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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! > HOLDING 2 HARMONICA'S AT ONCE?
HOLDING 2 HARMONICA'S AT ONCE?
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Popculture Chameleon
171 posts
Sep 09, 2016
3:05 PM
If you keep up with Will Wilde he has a new song on his you tube page and in the video he is holding two harmonicas staked together at the same time right next to his mic? How the heck can you do that?
tmf714
2885 posts
Sep 09, 2016
4:54 PM
Dennis shows you how-


hvyj
3117 posts
Sep 10, 2016
9:45 AM
Tommy Morgan's book on diatonic has a section on holding more than one harp. It may be out of print, but it's not hard to find. Handling more than one diatonic simultaneously is a useful technique in a variety of contexts.
nacoran
9229 posts
Sep 10, 2016
2:35 PM
They do that in Asia a lot. Brendan had a video of a guy doing it. He made it look like second nature.

There seem to be lots of variations. You can pick two harps a half step apart, like a C or C# to have a fully chromatic scale available, or a step apart on the circle to switch positions on the fly, or a few notes apart. I don't do the switching particularly well but I've got one tune I start on a C harp, then switch to a D then an E. (It's sort of an Irish Jig I wrote. We go faster and higher each time through. Same pattern each time though.)

Physically I usually put one harp between my thumb and pointer and another between my pointer and middle finger on my left hand. When I switch from the first to the second harp I use my right hand to grab the third harp and swap it with the first. Someone with bigger hands could probably do it easier. I've seen people do two harps where they aren't going to be switching back right away by sort of treating it like a long harmonica. They hold the first one in the left hand and hold the other one sort of pointing up in their right until they need it, then reverse it. The moment they switch they just move over like they were going to higher notes.

The guys doing it to get fully chromatic have a tougher time though. If you are playing a C and G together you can switch back and forth and sound pretty decent without knowing much theory. If you do that on a C and C# you are going to sound like fingernails on a chalkboard.

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Nate
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First Post- May 8, 2009
mlefree
759 posts
Sep 10, 2016
7:52 PM
Tongue block and rhythm harp Master Paul Davies likes to do this. His largish hands help but he's shown me how he does it and with some work it can be done with medium-ish hands like mine.

What he does is use his left hand to hold the two harps as usual with one harp between his thumb and forefinger and then other one between his first and middle fingers.

Like this:



As he does with everything else harmonica, he makes it look easy.

Michelle

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ME.HarpDoc
190 posts
Sep 11, 2016
9:09 AM
Saw Dennis do this a couple weeks ago up here in Kingfield Maine (try and find it on a map!). I asked what he was using two harps for. He said he was playing two positions through the song, 1st and 3rd. Even though I was sitting close I couldn't tell how he was holding or when he switched other than they were one on top of the other, slightly offset, in the left hand. He asked me if I could tell when he switched, I said no. He said "that's the point". BTW he's a very approachable and affable guy.
JustFuya
948 posts
Sep 11, 2016
9:52 AM
There are many hand types and levels of finger dexterity so it will boil down to what works for you. Keep in mind that clinking them together sounds nearly as awful as banging the mic with one.

I recall a fella who fabricated standoffs or spacers for 2 harps and assembled them into one unit with long screws. Is that what you mean by 'staked together'? I believe he was selling a kit but I could be wrong.
shakeylee
572 posts
Sep 11, 2016
10:25 AM
I thought everybody did that!

I have seen it since the 70's
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Popculture Chameleon
173 posts
Sep 11, 2016
4:48 PM
justfuya please tell me you remember where that that 2 harp holder system was for sale
Harp Study
210 posts
Sep 11, 2016
6:03 PM
I've never tried one, but there is the Duoharp KWIK CHANGE. Rockin Ron's has them for $24. Might be something to look into.
shakeylee
574 posts
Sep 11, 2016
7:54 PM
I just hold one harp regular and tuck the second harp between my index and middle fingers .
That way, you can play parts of the songs in different positions,or the same position if the song modulates.
Also nice for ragtime or whatever songs that have passing chords , like an E chord when you are in D,etc
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oldtimey
1 post
Sep 12, 2016
2:42 PM


Dave Rice shows How to do Three!
JustFuya
949 posts
Sep 13, 2016
8:42 AM
PC - This is what I recall:



The spacer between them may have been my fantasy. I pictured aluminum tubing as a sleeve with minimal clearance for the screw & minimal tube wall thickness (.06-.09). Seems like a good idea for maintaining the covers' air tightness.

I think Bill Price has a smashing idea. Here is his patent:

https://www.google.ch/patents/US20130318794
nacoran
9230 posts
Sep 13, 2016
9:06 AM
JustFuya, I've done that before, even posted some pics. Only thing I did different was take the top cover off the bottom one and the bottom cover off the top one and take a third comb and put it in there backwards. At some point as a gimmick I want to take it to an extreme by bolting 12 cheap harps together that way. I'm going to call it the washboard harp.

Also, don't forget Brendan Power's slide version of this. It's got a couple different variations I think, but basically he makes an airtight mouthpiece that fits over two harps that you control with a slide.

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Nate
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First Post- May 8, 2009

Last Edited by nacoran on Sep 13, 2016 9:08 AM
mlefree
761 posts
Sep 13, 2016
9:58 AM
Yeah, Nate, Mike Will used to play a Brendan Power 10-hole CX-12 modified to have a normal diatonic on slide out and a half-step up diatonic on slide in. I forget what Brendan called it but Will (of the MyQuill diatonic reference web site) made musical hay with it.

There was also the Hering Vintage 40 that was basically the same concept. I get mine out every now and then and try again to make it playable but the darned thing just leaks like a sieve.

That Bill Price video is curious. The idea is a good enough one, and is akin to the Asian way of playing C and C# tremolos. I can see the utility of stacking two Richter diatonics. But, I've always figured that coupling two Richter diatonics like this to play chromatically (or the Power CX-10 or Hering Vintage 40 for that matter) was something of a crutch for diatonic players to enable them to play at least some songs chromatically. This begs the question, why not couple two full-scale diatonic harmonicas together? For example, some of Brendan's other 10-hole tunings, spiral tuning, etc. You could still bend to add color but you wouldn't ~have~ to bend to play a scale in several octaves. Or, you could always bite the bullet and just get a chromatic.

What I find curious is that Price patented such a simple idea of bolting two Richter diatonics together. I'm really surprised that the US Patent Office granted a patent for it. I'm also surprised that Price went to the time and expense to patient an idea, not really even a mechanism. It takes a long time, often years, to get something patented. And with that comes a lot of lawyer fees for doing official patent searches, finding and citing prior art, and putting it all in a form suitable for submission to the Patent Office.

At the end of all that the patent holder usually has something tangible to show for it. With Price, what is that besides a couple of bolts and nuts available at any "good" hardware store? I just don't get it. The only thing I can figure is that he was laying groundwork as prior art for a subsequent patent. What that might have been is anyone's guess. I do note, that the web site harmonicareinvented.com is no defunct so it must not have amounted to more than a puff of smoke.

Michelle

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Last Edited by mlefree on Sep 13, 2016 10:02 AM
JustFuya
950 posts
Sep 14, 2016
11:04 AM
I came upon Bill Price when I was researching harmonica reed mfg patents a few years back. It did seem an odd thing to patent so I researched him a bit. What I found was a decent player who was enthusiastic about his idea. Among other issues, the assembly appears to crunch the harps and that would bother me.

You can find his wesite material in one of the wayback machines:

https://web.archive.org/web/*/harmonicareinvented.com

My fingers still do the trick for me. I've used this crutch since the 70s when I started playing along with others (after 10-15 years in the shed). I am late to the OB party and still prefer the pure note in many cases. Still learning.

NATE- I look forward to seeing your Frankensteinian harp ladder. Even better would be an accompanying video of your playing it.
Iggy K.
11 posts
Mar 27, 2017
5:01 AM
Check mine solution for holding two or more harps together...

https://www.facebook.com/1422316654761772/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1501775010149269
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http://harpexplosion.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/greenbulletholder

Last Edited by Iggy K. on Mar 27, 2017 5:02 AM
Rontana
386 posts
Mar 27, 2017
6:34 AM
Pat Missin recommends just sticking a little Blue-Tack between harps. That seems the simplest way.

For some time (at least a couple of months) there's been a set of bolted-together Special 20s (used) on ebay. I wonder if that's a Bill Price model? Looks similar to the patent illustration. I've placed a link below.

I think I'd go with either the blue-tack or Iggy's magnets (I love magnets). Quick, easy, and likely quite effective

bolted harps


PS: The Harmonica Reinvented site is still up (or perhaps back up) . . . not kaput. Here's the link to that

harmonica reinvented site

Last Edited by Rontana on Mar 27, 2017 6:47 AM
dougharps
1384 posts
Mar 27, 2017
8:11 AM
I have two or more diatonics as needed by specific songs since the '90s. No big deal, just stick them between your fingers. I recall one song that was best served by my holding 3 diatonics in my hand, which was the most I could hold at a time. You cannot get a tight cup this way.

When Norton Buffalo needed 4 for the Bonnie Raitt "Runaway" solo, he just rotated through them instead of trying to hold 4 at a time.

At my first SPAH in 2008 in St. Louis a vendor was selling devices to mechanically link 4 or even more diatonics. I saw no need for such gear for my playing needs.
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Doug S.

Last Edited by dougharps on Mar 27, 2017 8:12 AM


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