[Harp-L] Powerbender & Stuff

[Rishió Raj]

Hey People. It's been a long time since Powerbenders have been brought up,
so I'd like to share my own experience with the tuning.

I'm fairly new to the harmonica but have been practicing pretty heavily for
the past 8 months exclusively on Powerbender.  To give you and idea of my
skill level, I'm currently learning the harp with my own practices combined
with that taught at bluesharmonica.com. I've got all the bends down in
pucker and been practicing 6 positions (1,2,3,4,5,12 in pentatonic),
forwards, backwards and upside down. I've just begun my study of
Tongue-Block, which I love, and got rudimentary bends down for holes 1-8 so
far (it's just been a week). I think of myself as a passionate beginner.

I love the Powerbender. The best way I can describe it is Richter in the
bottom third, PowerChromatic in the middle, and a sort of Pentatonic scale
in the upper third. I feel like it is versatile like Richter, but easier to
wrap my head around with all holes having draw bends and no change of
breath pattern. It's great for someone like me, who's not a blues purist,
but wants a tuning that has the fundamental qualities of the blues baked
in, which transfer over in expressive ways to other styles of music.
According to Brendan Power, for common positions, one doesn't need to
overbend, but I'm not at the level to see the benefits of this factor as of
yet.

It's not all beautiful though. For one, though my initial experience with
Brendan's PowerBender brand harps were positive, the quality of his harps
ultimately let me down. The first one had a reed failure after 2 months of
heavy use, which is fine considering I tortured it by learning how to bend,
but the next one failed in 1 week of light play, which did not make me
happy. I also opened up one his harps and noticed one of the reeds had a
little piece chipped off. I guess they are marketed as low end harps so
there is no false marketing in that respect. I don't blame Brendan and I
wish him the best. He's such a great guy and I'll be forever grateful for
the work he has done for the harp community. Not to mention he's a master
on the harp. I only wish that he finds a way to make higher quality harps
under his name and he becomes a super rich and successful business man (who
drives a Porsche) that makes harps that people want and accelerates the
evolution of the harmonica. If he makes a quality harp in Powerbender (or
convinces Suzuki to offer the tuning!), I'll be among the first in line.

One plus is that you can get Powerbender harps from Seydel. I got one, but
their harps are not to my taste. I like the Suzuki Manji, so I'm having Joe
Spiers, another amazing human, build me one. I guess it's bitter sweet,
because on one hand, I'm getting the harp I want in the tuning I want
customized to the highest of standards. I can't wait for it to come in! On
the flip side, it's hard to get a mid-level priced harmonica to bang up for
the period of time I'm learning to become a better player. I have to go
straight to the top. I suppose it all comes down to money, and PowerBender
is the pricier route at this time.

I'm wondering if there are others who exclusively use an alternative tuning
and what you love about that tuning. I'm also curious, if you do use the
Richter Tuning, what do you love about it other than the fact that it's the
default tuning that comes with the diatonic harps. I see a lot of people
writing negative things about Richter, but very few about it's postitive
attributes. I'm just fascinated by tunings in general - the corridor
inbetween the people and their music! It's Powerbender all the way for me.