[Harp-L] Re: chrome valves and bending

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, Robert.

on a fully valved harmonica, air is direct only to a single reed. This makes it more airtight but prevents two  reeds from interacting when you bend a note.

You can still bend notes on a fully valved harmonica. This has both desirable and undesirable qualities:

1) Bending range is not limited by the lower pitched reed. For instance, Draw 4 on a standard diatonic will bend down only one semitone because that's all that separates it from the (lower) pitch of the blow reed. The same note on a chromatic may bend down as much as 3 semitones.

2) The tonal quality of single-reed bends is less complex/interesting than that of a dual reed bend because only one reed is involved

3) Single reed bends are harder to control because you don't have the stabilizing factor of two reeds cooperating to produce the bend.

By removing sone of the valves on a chromatic, you can allow certain reeds to bend as dual reed bends because air can now access both reeds of a bending pair. You give up some bending range, but make those bends more colorful and easier to achieve and sustain.

So which valves so you remove?

in a 12-hole chromatic, the holes in which the draw note is higher-pitched are:

Draw 1, 2, 3 || 5, 6, 7, || 9, 10

Note that on most chromatic harmonicas, the top octave (Holes 9-12) is often not valved anyway.

By removing the outside valves (the ones you see on the outside of the reedplate when you remove the harmonica's covers) on those holes, you'll open up access to the blow reeds when you inhale, and thereby allow the draw notes to bend down with dual-reed bends. You'll get semitone bends in Hoesl 1, 3, 5, and 7, and quarter-tone bends in Holes 2 and 6.

What about Holes 4 and 8? In those holes, the blow note is the higher note and it would only bend a quarter tone or so (like Blow 7 on a diatonic). If you want to take the trouble, you could remove the inside valves on those holes, but I'm not sure it would be worth the trouble.
Winslow
 
Winslow Yerxa
President, SPAH, the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica
Producer, the 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 Community Music School


________________________________
From: Robert Hale <robert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx" <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>; Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx> 
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2015 3:19 PM
Subject: chrome valves and bending



Hello Winslow,

I want to understand about valves and bending on a chrome.
(I watched Brendan's video for removing SOME valves to achieve bending on a chrome.)


Which valves come off and why?

Robert Hale
Serious Honkage in Arizona
youtube.com/DUKEofWAIL
DUKEofWAIL.com