New member to your forum, haling from Lemon Grove CA. I have been playing diatonic harmonica for 10 months or so...
My current level is at "so-so living room soloist". I can entertain my two-year-old son until he declares, "No Daddy! No harmonica!"
I play primarily using tongue blocking, have my draw and blow bends in pitch and continuing to focus on tone.
Anyway, when I watch harmonica players perform I often see a lot of hand movement around the harmonica that does not seem to correlate to wah-effects or tremolo. I am curious about what exactly is going on there, specifically, are you guys shaping the tone of each note with your hands?
Likewise, when playing non-bent notes, do you adjust the cavity of your mouth to shape each tone *beyond* adding effects or texture? I don't mean making the tone full vs thin, rather shaping your mouth so that say 440Hz resonates more effectively. Or maybe that's the same thing...
Have to add how much I appreciate this forum, I have founds so many good nuggets of wisdom here.
Actually, it's a combination of ALL of the above anfd since many players these days are favoring amplified technique, too often they don't know how to learn how to shape their sounds with their hands very well. Breath control and embouchure, plus how you manipulate the inside shape of your mouth and how you use your hands, even to the individual finger are all parts of the technique. One thing 98% of beginning players will have a tendency to do is use far too much breath force in their playing and using too much of it is bad playing technique and that's something you'll definitely want to be working on. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
@harmonicanick thanks for your optimism. I will know that I have truly arrived when my 12 year old daughter asks me to play more :)
@barbequebob what are you "shooting for" when you are manipulating your mouth and fingers to shape your tone?
That is, I assume that our hands are acting as a filter or "E.Q." that can boost the bass, cut off the top, raise the middle, etc., whereas techniques like vibrato are adding additional frequency content.
Are you after a particular response as you move across the harp? For example, as you move up the harp do you progressively try to shave off high frequencies?
Sorry if this is hopelessly nerdy, my heart is music but my brain is engineering...
Last Edited by SleepingCat on Jun 13, 2016 1:39 PM
Think of doing things like forming vowels or consonants, but the manipulation is actually that's extremely subtle and when players try to teach themselves this stuff, there's a tendency to heavily over exaggerate things. Think of saying the vowels as you play and you will notice the note has a totally different color to it and then combined with how you hold the instrument and maybe keep the cup partially opened with maybe 1 finger, two fingers, etc. Most players tend to just open their embouchures just enough to get air in the instrument and little beyond that. Vocal technique is bsically what that is and vocals and harmonica are related in many ways.
You're not shaving off high frequencies, but maybe upper harmonic overtones, which is a TOTALLY different thing entirely, especially the odd numbered harmonic overtones more than anything else. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
One of the big things that impacts tone is steadiness and control of breath. When you hear a singer who sings well they have good breath support. They control their vibrato and their volume doesn't go up and down unless they want it to for dramatic effect.
There are several ways to translate that to the harp, and a lot of them are the same as they are for singing- good posture, breathing from the diaphragm, etc. Generally speaking, for the harp that means getting the harp deep into your mouth. It's easier to control how much air is getting into your harp that way.
I don't know if you've ever played any video games with this mechanic, but there is a specific kind where a little bar fill up rapidly. It's easy to time the bar when it's in the middle range but near either end it's tough. I first ran into it in a golf simulator. Harp is, weirdly, like that. You can play really lightly, but even the slightest variation will make your sound pulse unevenly. You can play really loud, but it's kind of hard to get the nuances that way, because you can't go louder when you need to. There seems to be a happy medium that's easiest to get good tone with. (There are players who manage to push both extremes well, but that takes even more practice!) I think for most people they will get their best tone playing softly but solidly.
So there you are, breathing through your harmonica instead of into your harmonica. You want your breath coming from your gut, not the back of your throat. You've got your airway all straightened out and you are playing at a good level with the harmonica deep in your mouth. How do you shape your tone from there?
You can go to your hands or to your mouth. Yes, partially cupping the harp will give you some warmth even if you don't go to a full cup. I've seen footage of SBII where he seems to be messing with the back of his harp with his fingers. I can't prove it, but sometimes it looks like he is creating a microcup for one single reed by blocking the harp in just one spot. Or maybe it's just for show.
You'll get a lot of variation with different articulations, the difference between 'Ta ta ta', 'Da da da', 'Ooo', 'Aaa'. Play around with as many different letter sounds and combinations as you can. You should notice the difference. Ta's, for instance, to me sound great for train chugging. Both Ta's and Da's make a percussive noise in your mouth but the Ta's seem to get more air to the reeds. That makes them have a little more trainy sound to my ears, while Da's are good if you want more of a pure percussive sound. (Your results may vary.)
I know when I'm going up to the high notes on a higher harp I'm more likely to tighten my cup if I'm playing acoustically to take some of the ringing off of the sound. (And I think, the opposite if I'm playing electric, since cupping basically has the opposite effect electric.)
You can create a very subtle vibrato by waving your hand in front of your harp or opening and closing your cup part way, even if you don't get anywhere close to fulling closing the cup.
And that's all before you get into the difference between tongue blocking and lip pursing (or U-Blocking, or doing whatever it is that I do in the back of my mouth to create a column of air that hits one of several holes that are exposed in my mouth!)
It can also be just for show, or to draw attention to what you are doing. If you do some nice tremolo with your diaphragm and then act like you are creating that effect by waving your hands the audience will think you are a genius! :)
Like Bob said, a lot of people use too much force. It blows out harps faster, plus it doesn't leave you as much room to shape the tone. (But again, there are always guys who are exceptions.)
Sorry nate i didn't have time to read your post. So if you mentioned this already sorry.
Winslow had a very interesting thread about shaping your hands to the frequency of each note. And how there is a point at which each not becomes much louder. This point is very small however abs different fir each note ofcourse. I will find it later if he hasn't weighed in by then.
As mostly an acoustic player I'd say that mouth, throat, breath control, how you articulate notes and hands are all important in shaping the sound of the note and how it is expressed.
Personally for me I deliberately made the decision to pursue a more "acoustic" approach to playing because being able to shape sounds with my hands is a really important part of my playing. Specifically on hands, for me there are several ways to shape sounds. For me these include but are not limited to:
1. Hand vibrato – I very rarely use this as I don't really like the sound. For me it's too close to that cowboy campfire thing, that said Sonny Boy II uses it to great effect.
2. Hand Wahs – This is a great all round technique and one everyone should learn. That kind of "talking harmonica" thing. Again Sonny Boy II use this to great effect. However this can be used subtly too, to alter the the sound of the note while playing it, but not drastically enough to produce a huge "Wah" sound. Just enough to colour the tone and create interest.
3. To affect the tone of the note – This for me is more of a combination of internal resonance with the mouth, throat, breath technique and the external system of the hands in a specific position to create resonance for tone and volume.
4. When playing on a mic the hands relationship to where the mike is located is very important in terms of delivering tone from the harmonica to the mic and shaping the sound. See the PT Gazelle clip below. (I got this tip from someone else on this forum but I forget who) - You can see that his hand position relative to the mic barely changes as he's using them to direct the sound form the harp to the mic. At the same time he's using his cup etc to shape his tone.
Here's a great video of Horton explaining his hand technique – after the clip of him playing, starting around 0:30.
PT Gazelle
On adjusting you embouchure to resonate when bending notes, I think this is vital. To get clean, full sounding bent notes, and getting bent notes to sound like unbent notes tone wise, an adjustment has to happen. This is good to know, however I wouldn't worry too much about consciously trying to implement this just yet, I think you'll find it will happen naturally as you progress. The more you play the more you will be drawn to what sounds good and will be drawn away from what sounds less good.
That said here's Steve Baker talking about resonating notes and it's effect on tone etc.
Last Edited by Baker on Jun 14, 2016 6:06 AM
I would also say it's a mix of this an that. I seldom use my hands for effect, but when I do it's either when using a mike stand or no mike.If I am using a bullet style mike then no hand effects. So a guy like big walter lots of hand work, then again I think it was de foe who played one handed if I remember correctly. Sometimes you see folks using their hands for the wah wah sound...a little bit goes a long way. Kind of like when guitarists discovered the wah wah pedal...
Last Edited by Spderyak on Jun 14, 2016 6:15 AM
I'm just curious. How many of y'alls have read Douglas Tate's little $10 books, "How To Make Your Harmonica Work Better," and "How To Play Your Harmonica Well"? Nobody ever seems to mention them or comment when I make reference to them as I have many times herein.
The late Douglas was a classic chromatic Master, harmonica technician to Larry Adler and Tommy Reilly, inventor of "Tate Ramps," World Harmonica Champion, engineer, recognized expert in firearm engraving, President of SPAH, and inventor of the "Renaissance" chromatic harmonica and the author of several books. He passed in 2005. I was fortunate to have corresponded with him via email for a couple years. He was a very kind and generous man.
Here's a nice obituary/tribute about him if you want to learn more.
The reason I ask is Douglas describes many repair/enhancement techniques people continue to reinvent and aspects of playing the harmonica that now seem to be "lost art." Both books certainly changed the way I play and work on harmonicas. And both books should be required reading for anyone serious about harmonicas.
Douglas makes significant contributions to the subject of this thread in the latter book. He describes his hand techniques as "Playing loudly, softly." He used them to play un-amplified playing with full orchestras. He felt that amplification distorted the pure sound of the harmonica he preferred. He was way ahead of his time in the world of harmonica technology. Seydel still offers his Renaissance.
Along with general aspects of using the body to pay better like proper posture and breathing, he used his hands and some concepts from the physics of sound to effectively "amplify" or extract the maximum level of sound he could produce with his instrument. He describes how he tuned the cavity formed by his hands to create a resonant chamber for the wavelength of each note he played. He would open and close his cup incrementally as he played. This was the first time I had seen the effects of Helmholtz Resonance applied to playing a musical instrument (Google it). Robert Bonfiglio is also able to be heard over an entire orchestra using hand cavity resonance.
It's a bit antithetical since we're taught to cup a harp tightly. And we think we can be heard better if we open up our cup completely. But opening up your cup only partially can make the notes seem to come from out in front of you rather than inside you. And if you cultivate the ability to find the just the right size cavity for each note, you too can be heard over an entire orchestra!
Give it a try. And do yourself a favor and buy and read and re-read Tate's books. You'll thank me later. Money and time well spent! (Make your Harmonica Work Better is now under $5).
Michelle
---------- SilverWing Leather - Custom leather creations for musicians and other eccentrics.
Last Edited by mlefree on Jun 14, 2016 12:52 PM
Resonance is a critical part of playing any instrument, including singing, and Steve Bakers description of how resonance affects the harmonica is excellent. It seems to me that the smaller the instrument, the more critical what you do with your internal air column is. I recently started playing the trumpet after years of playing trombone and I am surprised at how much more the trumpet responds to changes in the vocal tract than the trombone. A harmonica is much more responsive in this manner than any brass instrument.
I see you are from Lemon Grove. I am in Lemon Grove every Monday near the world famous lemon. My son has bassoon or sax lessons every Monday At Garrett's, about 100 feet south of lemon and you will frequently find me standing in from of the shop playing harp while he takes his lesson.
@STME58 that is a really cool coincidence! My daughter used to take clarinet lessons at Garret's. What time on Mondays are you usually serenading the Lemon Grove riff-raff?
