Nice one Frosty. Great....uh.....you know........TONE! And dexterity.
I'm awaiting my first powerbender A harp from Brendan. His own PowerBender line. Chinese made, but he says they're real good for the money. Looking forward to exploring its possibilities. ---------- Matthew
Enjoyed that Frosty. Nice playing. I note you play lots of Powerbenders? Is it a case of once you get used to them it's difficult to switch back to the standard diatonics? ---------- HARPOLDIE’S YOUTUBE
I use Powerbender harps when playing other music than blues. It is so much easier for me to play major and minor key melodies (pop, latin, folk, jazz) with PB harp than with Richter harp, because I can not overblow fluently. When playing blues I use mostly Richter tuning except when playing minor key blues. I find 3th and 5th positions easier to play with PB tuning than with Richter.
I have used PB now 18 months and feel that I am beginning to understand it and to use it smoothly enough, but it is also getting better all the time. It takes some time to get used to that new layout after so many years with Richter, but now I can say it is worth the practise. It has opened so many new musical doors to me that there is no getting back to use only Richter tuning. But you need to be patient in the beginning when learning the new layout. And PB added with Paddy Richter (blow 3 raised two semitones) is the most useful tuning for me.
Frosty: assuming I decide I like the PB tuning after working with it for a while, how do you get your harps tuned? Do you send your harps to Brendan for this? Do you do it yourself? Or............... ---------- Matthew
I tuned some of the first ones myself, but not very easy job for me and I had to leave hole 10 reeds in Richter tuning (too much filing for me to get it allright without damaging the reeds). After a while I ordered 7 harps (MB Deluxes) from Brendan, last autumn I bought Hohner Thunderbirds and send them and some other harps to Jim to tune to PB. I have also ordered Seydels from Seydel factory where they tune the harps in any tuning you want. Hope this helps. ---------- Frosty Homepage Frosty in Youtube
