I get a fair number of emails from people who have uploaded YouTube videos and hope I'll watch them, comment, and (I guess) make them extremely famous in all four (twisted) corners of the world harmonica community. Not.
I watch some, don't watch others, comment occasionally. Every now and then I get something really nice, and one of those came in just now. Christophe claims that he learned this Sonny Terry riff from me, but I must say: he adds a lot of his own stuff to it. I was impressed most by his rock-solid groove. I was impressed a LOT by that.
Nice! That is some pretty solid groove he's got there!
I also like his attitude. It's very pleasant and draws attention.
His inflections and effects kinda make me think he may be or may have been a very serious chromatic player at one time. I usually almost NEVER hear any diatonic player use those kind of effects. I know I've heard Sugar Blue do it but he's special so he doesn't count. lol
The only way I can describe effect is that it's some kind of snorting inhale sound. And I think this guy uses them very tastefully.
Anyone else notice this? And maybe clue me in about what's going on?
I guess the closest I can come to explaining it will seem a bit absurd, but here goes. Bear in mind I came from a fairly poor childhood where we played a lot of "army-man" with sticks for guns. Well if ya' gotta' use a stick for a pretend gun it may as well be a machine gun right? All the boys on my block had a machine gun noise they would make with their mouth which was essentially a very fast up and down (or vibration) movement with the end of one's tongue while passing air around it. In fact you could have a cool or dorky machine gun noise and we would rate each other's noise (LOL!). This in my mind is similar to what I consider a trill. Listen to Big Walter's boogie by Big Walter Horton and you'll hear some good ones.
There is a good (but short) discussion of this trilling technique on Madcat Ruth's instructional DVD "The Ins and Outs of Rhythm Harmonica." Madcat is a master of this and a lot of other effects on harp.
If you you press your tongue against the roof of your mouth, just behind your teeth--let air pressure build up behind the tongue--then say "ta" explosively and keep the pressure on with the tounge--you can get the tongue to vibrate--then hold the "a" sound forcefully to maintain the vibration.
It's like pronouncing the Spanish letter "rr" --if that makes sense.
Screw it--I think Snakes did a better job of explaining it--I'm just mucking things up.
It's not really that hard to do--the real trick is to learn to use it as tastefully as Christophe does--just a little taste now and then. . .
I just listened again--the discussion I did above is for blow notes only--I think Christophe is sometimes doing the same sort of thing on a draw.
I believe this might be a kind of controlled reverse gargle thing with the throat--but I can't do it right off so I'll just leave that to somebody who might know. . .
I do something that eerily similar on a draw to the trill sound he's doing. The best way I can explain it is like hocking up a loogie. The more I try to intentionally do it the more control I get. For me it all comes from the back of the throat, but on top by where your sinuses connect to the throat. I don't know if this makes sense, but I can do the sound and this how I do it. Your mileage may vary.
Hello to all of the DSBHF members, (Hey, I'm trying my best, I have noticed that most of you guys love using these accronyms, such as IMO, LOL, OTB, ASO (sorry, that meant 'And So On'), this is sometimes quite hard to understand for us foreigners !) OK, anyway, I'm a brand new member of this forum, and I happen to be the author of this little video. I am extremely proud of the fact that Adam picked it up and posted it here, as I don't consider myself as a very good harp player. Thanks to all of you guys who posted nice comments about my playing. I am pretty much thrilled by all this! I am not good at explaining how I play my licks in a didactic way, I just play unconsciously. Adam is a fantastic pro when it comes to explaining how he plays his stuff. I read your posts, and that made me realise that I indeed tend to use both this snorting-inhaling stuff and the machinegun-Spanish-letter-"rr" blow. And well, I just don't know how to explain it any better than some of you guys did it. Best regards to all of you harp fanatics! Christophe
Make the sound a playing card or cigarette package clipped to your bike frame clattering on the spokes would make!!! To do it on the draw perfect and refine a fake snore!! I probably haven't helped much have I??!! ---------- If it ain't got harp - it ain't really blues!!!!
