I think this is as close as I'm going to get to that elusive horn sound I've been looking for. For details of the kit and set-up see the YouTube info notes. It's all there. It's not a perfect musical recording by any means, it would take all day to do it mistake-free but I'm reasonably happy with it.
It would never occur to me to pursue a "Horn" sound, and I was once a trombone player. I hear snippets of things that might give me cause to wonder, "what kind of horn is that?", but it is a short allusion. That leads me to believe you will have a very hard time maintaining the horn allusion over more than a couple of measures, but I like the tone.
there`s horn sound but no honk,vibrato is the harps doorway to fat voice if your vibrato is not connected to the harp ,than no honk. a biscuit mike and a bassman 4x10 set up wont give a player much of a "horn" sound unless he has good vibrato than there`s honk.thats why James Cotton can honk with or with out an amp or certin mike his vibrato is like a blue gospel singer...
Very enjoyable tooka! That's a great tone your heading for. A big improvement the last months, IMHO. Sure, there were some places where it could have been more assertive but you can say that about nearly all players. You're way ahead of me.
Colman coud have a point about vibrato, too. I, for one, am going to really focus on that for myself after my current little project.
Thanks guys, yes the vibrato is something that I would dearly love to conquer. I can get a bit of vibrato when I think about it but my problem id I forget once I get going. This is something I really need to get to grips with.
Anyway, I feel I make a little progress each time so hopefully it won't be too long now.
Oh! Frank. I'd love to be able to play like jodanchuhan. He has such an individual style that I like. One day :)
Last Edited by on Sep 03, 2012 12:14 PM
I would say from my experimentation with getting a horn like tone was first listening to either a big band or horn influenced blues recordings to get the feel of where and when the player or players are accenting as well as playing low keyed harps and even a G harp has the lower notes as say a bari.I try to achieve a horn like tone on T-Bone Boogie in which I play a low E/G-man B and then after soloing in my first pass on the low and then move onto the standard E on my second pass.I,m sure you,ve possibly tried this but figured I,d add.
I am a former trombone player, presently a ceremonial bugler. I like to use horn licks, guitar licks, too; but as far as a "horn sound," it's not something I would pursue. To each his own, though.
Tookax2- I hear a great improvement in your playing! It sounds like you've got it! I like to describe it as a horn like tone and not a specific horn instrument.Harp can at times sound uncannily like a horn,but I'm always aware that it is a harp. However P.T. Gazelle can sound uncannily close to a clarinet or a sax.
Little Walter's approach to the harmonica was to play it more like a sax because that was what he really wanted to play but couldn't afford one and so he basically approached harmonica like a sax player. In order to do that, you have to listen to TONS of horn players, including tons of big band jazz as well as jump blues horn players.
When listening to them, it means MORE than just playing the notes. It means being very ANAL about all the little details in how horn players play their notes, in how they shape their notes, how they fall in and out of a note, their breath control (this is VERY VERY VERY important), the dynamics of the phrasing, and that's just for starters, plus like a trumpet or trombone, how you use your hands right down to the individual fingers in order to shape the sounds.
Much of his phrasing on Roller Coaster is heavily derived from the influence of saxman Illinois Jacquet.
With harps tuned higher pitched than the key of C, the horn approach doesn't work that well, but from C and lower in pitch, it most certainly does. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Miles Davis (trumpet) would use a lot of bending technique to his notes, even relying on the blues scale for note choices and which notes to bend.
Miles always valued the blues as an important part of whichever evolution he was involved in and even tried to get back to more basic blues in his final electric period.
You can't go wrong listening to a lot of Miles - especially "Kind of Blue" session. ---------- The Iceman
Study with Dennis Gruenling online-or listen to his music and pick out what you can. His is the master of the horn approach to harmonica playing-he is steeped in the players BBQ Bob talks about,but the low key harps and his cupping technique give him a unique horn like tone-
I mostly get my best horn sounds from short bursts. That's just me. I would think that a cleaner sounding mic and amp would help, either naturally or due to settings on the amp or brand of mic, the less distortion the better. But then I guess that depends on what kind of "horn" you prefer.
Last Edited by on Sep 04, 2012 5:22 PM
Maybe we forget that "slurring" can help to reach that particular tone. If you perform a note, you let hear a shade of the adjacent (lower) note together with the current played note. That's just before "double stop".
I know alot of horn players that play trumpet, saxaphone players that play sax, and trombone players that play, well, trombone. Why is it that many harmonica players want to SOUND like other instruments rather than honing in and bettering THEIR SOUND on a HARMONICA?????!??? I just don't get it!
Ps. By the way tokatoka, this isn't a dig at you personally, but rather a general observation regarding many harmonica players. Your vid sounded great BTW
@ Tooka I know what your talking about. An example is the first time I heard Rod Piazza. I thought now that sounds like a sax! The more I listened and learned. He was taking what Little Walter did and tried to perfect it! Some of the songs that Little Walter recorded with those swopping bends must have had an impact on him in early days of playing. He seems to have built his whole style around that fat intense bend that people refer to as sounding like a sax. Getting back to the original post. This just a simple formula, but you need a tube amp with a rectifier tube and a high impedence mic. OK you have a HIz mic. Don't know about your amp? You have to find out at what point on the volume knob does it start to distort with your mic and you playing the way you normally do. Now set your amp just below that setting and try to make the amp distort! You have to play the notes from the bottom of your gut and play forcfully from your belly. It can't be from your throat and mouth area. You also have to get a tight seal. Without standing right there while your doing it it's hard to say exactly what it is, but My first guess is your just not generating enough volume with your diaphram. The note has to come from deep down in your belly and you have to open your mouth, thoat and chest up to allow it to sound big! Think of the difference between a mandolin and a acoustic guitar. The difference is the sound chamber. You are the sound chamber!
Last Edited by on Sep 05, 2012 9:53 AM
