Re: [Harp-L] acoustic harp.

[Mike Wilbur <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I thought Webster played a Banjo....just kidding Tom
We should take a vote and tally it up, most acoustic players are going to use amplification 
When necessary......everyone that agrees with that analogy raise your hand. 

Mike Wilbur


> On Sep 19, 2014, at 3:24 PM, Tom Ball <havaball@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> FWIW I always figured when one thinks of "acoustic" harp, one envisions players like Sonny Terry or Hammie Nixon, DeFord Bailey or Phil Wiggins -- players who do not cup a microphone in their hands and play through an amplifier; in Willie Dixon's words, players who "play dry." And when one thinks of "amplified" harp, one envisions a player cupping a bullet mic and playing through an amp (sometimes with resultant distortion and/or added effects,) a la Chicago-style stalwarts Little Walter, Walter Horton, etc.
> 
> But "amplified" and "acoustic" are terms that can be both misleading and self-contradictory.
> 
> Most folks would define "acoustic" as "unamplified." Webster defines "amplify" as: "4. Elect.  to increase the amplitude of; to produce amplification."
> 
> But the fact is that almost no "acoustic" players ever really play acoustically, and certainly no one (after the mid 1920s) ever recorded that way. When Sonny Terry played in concert with Brownie McGhee he sat in a chair and played about eight inches away from a vocal microphone; ditto for other "acoustic" players, myself included. Yes, we're "acoustic" players, but technically we're all playing amplified, otherwise we wouldn't be using any microphone at all. 
> And when it comes to the process of recording, the only musicians who ever truly recorded "acoustically" were those who were in the studio before the 'electrical era,' which came about in the mid 1920's. Prior to that, recording musicians used crude megaphones rather than microphones.
> 
> Having said that however, I'm sure that most harp players have settled on the definitions of "acoustic" and "amplified" as they pertain to a player's approach rather than as a literal definition involving the use (or lack) of any microphone. Just MHO.
> 
> cheerio,
> Tom Ball
> Purveyor of the physically activated, wind-powered pitch approximater
> http://www.tomball.us