My only experience so far is with diatonic blues harps. But I am intrigued by the octave harp, thinking about trying one, to bring a different kind of folk sound into some of our band's songs.
Anyone have experience with an octave harp?
Is the Hohner Comet a decent place to start?
Last Edited by A440 on Mar 30, 2013 11:14 AM
Dave Payne bluesified Seydel Concerto is a great octave harp! Check out some of his vids and sound samples. Really neat. ---------- Greg Jones 16:23 Custom Harmonicas greg@1623customharmonicas.com 1623customharmonicas.com
A440, I have a 16 hole Hohner Comet in "C". Sweet sound and gives a twist to some country gospel tunes we do at church. Most people say it sounds like my Cajun Accordion. The only issue I have is it is not loud enough and it takes a lot of air to play it. I haven't opened it up to gap the reeds but the fact it has a double set of reeds lends it's self to take more volume of air to play. Cool trick to have in your case but I gig out and It doesn't work on a loud stage for me. Mike
When playing an Octave, do you always play both rows simultaneously, or is there a technique to use tongue blocking or lip blocking to only play the top or bottom holes?
What is the difference between an Octave and Tremolo harp?
I haven't played an octave harp (I've heard them.) For that folk concertina, I use a Huang Musette with tongue blocked octaves. It's a tremolo. (It's actually part of a two harp set, a C and a C#. The idea is, if you get really good at holding them together you can play chromatically by switching back and forth. In practice it's pretty tough. It would have been nice if it came with some connectors, like you see on bass harps, to hold them together.
