I have tried to play without covers a few times but my lips always end up being tickled by the vibrating reeds. That feeling almost kills me. But the idea is in fact good, so I'll give it another go.
PS.: English is not as strict as german with upper and lower case. Die Deutschen nehmen eben alles sehr genau ;)
Last Edited by on Mar 03, 2009 6:35 AM
Watching the reeds is fascinating yet hard. Someday I want the figure out exactly how air stream effects the reeds to cause them to bend and overblow. fascinating stuff.
Also to be technical, you'd want to type the title "Figuring Out the Inner Life of the Harp" -- aber die Amerikaner sich nicht. ---------- "Without music, life would be a mistake" -Nietzsche
Patrick Barker: What do you mean by "hard"? (And, thanks btw.)
Does anybody know of some studies to the whole subject? Probably this question too was already asked a dozen times...
Anyway, here are some observations from playing while watching the reeds:
When bending, the blow reed starts vibrating, gradually until the draw reed is silenced and only the blow reed vibrates. The vibration of the blow reed (when bending) is different to the blow reed vibration when blowing as it somehow bends down into the comb (instead of vibrating around the 0-line(?)).
When overblowing the draw reed vibrates with a smaller amplitude (then while drawing). When bending the overblow the amplitude gradually gets smaller. It seems as if the reed is partly stabilized through the airflow (the more the higher the ob is bent up).
When squealing the reed gets stuck on one side and tilts over (this can easily be seen when using a light as reflection). It seems to be the same regardless if the squeal comes from a draw note bend to the max or a overblow gone awry. In both cases (i think) the draw reed is the culprit.
These are just a couple of notes. If anybody has some further observations or maybe explanations... :) that would be very welcome.
Steve Baker recommends learning overblows without the coverplates first. You can use your finger to stop the blowreed from vibrating, and then figure out the right tongue position to start the drawreed in an overblow. Once you learn the tongue positions, you just then need to learn how to choke the blow reed, then put them together (couldn't be simpler! :). I've been trying this, and I can confirm that it works. ---------- -------------- The magnificent YouTube channel of the internet user known as "isaacullah"
I think I meant it's hard to figure out how some stuff works, namely bends and overblows, I know how harps work in terms of basic sound and amplitude of waves and blow and draw reeds. ---------- "Without music, life would be a mistake" -Nietzsche
