Liam Ward is an excellent online harmonica teacher with a big following worldwide. And a real nice guy too! Here's an interview he recorded with me at the NHL Bristol Festival last October:
That's a really interesting video, thanks Liam and Brendan. Beautiful examples of your playing Brendan. Took me back to a demonstration I watched you give in about 2000ish on the paddy richter tuning. I bought your PIMOTBH book and had such great fun learning the tunes within. I really think it improved my playing overall adding textures that I didn't have before-even for my mainly blues playing. I have many of your cd's and love them all but my favourite is the fantastic Two Trains Running. Two questions on this, if I may - What Tunings did you use? and What equipment did you use on the amplified harmonica. The tone is the best I have ever heard and at some points sounds even like a kind of Gary Numan type synthesizer. I realise the tone comes mainly from the player of course. Thanks.... Pete
Thanks for the feedback Pete. It was the first time I'd met Liam. I can see why he's such a successful online teacher, as he knows his stuff and has a warm, empathetic personality.
Re. "Two Trains Running": This album was recorded live with British Blues legend Dave Peabody in a couple of evenings in London 1995. It's one of my favourites :)
1. TUNING All tracks use PowerBlow Tuning, one I used for many years. Here it is on a C harp, blow note to the left:
You can see it's normal Richter holes 1-6; in hole 7-10 the blow is higher than the draw as in Richter, but the notes you can bend are 2nd position blows. This makes PowerBlow much more cross-harp friendly than Richter throughout the range.
About 10 years ago I stopped using PowerBlow in favor of PowerDraw and PowerBender. PowerDraw is the same as PowerBlow, but with the breathing pattern reversed in holes 7-10. This gives the harp all-draw bends:
You'll find you can play all the PowerBlow licks on 'Two Trains Running' in PowerDraw tuning. As well as its more logical regular-breath pattern throughout the harp, PowerDraw also has the advantage of being better for octave splits.
I use PowerDraw sometimes, but my personal favourite is PowerBender:
You can see that PowerBender and PowerDraw are identical in holes 7-10.
I like PowerBender better because of the 2nd Position tonic (G) being a bendable draw note in all octaves, more expressive, and the extra easy chromaticism via draw bends between holes 4-6.
2. HARP TONE No amp was used, just straight into the desk via a clapped-out Beyer ribbon mic and a cheap old distortion pedal I bought in NZ in the 1980s. I just looked it up; here's a photo:
www.locobox.com/80s/overdrive2.jpg
I found this description at www.locobox.com/80s
"These 80's pedals were sold by Aria (Arai-Boueki) and were manufactured by Evans (Uecks) in Japan. You can see in this photo that it appears Aria just bought generic pedals and put their logo on them, the same as Gig, Cutec and many other companies."
Since I started using the Korg Pandora multi-FX this pedal has been mouldering away in a box. Your comment got me thinking I should fire it up again :)
Last Edited by Brendan Power on Feb 13, 2017 6:28 AM
Thankyou Brendan for taking the time to reply in such detail to my questions regarding "Two Trains Running". Absolutely fascinating stuff, I think I will have to take the plunge and invest in some powerdraws at least!Very interesting to hear of the simple equipment you used to get that wonderful tone, though of course as the old adage goes-tone comes from the player first. I have checked out the distortion pedal links, thanks. I return time and time again to my Two Trains Running cd, an absolute blues harmonica gem. Many thanks Sir.
