To get that higher pitched wailing sax/horn tone, Is this a function of equiptment or technique or both? I've heard some awesome players going to the highs and wailing and it sounds like a saxaphone or horn? I am always amazed when this tiny instrument can sound like larger horns. I am wondering if it is an overblow that I am hearing that is giving that sweet high tone.
I just started playing about 5 months ago so I am still a noob but reading lots of articles, listening to music and watching lots of videos,
there are very few harmonica players that can do that, mainly due to the fact most harp players are such poor musicians.
It's a long but fruitful road if you want to do it. It means that you will have to learn scales, appeggios and other styles of music. You will need to learn to play in positions other than 1-3. A lot of sounding like other instruments is in the inflections and ornaments. The harp as played by most is played in such a way that notes bend down. Many other instruments bend their notes up. You need to be in a different position to bend notes up.
Understood....I had the priviledge to Watch Dennis Grunling perform live and he was one that blew me away with his playing style... I saw him at the Turning point in piermont NY.
I am going to see Adam and Satan (Satan and Adam ) in a few weeks there as well. Anyone in the NY area, this is going to be a treat!
I wonder what a train ticket round trip to the city runs. I wish he was coming up the Thruway to Albany. My car is so old I should write a blues song about it.
Get some trumpet recordings and play un-mic'd with them. You have to be able to get a horn tone acoustically first.
I play trumpet and enjoy simulating the trumpet with my harp. My daughter came out of her room one day and said "oh, I thought you were playing your trumpet." "cool"
Scales are critical, be able to jump from one note to the exact next note you want is critical, and vibrato is critical. Lots of trumpet can be simulated by just playing the trumpet part you want, but exact notes are important or it just sounds like you're making mistakes. There is a lot to be gained by learning to play a melody or harmony exactly the way it is written or recorded, even if you want to just improvise most of the time. Once you figure out how to sound that way, you can improvise and it's a blast. Listen carefully to what horns do. There is plenty of downward bending in trumpet that you can simulate closely. The upward bending Probably isn't critical for your purposes. You can also get a pretty good trombone simulation in the lower harps like Low f, g and a. For sax sounds, I find myself loosening the cup on the mic and harp a little.
Again, figure it out un-mic'd first. I am pretty new at this, but I use trumpet (not new at trumpet) and harp in the blues band i joined this year. I also use trumpet simulation with my harp to avoid so much switching around in some songs we do that contain both.
Good luck with it. it's definitely worthwhile, like Buddha said.
Thanks for that explanation. Can you recommend a good scale exercise video or cd? Any recommendation on trumpet blues cds to listen that has lots of trumpet solos
working on your intonation and acoustic tone, if you don't have that together you'll never sound like another instrument.
check out Jason Rosenblatt on harmonica, he's a very good musician but his tone and intonation is so poor he still sounds like a harmonica player when he could easily sound like a clarinet or something else.
There are some of my youtubes where I play with a sound that is reminiscent of a soprano sax, trumpet or violin.
To be honest, I think the learning of the harp as an instrument first will help you more than focusing on blues..especially if you are hoping to simulate other instruments. I have been focusing on where things are, how to get there every time, playing the notes I want when i want them in the order and presentation I intended . Simply running up and down the instrument is helpful, but won't help you play trumpet music. The blues scale is probably less important in this particular context than being able to play chromatic scales and diatonic scales. Don't stop practicing the blues scale, by any means. Just add the others as you hear what trumpet players do. I personallyam being very patient with things like overblows, realizing I have a long long way to go. I see a need for them, and keep working on it. I can't really use them in music yet. When I find a strength, I work it hard. When I find a weakness I work it hard (overblows, for example). There are areas in the middle that just seem to come naturally. For me, I sound like a trumpet with no trouble whatsoever. It may be because I play trumpet and that sound is what i am used to hearing. I like it. Google trumpet music and find some simple stuff like Herb alpert and the Tijuana Brass, or Chuck Mangione. You could even google simple trumpet music or trumpet lessons and see what comes up. Find some simple licks or melodic lines and try to learn them in whatever tone you can manage. Then work on air passages and mouth positions and mic cupping if you are amp'd.
Herb Alpert plays too staccato. A better example of that trumpet tone you're looking for might be Al Hirt. He plays difficult stuff, but has a fine tone to emulate.
Attack is an important part of trumpet technique and staccato playing can help you learn it. Double and triple tongue on a harmonica isn't the same as on a trumpet because you are often inhaling when you do it. The more trumpet you can listen to, the better you can simulate it.
Walterharp...I agree with what you said about the clean Bassman-like amp. I just purchased an amp that has a similar circuit, vintage tubes, and speakers as a 59 Bassman. The tone is SWEET and sounds like a trumpet or sax in the mid to upper register. I believe the amp and mic is part of the equation. Of course your personal TONE is important also. The amp I purchased is a Sonny Jr. Super Sonny VG (Vintage Grade). ---------- They've got a name for the winners in the world. I...I want a name when I lose. They call Alabama The Crimson Tide. Call me Deacon Blue.
528 - one way to get a horn like note, but I'm not sure if this is what you mean, I use split octaves ie. 1-4, draw or blow, 3-6 blow etc. This technique adds a great deal of fullness, much more than a single note can. Hope this helps. ---------- If it ain't got harp - it ain't really blues!!!!
FYI, I forgot to mention..I use a valve junior with one or two jensen 12 inch (jch12/70 is the designator) and can get everything from chicago dirt to trumpet with no changes to the amp or mic settings. It is all cupping and air passage manipulation. I do think the trumpet tone is easier with some amp help, but you can (and should) still get it as an acoustic tone with enough practice. In a small room like a bathroom with a little natural reverb might help you learn it off mic.
528hemi: Over the years man always folk ask about my saxophone tone etc same with all instruments I guess including piano. Buddhas comment on intonation and acoustic tone is spot on.
In the sax world I give students various techniques to develop sound both their individualistic sound and their heros sound. This may suprise you but done right any instrument can sound initially like any other instrument. If you drop in on listening to something and your mind is focused on different things. I have often heard Tenor sax sound in chello for example.Yea man caught in the right contex harp can sound like a Sax. To get individual sound that your happy with takes time.First you have to have that sound in your head.
An example of extremes would be if I were hired to play some music on sax like say David Sanbourn on the film lethal weapon. Well I don't play like that at all but because of experience I can mimic it Satire it teach it etc. It's not me and its not for me that way but if you have the sound in your head that is key.
Your first couple of years playing and developing your sound changes anyway as you improve. My view would be not to get hooked on invdividual sound at this stage but concentrate on listening and trying to emulate your heros. Your sound will come from there. I think the best advice I have seen time and time again on here which is rarely heeded. The advice is by two wonderful players in completely different styles,Kudzurunner and Buddha which is;
Listen to other instrumentation besides harp now that is crucial. That advice applies to anyone playing any type of intrument. It's most often overlooked.
Last Edited by on Aug 04, 2009 5:15 AM
Believe it or not, when I played solo on the street, I worked up a version of Herb Alpert's "Tijuana Taxi." Terrific first position melody that fits beautifully on the harp.
My parents had the album and used to play it often, while tossing back tequila, salt, and lime. (Moderate, not heavy, drinkers. Very moderate.) Imagine what this album cover did to a 13-year old. You mp3 kids have no idea what you missed.
One of my Top-10 desert island jazz discs is Herbie Hancock's "Takin' Off." I bought it because I wanted to learn "Watermelon Man," and that lead cut is still fantastic. But the whole album is a lesson for harp players in learning how to think like a trumpet player and a sax player. What's interesting is, I could swear that Freddie Hubbard hits a few clams (bad notes), but they always somehow sound right in the context of the song. Yet when I make mistakes, they bother me--although sometimes, much later, listening to them, they turn out to be the thing that makes a particular solo distinctive.
congaron, I'm glad to have you on the forum. We need to hear from more horn players. Harp players have so much to steal from--I mean, learn from--them.
Last Edited by on Aug 04, 2009 7:11 PM
Kudzurunner: That makes me smile, for years I was obsessed with that album way back when I first came out the service as a young guy as a street artist in london. A few years later oh about 90-through to 93 when I moved from London I went out and played the cuts on that album even in the same order.My own solos thank god, but more or less scored same arrangements that and Dexter Gordons Go album and loads of Turrentine.
Funny how folk pick up on the same stuff.
Exactly right that first video of Tijuana Taxi yep my folks had it too, I never had a go at though but I remember it being played around the house.
That car in the video reminds of how the band use to arrive at gigs travelling too and fro across the pennines of Yorkshire and lancashire in the early 90s. Every one crammed in doubble bass on top. Key board player use to have to exit the vehicle through the back window, crazy days. Questions like: "What time do you start?" " "Well what time can you get here"
Last Edited by on Aug 05, 2009 5:24 AM
I drove my family crazy when I was a kid playing Herb Alpert stuff on my trumpet. Every commercial break. Myself and Timmy Watson would do Spanish Flea, as a duet during parades in the marching band way back in the '60's. Adam - you must have loved that album where the girl is all covered in whipped cream!! Maybe mine was a different cover. ---------- If it ain't got harp - it ain't really blues!!!!
Last Edited by on Aug 05, 2009 5:58 AM
Holy crap! I remember salivating over that Herb Alpert album as a kid - and i don't mean for the whipped cream. Thanks for the memories! I might have to ask my dad for his old albums.
Thanks Adam. Last night at practice, My band was thrilled to the tiny licks in "Soul Man"...I have always believed a little trumpet goes a long way in many cases. That song is a good example of tasty flavoring on trumpet. Simple, playing in the fill and mixing up the slurs and tongued notes. That's what i like about the Tijuana Taxi album too. I use to play along to the greatest hits album every day as part of my trumpet practice. I also played with Al Hirt albums..very much agree on his stuff being cool too. All this stuff helps you think like a trumpet player.
I'm reviving this old thread because I just came across the following recent video of Charles Pasi, who is achieving the best "trumpet sound" I've ever heard from a harp player:
It's clear that this all achieved by choice of notes, phrasing, tone and intonation (including bends), and tongue and hand technique -- NOT by some pedal or processing. This is a mic on a stand. When he wants the harp to sound like a harp, he lets it, and when he wants it to sound like a trumpet, he does that instead. ----------
I think a big part of what he does is how he stops, or cuts off his notes. Lee Oskar also articultes the end of each note in a very definite manner. I would like to be able to do that but I can't figure out the proper technique.
hvyj, I agree that the articulation is a big part of the sound. I suspect he is using standard trumpet tonguing. Brass single (ta) double (ta ka ta ka ) and triple (ta ka ta ta ka ta) all work well on the harp. It takes a bit of getting used to to tongue the draw notes, but it works. I think I even heard a flutter tongue in the PASI piece.
I found this pretty good explanation of a flutter tounge or "growl". This works on harp just like it does on trumpet. So does singing and playing as described briefly in the clip. I just had a harp lesson where I learned a very interesting horn like sound can be made by playing the 1 blow while singing a minor third above.
Last Edited by STME58 on Aug 13, 2015 11:30 PM
Hi guys. Yeah, I forgot to mention articulation! That seems to be HUGE for nailing this kind of sound. That video that STME58 posted was really cool... I've always done the sort of back of the throat kind of growl (like a French R), but now I'll definitely try the tongue flutter growl (like a Spanish R). In addition to the attack and decay of notes, I think he's using his hands to great effect too. Not simply the Wah's, but he's using them like the bell of the trumpet to shape/amplify the sound, which likely also changes some of the resonance and frequency response. It's clear that it's not just one single technique, but an ensemble of them that one needs to employ all together. I'll be practicing this for sure! ----------
It sounds like he's always bending in an out of the notes too. But with a very sharp cutoff at the end of the note... Hmmm... Lot's to deconstruct here... ----------
