I'm trying to get an OB out and just couldn't get it (still can't as yet) BUT yesterday watching Adams vid on overblows (the Gapping part) I had a bit of a break through all round yesterday afternoon. I'm really new to the harp, only been practicing a month or so after deciding "I gotta do this, I can do this" Well It'd never really struck me that a Harp was a consumer adjustable instrument if you will, before. I'd always thought they were factory preset, standard and with pretty much no user serviceable parts. It wasn't until I started trawling through here and other sites that I realised (obviously I'd heard of custom harps) After that vid I was like, Ok let's have a peek in here, rip that cover plate off right now. Best thing I should have done when I started. Ok, so I had a look at the reed plate etc and the 6 blow was indeed really wide. So I gapped that up a bit, scraped some crap off, eww. (I'll be cleaning from now on, promise)and put the covers back on tight. It's my first harp and only been tried occasionally until July. WOW, in a word!!! Ok, so yeah I still canny hit that 6ob and I'll need to gap again, bit the thing is. I reckon that cover plate wasn't seated quite right and with tighter gap. My god, I had a new instrument. What a pleasure. I toodled of with the dog, down the pier to loose some fishing tackle and took my harp. Didn't blank on the fishing (1x little Pollack) so 10 min before OH's (be back for 8:30 or dinners in the dog!)I decided to have a play in the Old Pier waiting room / office which is concrete with the windows busted out. Had a 10 min jam to myself, great echo, looking at the ocean whilst a couple of pleasure boats landed and departed. The sun was going down behind me and I actually though I sounded decent. Came up with a new riff, blasted it out and spot on time I was home (with said dog)no worthy fish, in time for dinner. Thank you all, just had to get that out of my head. Oh, and moral is. Clean yer harps, and don't be scared of the insides, A little tweaking would appear to go a long way and I was completely naive of this until yesterday. Thanks Mr Gussow.
Nice to see you're having fun. While it's good for you to know that there are such things as overblows, I believe you would do well to learn the conventional bends first and work hard on proper intonation of same. I don't mean to discourage you from trying to execute overblows, but the bends are much more important, especially at this point in your development. You are doing well in becoming familiar with the innards of the instrument, too.
Thanks for the comment FMWoodeye. Much appreciated. Yes I will be staying away from overblows for a while. I just like to learn new things and wanted to see if I could do it. Not yet though. It was however very enlightening getting "into the innards" of the instrument though. Desperate for some other keys as everything is becoming to sound very samey and predictable.
I suggest you listen to some blues harp players and steal...uh...emulate some of their licks and techniques. There are also inexpensive downloads that break down series of licks. I have a couple from Ronnie Shellist, and Adam has some available through this site. 12-Gage Dan has some instructional videos on You Tube, too, as do many other players. There's a lot of good stuff on You Tube. Unfortunately it's not ALL good. Also I firmly believe that there is no substitute for face-to-face instruction. Skype works well for me, too. It's not something you need to do on a weekly basis or anything, but it's very constructive to have a pro evaluate your playing and set some concrete goals for you to work on. Early on it helps you lay a good foundation to build upon and helps you avoid bad habits that you have to unlearn later.
