[Harp-L] The Only Thing That Makes Harmonica Notes Bend

[Emily Keene]

Thank you! I've been doing this for over fifty years without the vaguest
idea how, and I always thought it was air pressure and speed, but those
must be an artifact of changing the size of the tone chamber. I play a lot
of tin whistle, and the same thing applies, both for register, and for the
tuning of individual notes.  Embouchure is everything.
 Having spent some time messing about with whistles, the size (as well as
the placement) of the holes makes a big difference to pitch, even those
that are not the highest opening (or "ossus effectivus"), and I've read,
that unlike the frets on a stringed instrument, hole placement when
designing a flute or whistle is as much an art as a science, especially
when you consider what they call "forked fingerings", which are often quite
non-intuitive. Tangentially related, after WWII, a type of music evolved in
South Africa called, Kwela, with tin whistle was its primary instrument,
and the preferred instruments were made by Hohner. Unfortunately, the
fipple (mouthpiece) on the Hohner was made of red-painted lead, so
eventually went out of production. Cheers, Emily P.S. Here's a clip of
someone playing what I believe is a "Shaw" brand tin whistle on some Kwela
music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt0H3tVQk-w&list=PLVwYQvHucq7ib4-26S10oen_ZZJZDcP_t&index=3&t=0s