indigo
197 posts
Dec 16, 2015
3:14 PM
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Did a sit in last week with a bunch of old bandmates.Just an informal gig at a friends birthday party.
Nice sunny day, no pressure to solo and basically a blues jam in front of people i mostly know.After i'd had a couple of beers we got up to play.
Did i say no pressure...
Anyways probably for that reason i didn't assume my usual death grip on the Bullet but just held it fairly loosely..still got the overdrive but the bigger surprise to me was how much easier it was to move around the harp compared to my usual cupping method.
I was dancing around it like a butterfly.Something i wish i had discovered years ago but i've always thought that to get'the tone' you had to cup as if it you were trying to squash the mike.
A lesson learnt...anyone had the same experience.
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1847
3006 posts
Dec 16, 2015
3:36 PM
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i do not cup that tight. very relaxed grip.
you can still get a very effective seal.
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SuperBee
3088 posts
Dec 16, 2015
4:02 PM
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It's about the seal not the tightness hey? So a good grip doesn't have to involve a lot of strength...in fact that may detract from your capacity to seal it. Kinda like tension in the jaw?
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Ian
179 posts
Dec 16, 2015
4:23 PM
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Couldn't agree more. When I'm tense, or feeling like I need to try particularly hard... I suck.
When I'm relaxed, and my hands, body... Well everything is relaxed, then it all flows so much easier.
An old Bruce Lee quote comes to mind.
"Be like water.... "
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Bass410man
54 posts
Dec 16, 2015
6:09 PM
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I do not have much meat on my fingers, and my knuckles are rather large. So I have to squeeze the crap out of the mic to get a seal, not so much the mic, but I have to squeeze my fingers real tight. It does create a lot of tension, sometimes my elbows hurt, and it definitely makes me worse than playing acoustic. I think some hands are better for cupping than others, for some, like me, it will always be a struggle.
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slaphappy
148 posts
Dec 16, 2015
7:48 PM
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interesting, I was talking to Aki awhile ago and he said on the Chromatic he can't use the CX12 for amplified playing because it's so responsive it will choke due to his tight cupping style when playing the chrom.
not exactly what you're talking about but you made me remember this conversation so thought I woudl share.
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4' 4+ 3' 2~~~
-Mike Ziemba
Harmonica is Life!
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nacoran
8830 posts
Dec 16, 2015
9:58 PM
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OT for a second- Just noticed you'd passed the 3000 post mark '47. And you too Superbee, if I hadn't mentioned it when it happened. Thanks for all the great posts guys.
Also working on the spam filter. I'm reporting every single message that gets flagged as spam to support so they can improve their algorithm, (or realize it's futile and figure out a way to disable it.)
On topic, I don't seem to have much tension when I'm making a tight cup on the harp. For the large knucklers, can you sort of twist your cupping a bit to align the knuckles differently? (I can kind of do that, but my hands don't have as much flexibility as they once did).
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Nate
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First Post- May 8, 2009
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1847
3007 posts
Dec 17, 2015
10:11 AM
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thanks nate, only 2 post have disapeared lately,
seems to be getting better.
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barbequebob
3076 posts
Dec 17, 2015
10:46 AM
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Many players have a tendency to cup or hold their harps too tight and too hard regardless if they've got a mic in their hands or not, which eventually can cause some strain or aggravate arthritis (if you're unlucky to have that) and many of these same players make little or no use of their hands in their playing regardless if it's amplified or acoustic and to go along with that, they're usually the first ones to be guilty of crushing down the cover plates of their harps and the first to complain about them getting constantly crushed all the time. Along with those, a number of players who do this will often cause their hands to sweat like crazy. Gripping too hard is also poor technique and the only thing you accomplish is that you basically can't get the heck out of your own way.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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