Re: [Harp-L] Remarks and questions regarding Blues Harmonica for dummies

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

H, Peter.

Thanks for your posotive comments. (And by the way, I know you contacted me privately with the same questions. I've been meaning to reply but have been super busy the last few weeks.)

I"ll answer your queries below.
 
Winslow Yerxa
President, SPAH, the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica
Producer, the Spring 2014 Harmonica Collective
Author, Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5
            Harmonica Basics For Dummies, ASIN B005KIYPFS
            Blues Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-1-1182-5269-7
Resident Expert, bluesharmonica.com
Instructor, Jazzschool for Music Study and Performance


________________________________
 From: Peter Karp <pit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx 
Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2014 2:20 AM
Subject: [Harp-L] Remarks and questions regarding Blues Harmonica for dummies
 

<snip>

===PETER:

* the drawings of the harmonica layout are very uncommon where blow holes  
are shown on the bottom and draw holes on top, while the actual layout of  
the reed plates is the opposite way and all other resources I have found  
use the notation to reflect the physical layout of a harp -- in a new  
revision it would be great to have the figures reversed I think :)

===WINSLOW

I go by musical logic, not by physical reed location. I know I'm swimming against the tide, but - after careful consideration - I'll take my lumps on this.

Who cares whether the reeds are on the top or on the bottom, unless you need to tune the reed, or do something where you need to physically find the reed. When you're playing, location on the top or bottom makes no difference.

If you look at the musical arrangement of notes (and also how bending works) it makes sense to put the high notes on top, and the low notes on the bottom. For 6 out of he 10 holes on the diatonic, the draw note in any given hole is the higher note. So put the high note higher.

When you look at bending, the bends that are possible in any given hole are located in between the pitches of the blow note and the the draw note. If you put the blow notes on the top, then have the bends descending from the draw reed, you see one or two or three bent pitches dropping, and then just hanging in space with no apparent reason for them stopping where they do. The immediate connection between the draw reed and the blow reed in producing that bend is lost and obscured. Also, you see the pitch going down vertically one or two or three semitones, and then for that net pitch below, the ieye has to jump up to the top.

However, when you put the draw notes on top, the bends are located in between the two reeds that define the limits of that bend - the relationship is obvious, and the eye travels in a continuous downward sequence instead of having to jump up.

I have another reason for doing this. That is to clarify the strong relationship between the note layouts of the chromatic and the diatonic. The note layouts of their middle octaves (Holes 4-7 on the diatonic, Holes 5-8 on the chromatic) are identical. But the reed locations are completely different. Again, physical reed location is of no importance when you're actually playing the instrument. Unless I'm putting hands or work tools on a reed, I want to focus on musical relationships.

===PETER:

* The explanations of bending with the K-spot where really hard to grasp  
for me, because you write that the tounge touches the roof of the mouth  
when saying K. I said the K-consonant, but I did find that my tounge does  
_not_ touch the roof of my mouth. The tounge touches the roof when I say  
"T". 

===WINSLOW:

Then how do you make the K-sound? Trust me, your tongue does touch the roof of your mouth. When you say "T" it's the tip of your tongue doing the work. When you say "K" you're using another part of your tongue farther back in your mouth.

That said, since writing that book, I've modified my teaching on this specific element. I found that working with native speakers of such languages as Farsi and German (your native tongue, yes?) the "K" sound is produced much father back in the oral cavity than with English and French speakers.

Try this: Say "Unggggggggggungungungungung." Every time you make the "NG" part of the soud, you touch a part of your tonug eto the roof of your mouth, blocking the passage of air through your mouth and sending it into your nasal passages.

That's the part of your tongue that you raise to narrow the air passage when you bend notes in the middle register of the harmonica.

===PETER:

So I was really struggling to follow the explanations about the  
K-spot. I then found a video where someone explained bending to get  
basically happending when making a "Darth Vader" like sound (inhaling). I  
tried that Darth Vader approach and it worked and _then_ I realized that  
in fact my back part of the tounge touches the roof of my mouth. I was not  
aware of that fact, even when trying to paying attention to feel if /  
where / how my tounge touches the roof of the mouth. I think the reason  
that I did not felt this, was that normally we mainly "feel" with the  
front part of our tounge (where if I'm not mistaken) many more nerves are  
then on the back part of the tounge. After I found out that I _do_ touch  
the roof of my mouth with the back part of my tounge (more or less  
unconsciously, unknowingly) when saying K, I was able to combine the Darth  
Vader approach with the K-spot approach and therefore when using the K to  
articulate the bend note. I guess that in that experience I'm not alone  
and my "discovery" and surprise that I make things with my tounge I'm not  
aware of -- even when I'm trying to look for them -- was a great learning  
experience. In a revision of the book or addendum or somewhere else those  
observations might be helpful ot others too.

===WINSLOW:

Thanks for that observation. One thing that I've found in teaching over the last few years is that many people aren't aware of the physical sensations of usiing their tongues. Getting them to be aware of the sensations has become a bigger part of working with students, both in person and in writing.


===PETER

* One idea could be to set up a simple wiki or start a thread in Harp-L or  
MBH where one could collect experiences and discuss questions regarding  
your book? I'm currently still not sure where would be the "best" plays  
for this of the many harmonica forum (and mailing list) options.

===WINSLOW:

Good idea.

===PETER:
Last not least my questions:

1) in some figures where bend notes are shown (example: page 112, Fig.  
7-7) it's not clear why the bend notes "between" the unbent notes are  
represented with a specific area. It seems that (in the example Fig. 7-7)  
D flat (hole 1) is drawn with the full area coverage of the "bend" row,  
because there's only one bend, while (hole 2) F sharp and F share the area  
because there are two bends. But for hole 3 the area of B flat is smaller  
than the area of A. What is the meaing behind this?

===WINSLOW:

It means that layout artists didn't follow my instructions. I asked that the vertical space between each blow and draw note be divided equally so that if there were three bends, the space be divided equally into three, or if there were two bends, the space be equally divided into two, and so on.

===PETER:


2) I found that some tabs and / or sheet music in the dummies book contain  
some errors. Is there an Errata für Blues Harp for Dummies available?

===WINSLOW:

Again, another good idea. Inevitably some mistakes get through and having a publishe errata would be a good service to readers. I'll approach the publisher about doing this officially. if that's not do-able, then maybe we could come up with another mechanism.

===PETER:

3) How to create bend notes is explained in chapter 11 of the book. But  
bend notes are written in tabs much before chapter 11. I think the first  
(or at least on of the first) bend notes appear in the tabs on page 92 in  
chapter 6 when showing the first five blues riffs. It's not clear to me  
how those bend notes should be handled at this early stage of the  
learning. Also in following chapters between 6 and 11 more bends are used.  
I think there is no remark how to address this (or did I miss that?).

===WINSLOW:

Not all the early examples in the book are meant to be played right away by the reader. Rather, you're being offered examples of what you'll be aiming for, usually in the form of typical riffs and licks. I try to be clear about this but I guess I don't always succeed. 

===PETER:

I hope my e-mail posting is not too exhaustive, but as an assiduous  
beginner many questions arise :-)

Best regards from the southern part of germany
Peter

===WINSLOW:

Thanks, Peter, for your thoughtful questions and comments. 


Winslow