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

[Rick Dempster]

The one he's playing there is an "all-in-one" I think ie no separate mouth
piece. I have one like that.
Love Kwela.
RD

On Wed, 27 Mar 2019 at 13:47, Emily Keene <esalisburykeene at xxxxx> wrote:

> 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
>