[Harp-L] Overblows, Overdraws and the SUB-30

[Michael Rubin]

Sébastien hit the nail on the head. " Many musicians learn their instrument
by copying what other musicians play."

Since there are only so many people playing diatonic in all 12 keys, we
have few peoples' music to build our ideas on as of yet.

Remember when you first started playing cross harp?  You were bad.  You
were, admit it.  5 years later, you were great at it.  Because ALL you
practiced was cross harp and 80% of the harp you listened to was cross
harp.  You were immersed in a language and you learned it.

First and third were tougher to master.  You had to search for the tunes.
If you understood transposition you were able to take some of your ideas
from cross harp, but some of it didn't transfer.  10% of recorded harp is
in third.  9% is in first.

1% of recorded harp music is in 4th through 12 position.  That's probably
an exaggeration.  You have basically no one to copy. AND it's not like you
are focusing on learning one position for five years.  If there was 100
years of harmonica recordings and 80% of it was in sixth position and you
spent your first 5 years of learning on 6th position there would be a
legion of incredible 6th position players.  But instead, the player
striving to play in all 12 positions has to divide their attention.

So at this point someone may say, it's pointless.  We'll never get to
musicality in all 12 positions as a culture.

May I remind you of the 100th monkey.

Thousands of monkeys live on Monkey Island.  A hammer washes onshore.  No
one understands it.

Then one day, Blues Birdhead Monkey uses the hammer.  No one else
understands it.

Slowly, Turk Monkey, Theilemans Monkey, Oscher Monkey and most importantly,
not getting nearly the credit he deserves for really wielding the hammer in
a truly modern way, Scarlett Monkey use the hammer.  No one else
understands it.

Nearly thirty years later Levy Monkey uses a hammer in such a spectacular
way that no one can avoid the awareness of the hammer anymore.  All the
monkeys are watching the hammer, but no one understands it.

Little by little, despite the naysayers, 99 monkeys in all use the hammer.
The rest of the monkeys do not understand it.

Then one day the 100th monkey uses the hammer!  He doesn't teach anyone
else how to use the hammer but suddenly the entire group of monkeys
understand how to use the hammer!  Group consciousness!  Then, they very
quickly watch and learn from each other until very quickly everybody is
using the hammer in all 12 positions very musically!

I don't know how many monkeys are playing in all 12 positions yet, but it's
not metaphorically 100.  It may be soon or it may be a while, but the day
is coming.

Read this email every 10 years and see if I was right.

Michael Rubin
michaelrubinharmonica.com





On Fri, Nov 16, 2018 at 4:36 AM Sébastien Frémal <sebastien.fremal at xxxxx>
wrote:

> I would like to speak about these sentences :
> " Hats off to those who can play in all 12 keys on one harp, but unless one
> is really really good at it, in my opinion, some of the musicality is
> lost. There are only so many Howard Levys and Sandy Weltmans in the
> world. "
>
> Once you can play overnotes, it's like learning to play in second
> positions, you have to get use to play in all 12 major and minor keys (I
> work I'm currently executing). Most musicians learn these stuff with their
> instruments. Traditionally, harmonica was built to be played diatonically.
> Bluesmen added some notes to play the blues with the instrument. And since
> the generation of Levy and Ricci, we learned that overnotes are reachable
> once the harmonica is properly set up. For me, having the 4 distinct notes
> on the 3rd hole at the right pitch is much more challenging than having any
> overblow (on a C harmonica ;) ). But :
> 1) Musicians really follows the traditions. Many musicians learn their
> instrument by copying what other musicians play. They learn the instrument
> with a teacher who teaches what he learned. If there are few harmonicists
> playing overnotes, few new players will learn overnotes.
> 2) The public like to hear what they know. I know a player who can play
> overnotes and who was working on jazz projects but he stopped cause it's
> much more easy to get gig if you play the blues with the harmonica. And he
> had to eat. So he made the math. People are generally not interested in new
> things.
>
> Also, there are many people playing overnotes. Maybe more in Europe and in
> Brazil than in America ? But it's just like I said, people just don't care.
> When you talk about the harmonica, you want bluesy stuff. When you play
> overnotes, it's mostly to play jazz (Charlier, Peyrelevade, Massolo...) or
> bossa (Rego)... That's the kind of music harmonicists will not necessarily
> listen to. So you have :
> 1) Harmonicists who could be interested by the technic, but are not really
> interested by the music genre.
> 2) People interested by the music genre who think that the harmonica is
> diatonic and can only play blues and who won't think that you can really
> play other things with the instrument.
> So harmonicists playing overnotes are generally not world-wide famous. If
> you get nation-wide famous, that's already a huge achievement.
> I play overnotes and I thought at start that there were not many people
> playing overnotes, but I keep discovering many players, all around the
> world, most of them having 20-30 years, who grew up with role models like
> Ricci, Levys, Charlier, Massolo and who learned overnotes and who can play
> some crazy jazz stuff. The new generation will be much more jazzy than the
> current one. Everything evolves slowly, but it evolves :)
>
> Sebastien
>
> *S. Frémal*
>
>
> *Harmoniciste*
>
>
>
> *www.sebastienfremal.com <http://www.sebastienfremal.com>0495/14.85.07*
>
>
> <
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>
> Le jeu. 15 nov. 2018 à 22:24, Tom Halchak <info at xxxxx> a
> écrit :
>
> > I am hardly an expert on harmonica theory but it seems to me that most
> who
> > use overblows and overdraws extensively still prefer to play in 1st, 2nd
> or
> > 3rd positions and use the OB/ODs to duplicate licks in the upper
> register.
> > Hats off to those who can play in all 12 keys on one harp, but unless one
> > is really really good at it, in my opinion, some of the musicality is
> > lost.  There are only so many Howard Levys and Sandy Weltmans in the
> world.
> >
> >
> >
> > Regarding the SUB-30, for those of you who still have an interest, I am
> one
> > of only a couple of guys who still work on them.  Burke Treishmann is
> > another.  Brendan could if he wanted to, but he has moved on to bigger
> and
> > better things – times 100.  I partnered with Brendan to make a custom
> comb
> > when the SUB-30 was first introduced in 2012 and I later developed what I
> > dubbed the External Valve Plate (EVP) which was an improvement on
> Brendan’s
> > Over-Valve Plate.  In the past two years I have upgraded both the custom
> > comb and the EVP.  I guess you can call them Version 2.0.  The
> improvements
> > evolved as more customized SUB-30s were put into the hands of players
> and I
> > received feedback.  Burke and I have been working pretty closely on the
> > continued progress.  He has been using my combs and valve plates and at
> > this point, with the precision components and expert reed work, the
> SUB-30
> > is a viable instrument.  As many have said, it was a great idea poorly
> > executed by Suzuki, but the development of aftermarket components and
> > custom reed work have kept it alive.  If you are interested, you can
> check
> > it out on my website.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> https://bluemoonharmonicas.com/collections/suzuki-sub-30-harmonicas-and-components
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > *Tom Halchak*
> > *Blue Moon Harmonicas LLC*
> > *P.O. Box 14401 Clearwater, FL 33766*
> >
> > *www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com <http://www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com>**(727)
> > 366-2608*
> >
>