An unintended bonus effect of the Overblow Booster is that it gives you the option to play isolated single reeds on an un-valved 10 hole harp - which is not normally possible. This gives useful extra bending and vibrato expression on two notes that are normally un-bendable in Richter tuning: 5 draw and 7 blow. Nice to have when you want to milk those notes for extra soul; you can hear the sound in the last part of this video.
BTW I'd like to thank Todd Parrott for getting me curious about ways to enhance the capability of the traditional 10-hole un-valved harp. About a year ago he posted a "wish list" thread here on Modern Blues Harmonica, about the kind of imaginary harp he'd love to play. This new super-harp needed to give him everything he already has on his custom models - same scale and playability plus all the existing bends and overbends - but add tasty stuff on top! New interactive-reed bends and isolated reed expression were two things Todd specifically mentioned.
I think Todd is on the money: the 1896 Marine Band type of harp, wonderful though it is, has now been stretched almost to its limits by modern overblow players. Of course there are always fresh licks and new styles to be discovered within its parameters, but it has clear limitations (eg. only 8 interactive-reed bends out of 20 reeds) - plus there is the hassle/cost factor of requiring expert custom reed setup for good overbending from holes 1-10.
Reading his post really got me thinking! It feels like the time is right for that 1896 harp to gain new powers to enable high-level overblow players like Todd to be able to take their already impressive technique to another level and apply it to fresh note possibilities. The easiest way for that to happen is to increase the capability of the un-valved Richter 10-hole diatonic in some way that doesn't destroy its intrinsic character.
Even though I play other kinds of harmonica myself (alt-tuned half-valved and x-reed types mostly), I saw Todd's wish-list as an interesting design challenge. Not just to enhance the capability of the traditional diatonic for the pros, but also making it easier for ALL players to be able to access chromatic notes on it without having to play highly customised harps and practice for years to master overbending. Why shouldn't these extra chromatic notes be as easy for anyone to get as a normal bend, on a stock harp? That's a question well worth asking, I think.
When you start pondering along those lines seriously it's quite surprising how many possible solutions there are! I was inspired by past efforts at tackling the same problem: Winslow Yerxa's Discrete Comb, the Bahnson Harp, Masaru Hashimoto's design for the Suzuki Overdrive, Zombor Kovac's sliding reedplate prototype from 2006 - to name just a few. Drawing on these ideas and adding a few of my own, in the past year I've made a bunch of curious 10-hole Richter prototypes that all fulfill Todd's criteria in some way - but most had a fatal flaw.
Some offered new bends but didn't overblow well, or did both but had poor tone, or were too complicated to make with multi-slide mechanisms etc etc.
In the end the Overblow Booster and SlipSlider came out ahead, because they stay closest to the look, sound and feel of a stock harp. (In fact they can actually be combined - though that might be overkill...).
This week I'll be sending out samples of my latest versions of these babies to Todd, to see if they are making progress towards the imaginary ideal harp he postulated in that original wish-list on MBH. Thanks to him for getting the ball rolling on this interesting quest:-)
Last Edited by BeePee on Jul 14, 2018 9:34 PM
I'm booked as a Vendor this year Gary, 'working' like you! Coming from England, airline luggage puts a limiting factor on what I can carry, but I'll bring samples of a bunch of unusual one-off harps plus some things to sell - the Overblow Booster mainly, because it's small and light.
The samples will include various prototypes from the "Todd Parrott Challenge" which fell short in some way, but are interesting in their own right. Maybe having them at SPAH will spark discussion that leads to further innovation in diatonic harp design. A thousand brains are better than one!
Looking forward to seeing you there :-)
Last Edited by BeePee on Jul 14, 2018 9:36 PM
I'm happy and honored to take the blame for such cool inventions, though I only played a small part. :) We all know that Brendan is pretty much a genius when it comes to inventing such things. I look forward to trying them and I really hope to use one of them on a future recording. There are some melodies where you really do need both overbends and single reed bends.
It's an honour to have you assess these new harps Todd, and thanks for the inspiration to get them made. The latest prototype I'm sending is a new type of SlipSlider with Overblow Boosters installed - lots of goodies to explore :-)
I just arranged the courier collection for tomorrow, you should have the package 3 days afterwards.
