I am completely infatuated with Hortons playing. His Sound is as good as it gets in my book. I ve been studying his entire catalog trying to really understand his playing on another level. He's been practically all Ive listened to for Months.
There are many things about his sound that just blow my mind how anyone can get them out of a Harmonica. His Vibrato is one of these. Can anyone shed some light on how you can possibly get such a HEAVY wavering vibrato?
Killa, That's what makes the "greats" so great, in my opinion. Even someone who learns his techniques, forwards and backwards and practicing 24/7 still will never quite sound like him, or as good. Big Walter is magic, I think.
More than anything I just wanted to talk about it. Lol.
While I too prefer to believe the fantasy that they were super human. ( Its much more Romantic that way. )
I know that with enough practice I absolutely can sound like them if I had enough desire. Most people just never take it that far. They learn bits and pieces from a number of artists and add their own style to it.
For instance Rick Estrin does a Damn Good Rice Miller. Better than any ive ever heard. And Rice is another one of those that seem impossible to copy.
Just trying it for a day or so I can get the hard spaced out rhythm like that, but its not easy. It tastes considerable effort to hit the vibrato THAT hard. Ofcourse im not claiming it sounds anything like Hortons. Not even close in tone and still only about half as hard with all i can muster. Which is what makes his so incredible.
I assume with enough practice the muscles used for vibrato get stronger. Similar to the way your bending gets stronger with practice. It feels very foreign now, but im sure it will get to be second nature.
There was a time where my bending wasnt strong enough to make a clear distinction when trying to do the 4'4 5 triplet. Even if i pulled the bend as hard as i could. Now i do it as soft as i can, as to not oven bend the reeds.
Anything is possible if you can figure out how. And keep at it.
Btw .. it was on 7-29-15. I still have the horrible recording of me trying to get that triplet. It sounds like someone being cruel to a goose.
Last Edited by Killa_Hertz on Jan 27, 2017 7:10 PM
Well, I am not able to help you crack the BW code; but I will agree that he is magic. I love his playing. Often it is really simple playing (other times not at all) with this great tone and/or vibrato that is unheard of by anyone else (and I do mean anyone). He is listed as a great for a very good reason. I wish I could have met the man.
Not only that Harp Study, I think vibrato is something that's personal to an individual. Its one of those things were you can tell who is playing, by the sound of his vibrato, much like a voice, no two are really the same. You can get real close, but you will never be exactly the same, much like a finger print. But getting close is good enough, if your close, then your good.
Yes, Killa, BW was the man. Every time I start to think I've got this blues harp thing figured out, I listen to some Big Walter and realize I've got a lot more to learn. Rhythm, tone, phrasing, vibrato, dynamics, articulation...he had it all.
Damn right Harpoon Man. It feels like it would take a lifetime of serious effort to even be able to say with a straight face that you could play anything like Horton.
I just though we could have a crack at trying to decode his vibrato.
ive absorbed a Ton already just by having him in my ear for the last few months. He teaches by osmosis. . Lol.
Having seen him many times during the 70's as well as hung out with him, the secret to his playing was always breath control, or as he put it himself, "in your wind." His vibrato tones were different because of breath control and at times the way he manipulated the shape of the inside of his mouth and his embouchure, and most of the time, he actually played very softly and most people who try to duplicate what he's doing tend to play way too hard and whenever you do that, you can't control a damned thing at all.
He also used his hands in ways many harp players, even with him playing amplified often never do and that also plays a role in what he used to do.
Sometimes his embouchure but more often his throat muscles were very physically relaxed (most players too often are NEVER playing this way at all) and he's playing with a more open throat much like an opera singer does (something I learned from taking vocal lessons with a reputable vocal coach).
To master that sound, I had to bust my butt like crazy but one night I remember being with a friend of mine from NYC (this is a story that I've posted before), and at the end of the night, he had all of his harps packed up and my friend asked him how he played his intro to his cover of LW's Can't Hold On Much Longer, and so I let him play my key of A Marine Band (back then, custom stuff didn't exist and you had was OOTB stuff).
Unlike the way most people played it, he played VERY softly, vibrato and all, soft enough to be a whisper and this lesson was about less than 5 minutes long and it opened my eyes and ears forever and from there found out that most all of the master did NOT play very hard at all. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
I too play pretty softly. I always have. I think my breath control is pretty good. Just recently my tone has started to come together after learning to relax, open everything up, breathe from the diaphragm, and also how to seperate my bending and vibrato muscles.
The last bit is something Winslow hipped me to. Basically, before learning this I could do a tremelo unbent at any speed i wanted. (Very easy to do) but when trying with a bent note i would choke up and it would sound horrible. But after winslow told me you could seperate the two .... now i can do a fully controlled tremelo in a bend. This had enormous effects on my tone and playing in general. Because obviously the reason i couldn't do it before was because i was using more muscles than necessary to bend notes. Which was tightening up my throat and causing my tone to be poor. And funny enough, the comment that lead me to unlock this technique was just a P.S. sidenote in Winslows post to me. Amazing the little things that make everything click.
With enough practice i feel i can atleast get something that resembles his vibrato on some level.
