-L] What am I doing?

[michael rubin <michaelrubinharmonica@xxxxxxxxx>]

Tom,
Get with your non valved harps and check the pitch of your new note
with a tuner.  If you are on a C harp, is the 4 "overblow/bend" an Eb?
 Is the 5 overblow/bend an F#?  If so, you are overblowing.
Michael Rubin
Michaelrubinharmonica.com

On 2/9/10, Tom Halchak <thalchak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> As most of you know, improvement comes incrementally and so one day you are
> here and the next thing you know,  you are there.  It didn't happen
> overnight.  It's hard to put your finger on it, but there it is - you've
> gotten better (or at least something is different).
>
>
>
> So let me tell you about a three experiences over the past two months and
> perhaps some of you harmonica gurus can help me make sense of it all.
>
>
>
> After Christmas I took an eight day road trip with my wife and kids.  My
> wife and kids, how shall I say it..... are not as enthusiastic about harp
> music as I am.  So unfortunately, being in a confined vehicle with them for
> much of the trip significantly reduced my playing time.  I have found with
> golf that sometimes just putting the clubs down for a period of time will
> actually improve your game.  You get out of bad habits.  You are refreshed
> and revitalized - whatever - something feels different and better.
>
>
>
> So when I got back from our trip and went on my usual nightly walk with my
> dogs (one of my primary times to play), I noticed something different about
> my breathing technique.  There must have been something about that mountain
> air in upstate New York.  For some reason, I felt like I was creating my air
> flow from way down deep in the bottom of my lungs.  It really improved the
> tone on my 1, 2 & 3 draw bends.  I had always thought that my breath control
> was pretty good, but I do remember reading that the ability to move air in
> and out of a harp simply by moving your throat, tongue, cheeks,  etc. was an
> important skill to develop.  Perhaps I misinterpreted.  Perhaps I went
> overboard, but somewhere in there I must have gotten off track.
>
>
>
> A few weeks later, I was just goofing around and noticed that if I blew on
> the 4 and 5 holes together I could bend the tone down slightly - not a full
> half tone but enough to make a difference. (sounds like a train whistle) It
> occurred to me that if I could blow bend the 4 & 5 together then perhaps the
> reason I was having trouble with the over-blow was because I was "trying too
> hard" and forcing too much air into the hole.  I reasoned that if I was
> covering two holes and could blow bend sort of) then I should be able to
> bend a single hole with less pressure.  So I tried it and lo and behold, it
> worked!  Or so I thought.  I could produce a sound by "over-blowing" the 5
> and the 4 holes.  Additionally, the incremental changes sounded the same on
> every harp I tried this technique on.  It is not a squeal.  It is a good
> clean note, but for the life of me I could not figure out how I would
> actually use it to make music because it just seemed out of place.
>
>
>
> And then came the third part of this trilogy.  I bought a Suzuki ProMaster
> 350 half-valved harp.  All of a sudden, I could easily blow bend the 5, 4
> and 3 holes - but it is a different sound than I am getting from an
> un-valved harp.  What's more is that the notes make sense.  They fit in the
> chromatic scale.  So apparently things have come full circle and perhaps I
> am not really over-blowing on the un-valved harps at all.  But if it isn't
> an over-blow then what is it?
>
>
>
> With regard to the ProMaster - I really like this harp.  Not only does it
> make the over-blows "do-able" for me but the draw bends seem to have a much
> "crunchier" sound - even without being amplified.  It seems to me that when
> I am draw bending the 3 or 4 holes I can let a little air "leak" into a
> neighboring hole and get a little of that reed bending too.  It seems to
> compliment the main note nicely.  I'm not even sure if this makes sense but
> I am not able to get this affect on my other un-valved harps.  That said, I
> am thinking about buying some valves and experimenting with half-valving
> some of my other diatonics.
>
>
>
> I would appreciate some words of wisdom from the oracles.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
>
> Tom Halchak
>
> Clearwater, FL
>
>
>
>
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>
>
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