Re: [Harp-L] Re: Seamless Overblow Challenge

[The Iceman <icemanle@xxxxxxx>]

While I appreciate these types of technical challenges, once again it feels to me like too much laboratory (a dry dusty old academicians office) to prove an ultimate point of impossibility and not enough playful musical exploration to see what can be done that sounds good.


As has been reiterated, no one is claiming the fully chromatic approach to richter-tuned diatonic harps is possible. Not every note will always sound same timbre/pitch control like every other note. Someone wisely posted if this was the goal, stick to piano. (Even pianos have notes w/false beats or hammer heads that differ in hardness at the strike zone, so even this, when put under a strong enough dusty old microscope will fail the ultimate test).




The idea is to use some OB's, notes created through bending techniques, etc, in such a way that they sound musical and pleasantly uniform enough to pull off a performance to be enjoyed by the widest general audience - not just a small panel of pundits.






-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: harp-l <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sun, Jul 24, 2011 4:39 am
Subject: [Harp-L] Re: Seamless Overblow Challenge


The problems in a fully chromatic approach to richter-tuned diatonic harp don't 
go away--they just keep being rediscovered, over and over, by young players who 
think that they will sooner or later overcome the issues of tone and timbre they 
encounter through practice and dedication.  Good luck with that.  Dedication is 
one thing, the laws of physics are another, and the laws of physics dictate that 
two sounds made using different techniques, which in turn involve different 
configurations of the mouth and vocal tract, won't sound the same.  If the 
differences happen to occur in a passage where musical expression demands that 
the notes exhibit consistent tone and timbre, it's game over.  

David Fairweather's challenge was preceded years ago by The Ode to Joy 
Challenge, which was proposed by me as a test of the musicality of altered tones 
(not just overblows, but bends too) on the harp.  Here's the challenge as 
originally worded:
*****
 Play the theme from Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" from the 9th symphony,
 starting on the draw three hole in second position, nice and slow.
 That melody in that position requires that the draw 3 hole be bent
 down a whole step.

 If you can do it in such a way that 

the note is in pitch and 
the tone and attack are the same as the surrounding notes
(and, of course, appropriate for the piece, i.e. legato), 
 then I'll agree that you've got something to talk about.
*****

Winslow Yerxa put up a website dedicatd to this challenge.  A number of people 
responded, but nobody was able to pull it off.  You can see all the results at:
http://www.geocities.ws/odechallenge/index.htm#thechallenge

I repeat that I don't see what's changed since then, except the players.  The 
musical issues remain. Years ago, Chris Michalek wrote to this list to tell 
everybody that after years of working on his overblow technique, he had come to 
the conclusion that altered notes were "weak."  What's different now?  Those 
notes are still weak.  Wishing otherwise doesn't make the problem go away.

The question isn't whether overblowing, bending, etc. are useful techniques.  Of 
course they are.  The question is whether those techniques are enough to make 
the "missing" notes on the diatonic fully usable in musical contexts where 
timbre and tuning are critically important.  The short answer is no.  That's the 
answer until either the instruments or the laws of physics change.

But it's your time and effort, man.  If you want to spend years trying to prove 
otherwise, be my guest. Just don't be upset when the laws of physics ignore you; 
it's nothing personal, and you won't be the first.

Regards, Richard Hunter

 






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