[Harp-L] Re: Seamless altered notes challenge

[Steve Baker <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

One of the things that 30 years as a studio musician has made me  
painfully aware of is the differences in timbre between natural and  
altered notes and the difficulties of exact intonation on altered  
notes. I would say my technique is not bad, but there will always be  
a difference between the sound and the exact intonation I can create  
on an altered note in comparison with a natural note, especially on a  
wide bend which can produce a considerable range of pitch, or on OBs.  
I've listened to this difference countless times when recording. Some  
very accomplished players can conceal this better than others, but  
it's always detectable in my experience.

Commercial producers (as opposed to some rock / folk / indie /  
whatever producers) may on occasion want the sound and sometimes  
questionable intonation of sliding bent notes, but generally they  
don't. In my experience they never want squeaking overblows or any  
other dodgy sounds in the nice melodies they wrote. However, many of  
those who employ my services are not always very fond of the sound of  
the chrom, so I've developed a couple of ways of dealing with this  
problem on diatonics which work fine in a studio situation. Alternate  
tunings, especially major 7th, but also natural & harmonic minor, SBS  
or any of the tunings where 3-blow is raised a whole tone can be  
great. Whichever one(s) I use depends on the notes I have to play. I  
will also frequently use 2 or more harps to cover the range of notes  
required while keeping the sound of natural notes. Usually we overdub  
sequences which demand this line by line and drop in where necessary.  
It helps if you're good at playing accurate drop-ins and of course  
you need to know where the required notes are to be found on which  
harp in which tuning/key, but I've found this works pretty well and  
the listener is most unlikely to notice any trickery. Of course it's  
not going to work live ;-)

The issues of timbre and intonation on the diatonic harp are a given  
for me and I really don't worry unduly about them. As has been  
remarked, every string and fret on the guitar also sounds slightly  
different, so does it really matter? As Jerome and others have  
pointed out, music is much more than just playing in tune,

Steve Baker
www.stevebaker.de
www.european-blues-masterclass.com
www.harmonica-masters.de