Why single out overblows? They did nothing to you. They are notes on the harmonica like any other. If it took effort to play 2 draws, 3 draws, & 4 draws would you just skip playing those notes too? I want to play all of my harmonica not just parts of it. My opinion...
---------- ~Ryan
"I play the harmonica. The only way I can play is if I get my car going really fast, and stick it out the window." - Stephen Wright
Pennsylvania - H.A.R.P. (Harmonica Association 'Round Philly)
i had to look up "reconciliating". i thought i was being bashed. lol
"I want to play all of my harmonica " reminds me of burt reynolds in mystery, alaska where he helps a kid to keep his hockey blade on the ice: "you paid for the whole stick, might as well use it."
If you are bent on playing a chromatic scale (pardon the pun) why not play a chromatic harp? They sound beautiful!
Those who chose to eschew overblow notes are not luddites or lesser players or even "traditionalists." Speaking for myself, I think OBs often sound tinny compared to other well-played tones on a blues harp. Sometimes I think they are played more for the "Gee Whiz" factor than for any musical imperative.
I can play overblows. I usually chose not to, and the sound of them is sometimes grating. That's just my humble opinion. I truly don't understand the desire to squeeze a couple extra notes out of a diatonic harmonica at the expense of tone, when chromatics play the same notes so easily.
Chromatics are a completely different instrument. And, a completely well set up harp, say one made by Buddha or Joe Spiers, those overblows sound pretty darn good.
Zack, I'm sure you're right about that, but it is also true that there are compromises in any custom harp setup. Depending on your style you may have to sacrifice your strengths for the sake of overblows. That is a trade-off I'm not willing to make. Once again, it is the tail wagging the dog, it seems to me.
Yes, chromatics are completely different. They are designed to play all the notes. They do it easily and well.
Rick, i go with Zack here. I tried chromatics and didn't really like them. They are much less direct to play. They have their own distinctive tone, i want my tone though. If i wanted what i could have from a chrom i'd in fact learn to play Sax!
Overbends sound good if they're played good. I'm subscribed to Howard Levy Harmonica School, and one thing that Howard makes clear in his lessions is, that just playing them on the correct pitch is not where you should stop learning. You _can_ fill overbends with life and work on the way they sound and finally make them sound good. There are many players out there today who can do it and many more will be able to. It's just a matter of time.
"Sometimes I think they are played more for the "Gee Whiz" factor than for any musical imperative."
I would agree with that statement in a lot of cases. It seems to me that only a handful of players really use them in a pleasant musical context. A lot of people do seem to sometimes play them just to prove they can.
To me playing music is all about phrasing, tone and most importantly playing something that compliments the groove.
I'll agree with BBQ Bob on one key point: being able to groove with good solid tone, right in the pocket, is, in the overall scheme of things, much more important for a blues player than knowing how to overblow. This doesn't mean that I don't think overblows are great, even necessary, for a contemporary blues player. I do. But they're only part of the game, not the whole game or even the most important part of the game.
Creating music is the game. Groove, tone, and microtonal subtleties are three keys to creating blues music with a harmonica. So is a melodic imagination; an ability to leave space between focused phrases, rather than noodle aimlessly or substitute scales--or techniques--for melodies. Overblows need to be mastered and integrated with those elements in a way that adds something to the whole picture.
Little Walter's late-life versions of "Watermelon Man" and "Chicken Shack" aren't very good. They would have been better if he had the notes that overblowing provides. But the more important reason that they're severely lacking is that he'd lost the fire and creativity, and some of the discipline, that made him a genius earlier in his career.
The argument about why shouldn't overblowers just play chromatic harmonica rests on a logical fallacy: the idea that the chromatic notes provided by bends are somehow superior to, and more natural than, the "unnatural" chromatic notes provided by overblows and overdraws. In fact, bends, overblows, and overdraws, are all equally unnatural--you're applying pressure to the airstream in a way that gets the "opposite" reed to bear the burden of sound production. Or they're all equally natural. Draw and blow bends aren't any more naturally "there" on the diatonic harp than overblows and overdraws are. Once you've got the technique, the melodic understanding, and a harp gapped down somewhat more closely, overblows/draws are just another way of wringing interesting sounds out of a harp.
Heck, I wouldn't be surprised to find that the first blues players who started bending notes, way back when, were criticized by "traditional" harmonica players for doing something unnatural. But of course they weren't doing something unnatural. And neither are today's overblowers.
I'm sure that Stanley Clarke's way of playing funk bass--very aggressively snapping the strings away from the frets and letting them snap back against the frets--was considered terribly unnatural by some bass players when he first started doing it back in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Noise! Now it's no big deal. I see overblows the same way.
Remember when the X games debuted? That was some crazy s--t. I'm sure that there were some alpine skiiers who bridled and said, "That's not skiing!" But the arena was there. New techniques were developed; the general level of technical excellence improved. New generations followed behind the pioneers. Regular alpine skiing and ski jumping didn't disappear. But something new and indelible emerged and caught people's imagination, until a fully-fleshed out movement had emerged and began to develop its own history. Creativity in action is always a beautiful thing.
I think that's where we are with overblows.
I'm a second-generation student of Howard Levy's, BTW. It turns out that William Galison, who taught me how to OB, learned from Howard. I also took one of Howard's two-hour clinics back in the early 1990s when Rob Paparozzi set one up in NJ.
Last Edited by on Jan 30, 2010 1:01 PM
One more point deserves to be made: the world needs traditionalists. It needs laws, constitutions, classic repertoire, literary canons. Cultural vitality demands some spiritual and institutional grounding in the best that has been handed down by the past. (Rick's harp amp blog is an excellent example of this.)
And it's a good thing when aesthetic innovators are forced to justify themselves in the face of more conservative voices, voices standing up for "tradition." Sometimes innovation degenerates into mere fad. Sometimes innovation isn't sufficiently grounded in deep knowledge of the cultural past. Sometimes innovation--especially when it pretends to being the whole (contemporary) ballgame--needs to be called to account, or simply called out.
But I've read my Emerson as well as my Matthew Arnold, and I also know what all serious innovators know in their bones: that no matter how great the Great Stuff of the past may be, there's always more to come. And in order to get it, you have to fight your way past the guardians of tradition. Cultural vitality demands this. Otherwise you've got nothing more than a cargo cult devoted to dead men.
One way of doing this is by embracing the past in a different way than the traditionalists do. That's why I flog my point about Little Walter as aesthetic innovator rather than Untouchable All-Time Harp God. I think it would be a good thing if we reclaimed his spirit and paid a little less attention to the recordings he actually made. Or perhaps we should pay a different sort of attention to his recordings--asking what his specific aesthetic horizons were and how he responded to them. That might serve as a model for younger players today who want to respond to our own considerably changed aesthetic horizons in a creative way.
As Emerson wrote in "The American Scholar," (and I'm quoting very freely, "All the great authors we revere were once young men in libraries."
The great harp players of tomorrow will have to be more than footnotes to Little Walter. LW would demand nothing less.
Last Edited by on Jan 30, 2010 1:17 PM
I just lost an eBay auction for a Tombo S-50. They are laid out like a piano, with one row for the white keys and one row for the black. No slide. It went for only $26 after I went to bed. There are tons of different ways to reach chromasticity (sp? is that even a word?) You can get a 6 harp rack. Some song have lots of key changes and wide ranges. Some songs stick to the bottom 6 holes. For now I practice keeping a second harp handy! I'd love to see someone sit down and wade through all the options for a video series.
Chromatic Slideless Chromatic Bahnson XB-40 Overdrive Discrete Comb Custom Circular and other alternative tunings Multi-harp racks Discrete comb
I think it's interesting that one of the big arguments I hear is people don't like the way certain harps feel in their hands. We seem to be focusing a lot on one way harp could go foreword. There can be lots of ways.
Last year, not far into my renewed interest in harmonica, I reached Adam's youtube on overblows and how to adjust the harp for them.
Frankly I went..."huh?" I heard him playing some chromatic licks and runs and had never heard of an overblow. I didn't know it was possible outside the draw and blow bends i was already discovering....there were the rest of the notes! Seemed logical to me, although not simple to master at that early stage. It was good to know and I'm glad I stumbled onto it.
I think this has been a GREAT discussion of a topic that needed some illumination. Adam, your points in your last post are compelling. Maybe I need to listen more closely.
In case you may have missed it, I like playing devils advocate and defending an unpopular position. I don't mean to start flame wars at all. But if we all agree on everyhting all the time, this place is worthless except as a marching and chowder society. It seemed odd to me that overblows were somehow granted universal sainthood without at least hearing the dissenting opinions of me and people who feel as I do, that OBs often detract from the fullness and beauty of haunting blues motifs.
Ok Bro's i downloaded some AG JC CM Youtube vids had a look at CM Happy birthday vid i see where he's coming from will check the other Vids later,,Just one more question I'm a Toungue Blocker can this method be Done TB,,
yes, they can. I can manage a few of them tongue blocked. I find it very difficult though. Then again, I prefer to lip pure anyway, so of course I'm gonna say that.
Hi Bro Phogi,,i started out U Blocker Lip Purser Tongue Blocker Still got my Buffalo Norton DVD Bag of tricks 1 & 2,,I mention my Technic of Playing not Bagging my Brothers who Lip Pures,,Just to let persons Know many of the terms used On MBH iv'e not heard befor so to save confusion i mention i TB,, someone may have said no you can't do it TB,,i may try to do it TB and tear my hair out because i can't get the same tone,,I'm not into the who has better tone thing i had it from all angles been there done that i respect all style of playing technics TB LP UB..Thanks for your reply Bro.
"I'm just offering my opinion that they often sound out of place in traditional blues riffs."
Of course they do. But should we on the Modern Blues Harmonica forum put every riff in a museum and tell players coming along that there's no other way to do it? This is the attitude that ensures the marginalization of the diatonic harp as a musical instrument in the same basket as the Celtic harp, the mountain dulcimer or the jaws harp. OBs are difficult; the thing with the blues harp is that it doesn't take too long for an average player with less-than-intensive practise to sound like a convincing bluesman. Overbends add a whole new learning curve to the harp that you NEVER stop climbing. If you want to set up camp in the foothills, fine and good luck; just don't tell everyone going past you that the view from the summit sucks.
Adam Gussow, Rick Estrin, Jason Ricci, Kim Wilson, Chris Michalek, Steve Guyger, Howard Levy, Joe Filisko, PT Gazell, Charlie McCoy, Roland Van Straaten, Steve Baker.
My Point?
Some of these guys use overblows and some don't. It's a rich and varied world and that's what makes it interesting. Just because someone does or doesn't play a certain way (jazz, blues, country, tongue block, lip purse, etc) does not make them a bad player. Nor does it make them any less of a musician.
What it means plainly and simply is that they have a different approach to playing than someone else.
The use of whether or not to play overblows really is a pointless argument.
In time some people will use them a lot and some people will never use them. It's the same with stylistic changes in the playing of any instrument.
What you should do however is learn to play every technique you can.
Only then can you honestly make an informed decision to play in a manner that compliments the song you are performing at any given point.
Last Edited by on Jan 31, 2010 2:25 AM
I've got no problem with overblows unless practitioners of the technique tell me I am limiting myself by not using them when I play the blues.
I don't use them because that is my conscious artistic choice. It's not because I couldn't use them.
I think it's cool for people to use the technique to make music - blues, jazz, country, world... whatever. I don't think it's cool when practitioners look down on other players because they don't embrace the technique.
I know Rick tries to provoke a debate, but his method is no worse than this:
"If you want to set up camp in the foothills, fine and good luck; just don't tell everyone going past you that the view from the summit sucks."
The inference there is that if you don't OB then you're a primitive. I respect anyone's desire to master complex techniques on the harp. But let's not forget that almost any genre can be developed to a level of perfection in terms of musicality: phrasing, swing, timing, tone and a range of other areas. One technique isn't the holy grail and just because you OB doesn't mean you can hold a candle to some of the past masters in terms of any or all of those other factors.
Or maybe you can. Good luck to you!
Edit: just saw kingley's post. Right on, man!
Last Edited by on Jan 31, 2010 2:26 AM
Playing in 12 keys on one diatonic harp reminds me of a computer discussion I took part in 15 years ago, where someone wanted to edit a largish text file and wanted to know what editing software was available and someone suggested edlin, and someone replied, in theory you could use edlin, in the same way that in theory you could ride backwards on a unicycle from New York to Los Angeles.
The trick is not playing in 11th position, it's knowing what type of music is right for 11th position. In other words, all these things, overblows etc, are possible, but they are not necessarily compulsory. Discretion is what makes you a musician.
Ummm, I suppose I have a point... ---------- Kinda hot in these rhinos!
Blogward - "the thing with the blues harp is that it doesn't take too long for an average player with less-than-intensive practise to sound like a convincing bluesman."
No, it takes a lifetime. Blogward, you make it sound as if you have easily mastered the licks of Kim Wilson and Pat Ramsey and have graduated to overblows. That is silly.
Overblows are not a new shiny toy to add to your repertoire and pretend it means you are superior to all others. As I said, I discovered overblows in 1975. It is doubtless that many others discovered them much earlier. After all, I am not all that as a player.
Why do some OBers insist on insulting those of us who do not care to play overblows? I find that interesting, and very telling.
By the way.... I'm attending a blues harp seminar today that is taught by Ronnie Shellist. You know Ronnie: Sensational player, YouTube phenom, accomplished harp instructor, working pro performer.
He never overblows.
That does not mean "OB BAD! NO OB GOOD!" It means the idea that you need OBs to "improve" blues harp is silly. It is a matter of preference. OBs are not "harder" and they do not mean you are a better player. Playing OBs does not mean anything, except the player thinks they sound good in blues.
I don't, so I don't play them. No need to get your panties in a bunch about it.
That's good for him if he doesn't overblow, but hate to say it, if you don't overblow you're not innovating, which is fine. If you want to keep Little Walter alive, do it! Trust me, we need that to happen, he and the others can never be forgotten. But for the instrument to become more musical and more complete overblows are needed. Notes are notes, no matter how they are achieved.
One thing I'd like to comment on is the idea of having to sacrifice your strengths in order to play a harmonica set up for overblows.
There are a couple different player techniques for achieving an overblow, much the same as regular bends. You have an oral cavity with two openings, one at the front and one at the rear. The resonance of the mouth cavity is controlled by changing the size of the openings and the space in between, and this resonance controls the bends.
Many people will agree that a mature player will command the harmonica by using the muscles in the throat, or at least the back of the tongue, controlling the size of the opening back there. Using this mature technique (in my subjective opinion) gives the best tone and control over the harmonica, while a beginning technique of pinching the lips to bend will usually be apparent in the sound and intonation of those notes.
When approaching an overbent note, many players forget all of that and pinch the note out from the front of the mouth. Because the gap of the reed also figures into the front opening of your mouth resonance cavity, the gap will often need to be tighter (to facilitate the overbends) than what would be comfortable for the "normal" notes and bends using the back of the throat for control.
So yes, if the player technique hasn't matured to control the overbends from the throat, then its true that a "custom" harp setup for overbends will sacrifice the suitability for other styles using a mature technique to control the reeds. It worsens as you move into the lower pitches, as they become much more difficult to control with the "front of the mouth" technique.
Also forgot to mention. Learning to control overblows and overdraws using the back of the throat is a good workout for the same muscles that control the normal bends and notes, and IMO overall tone.
Kingley you misread the statement. It should read not being innovative. I don't find it ridiculous because of the fact that you're keeping away from notes you need to play scales. Everyone has done second position blues, but barely anyone has done anything else.
if you dont overblow you have less technique then those who do. if your going to play an instrument why not master it rather then limit yourself. ----------
Zack, Why focus only on OB ? If you keen on innovating, there are so may roads to take, the world is yours : rythm, harmony, phrasing, sound quality... Adding "new" notes is only one item in the field of possibilities. No darwinism in music, and no technical determinism.
As I said before, OBing only to get a blues scale in the next octave is not what I call innovation. It's only... convenient.
You are right, OB opens new roads, but musicwise they are not innovation per se. And although my taste is bending on your side, I must admit that innovating in music is not a value in itself.
"Zack, Why focus only on OB ? If you keen on innovating, there are so may roads to take, the world is yours : rythm, harmony, phrasing, sound quality."
@harpwrench: Joe, very interesting explanation of available techniques, and a valuable insight. Makes me realize how some players are able get such nice, fat non-anemic sounding OBs. Thanks for the info.
Blogward - "the thing with the blues harp is that it doesn't take too long for an average player with less-than-intensive practise to sound like a convincing bluesman."
I don't know about the "convincing" part, but otherwise this is a valid point. Once a player can play clean single notes, learns how to bend and knows what harp to use to play major key blues in second position, it's actually pretty hard to hit a really bad note. So, it's easy for someone who doesn't know what he or she is doing to pretend to be able to play.
I guess that may be part of the appeal of playing harmonica. But it is also one of the things that can give harp players a bad reputation with other musicians
"Kingley you misread the statement. It should read not being innovative. I don't find it ridiculous because of the fact that you're keeping away from notes you need to play scales. Everyone has done second position blues, but barely anyone has done anything else."
I understand what you mean Zack. However it's flawed thinking. There are many ways to be innovative within the harmonica. Playing overblows does not make a player innovative, just in the same way that not playing them doesn't. Music isn't merely about playing scales. It's about conveying thought and emotion.
To be truly innovative one has to bring something new to the table. Even if it's an old thing used in a new way. That is what makes someone innovative.
A lot of the players that I hear play overblows spend a lot of their time imitating lines played by Jason and Adam. That is as un-innovative as the people who copy Little Walter note for note.
I do think innovation is something noble to strive for, but for a lot of people it simply won't be attainable. I say this because it takes a certain mindset to truly think outside the box in a totally unique fashion. Most people who believe they really think "outside the box" are just re-quoting someone else. This is true in almost every creative field of life.
Jason can do this and think outside of the box musically in a totally unique fashion, as can Chris Michalek, so can Adam although I suspect probably not to the same degree as Jason and Chris.
Last Edited by on Jan 31, 2010 10:23 AM
@ Kingley, I think people spent time imitating Jason and Adam's lines so that they can "assimilate" the overblow technique and then innovate it themselves. This, of course, takes time and experience. This goes back to Adam's post about Bharath playing little walter perfectly. And, the amount of time and practice it takes to create something truly original and innovative is something most people aren't willing to invest to do. In that case I think it is smart to stick to home base and at least be good at that.
Zack- Do you beatbox through your harp? How about bend with a tremolo harp or a chrom or an octave harp? Are you playing circular tuned harmonicas? There are lots of ways to innovate. Be very careful: when you start to see only one route to innovation you often shut out a lot of opportunities to be truly innovative. There are so many different things you could conceivably do with a harp that no one is going to figure them all out. After you realize that it's just about which combination of things you are going to try, that fit your tastes.
"if you dont overblow you have less technique then those who do. if your going to play an instrument why not master it rather then limit yourself."
This is crap. Many guys who overblow haven't mastered other elements. A prime one being TONE. Most aren't consistent in tone and simply don't get the kind of tone we associate with players like Oscher, Wilson, Estrin etc etc.
Overblowing is a cool technique but it isn't a step beyond other techniques. It's just a technique.
"but hate to say it, if you don't overblow you're not innovating, which is fine."
Actually neither are you. Levy was the innovator. You're just a guy who learnt an existing technique.
"but hate to say it, if you don't overblow you're not innovating, which is fine. If you want to keep Little Walter alive, do it!"
If you think that's what non-overblow players are doing you need to get out more. Music is music, it's not sport.
"Why do some OBers insist on insulting those of us who do not care to play overblows? I find that interesting, and very telling."
I don't see the point of this insulting thing. If a player really believes to be superior to non overblowers just because he/she makes use of a few extra notes that shows, that he/she hasn't got the whole idea of music! How can you feel insulted by such a crank? Among all those Little Walter lovers (don't get me wrong, i love LW) i'd like to out myself as a great admirer of Rice Miller. So much power and feeling! He didn't need overblows or amps or extensive solos or custom harps to express that. So would any sane player on earth look down on him for not using all that fancy stuff? I bet the (so i recently learned) extraterrestrial Howard would not!
This is not an appeal against amps, overblows, etc.! I just an example for the fact, that it's not important _what_ you use for your music. It just matters _how_ you use it and what you get as a result.
Rick, don't get pissed by small-minded boasters who just don't understand a thing. They will never become good musicians anyway. Noolders in the best case.
For yet another example that there are areas to master beyond merely overblowing, check out Richard Hunter's comments on Harp-L about a guy playing a rack:
"Not only is this really nice--I would never have guessed that the harp was being played on a rack. Most rack players give up tone or mobility or both. This guy's sound and lines are rock-solid, which is especially remarkable given that he's playing guitar at the same time.
This guy's worth watching.
Regards, Richard Hunter"
And here's the youtube clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unfCa94pOwc
And it's a Little Walter track, which will make Zach happy!
I have no plans to innovate, but if you want to limit yourself because this technique is voodoo then whatever. They are notes, and if you can't play them all, you must substitute. I'm sorry, but a musician would want all the notes. Ev, I never stated I invented the technique, and you know what, people before Levy overblowed, you know. I am a guy who learned a technique, but it shouldn't even be considered a technique, it just should be the way to get another note. All these harmonica players are like thinking it's evil or something to overblow. That's outrageous. And, I need to get out more? I have read this thread, the people that aren't overblowing are stating they don't because Little Walter didn't. This is what I was referring to; John Popper and Lee Oskar did some quite innovative things, but guys like Mark Hummel did not, they copied Little Walter, and did some other stuff. Say what you will, but saying overblows sound bad is like a kid saying they can't play a song because their guitar sucks. If you knew how to do them, they would sound pretty good. Everyone can do what they please, but to me every not should be available to me, but as for you, if you prefer to stay in second position with no overblows that is fine. I just don't get why people need to bash the overblowers for simply doing what music is about! I dig guys like Hummel, but it's plain ignorance to base your thoughts around Little Walter, the guy died like forty-two years ago.
"I have read this thread, the people that aren't overblowing are stating they don't because Little Walter didn't"
That's simply not true Zack. I have not said that at all, neither did BBQ Bob or Ev630.
What I did say was "I personally don't use overblows when playing. I can play them and I do practice them. Just so that should I ever need them they are right there."
BBQ Bob stated "I may know how to play them but from personal choice, I rarely use them"
Ev630 said "I don't use them because that is my conscious artistic choice. It's not because I couldn't use them."
How is overblowing, to get a missing note, less legitimate than bending to get one? Is it because some players have dodgy intonation on overblows? are we to assume then that everyone hits those 3 draw bends on the money? Not to my ears.
BTW - as my recent birthday has reminded me, the 70s is 40 years ago. So if people were overblowing in the 70s it can hardly be considered a modern fad.
I think Adam covered this rather well. Bottom line for me: I like using the notes that overblows provide. If you don't, that's cool, it ain't nobody's business. I saw Sugar and Estrin live, they don't suck, and they don't use overblows.
But not using them by intent is limiting. Which can be a factor for growth. But here's a question: what instrument is like a guitar, except that the guitar left it in the dust?
The Dulcimer. Why? Because the Dulcimer is diatonic, and the guitar is chromatic. Great music can still be made on the Dulcimer, but, historically, diatonic instruments fade through time. Chromatic ones survive. If the blues harp can be played chromatically, it will survive. If not, it won't.
@Zach,
It is not ignorance to base your thoughts on someone who died forty two years ago. Or a hundred. Mark my words, someday you will know this to be true.
Many true heroes have been dead much longer, yet their music still has meaning. Ask yourself if you really want to live in a world where the phrase "that's so last week" is a legitimate insult.
