After i saw the pt gazell video of three little words, i bought a few half vaved harmonicas seidel and suzuki. Im not sure i know what im doing with these , i can bend lower blow notes a little with lip purcing bit cant do it at all using toungue block . Im not sure are these reeds supposed bend down down at least a half step or is it more like bending a reed on the chromatic , not much of a bend almost a half. Im also concerned with blowing out the harp it feels like i would flat the reeds out if i tried too hard and these harps are too expensive for that. Id appreciate any advice you guys might have about your experience with half valved harps.
Last Edited by on Apr 26, 2010 12:30 AM
i can help a bit....yes they take far less breath force to play as the air is only escaping thru one reed (i think). you have to play....pretty. i lip purse when i play, partly because thats how i started. ive been copping PT's tunes as well. i met with him once and thats how he plays them, lip pursed. I have a vid of me playing his version of The Thumb, I posted recently, it's in Kyzers Travels. To my knowledge, you can play the full chromatic scale in two (for certain) and maybe three whole octaves with these bad boys. give it a few more days and really practice. hit the first 6 holes as you would a 9 or 10 blow bend...and keep pushing them down. once you hit em (valved bends) and can hit em well, its just frikkin awesome...it ALMOST makes ya wanna forgo overblows... ---------- Kyzer's Travels Kyzer's Artwork
Last Edited by on Apr 22, 2010 11:18 PM
To the concern of fearing to blow out the reeds, I can tell you that the blow bends in the 1 - 6 holes are not achieved by blowing hard. Actually, nothing is achieved by blowing hard on these valved harp.
But yes, all the blows can bend at least a half tone. It just requires some training.
In many ways, half valved diatonics have a lot in common with chromatics in terms of needing to be in much more control of breath force because, much like a chromatic, if you play too hard, it'll blank out on you in a NY minute, and it's a big reason why many diatonic players have a tough time adjusting to it because of years of having the bad playing technique is playing too hard all the time heavily ingrained and never learning the importance of breath control.
One thing about a valved diatonic is that if it is tuned to ET tuning, the valves will mellow out the harhness much like it does on a chromatic because the valves act as a damper on the upper harmonic overtones.
So, like a chromatic, you need to relearn technique and ease your way into the bend because you need more control of your breath force. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Ladies and Gentlemen, I can play my valved diatonics as hard or soft as I want without them blanking out. As I have said numerous times, valved diatonics require a different gapping than a non-valved diatonic. You also have to know how you play and what works for you.
PT ---------- "Life...10 Holes & 20 Reeds At A Time"
I've been playing half-valved harps (diatonic and chromatic) exclusively since the mid 80s. Incidentally it was my proposal to Suzuki which caused them to release the Promaster MR350-V in 1990, the only commercial half-valved harp until recent times (I received a royalty for the idea for 5 years).
Once you get used to a half-valved harp, it is very hard to go back to a stock un-valved one, because of the extra expression you gain with the valves. All the lower pitched notes on a harp (blow 1-6, draw 7-10) can now be given pitch bending, vibrato - similar to the normal bending notes. It makes the whole harp come alive for soulful bending, not just half of it.
It's not for everyone. Holding a valved bend in tune for more than a second or two is hard to control. However, since the valves eliminate the possibility to overblow, that is now the only way to get the missing chromatic notes, so it requires practice (PT Gazell has emphatically proved it's possible though - check out his albums).
The valves even up the volume between the high and low pitched notes in each hole (normally the low pitched notes are not as strong). They make those lower 6 blow notes pop out as much purer, stronger tones (great for 1st/4th position), and the top 4 draw notes become really sweet, bendable draws (great for cross harp). However, that purity may not be to the taste of some, as they get rid of the traditional breathy quality of the lower blow notes.
Valves are delicate things, and they need to be sitting pretty to stop them popping and buzzing. They're pretty simple too, so it's quite easy to correct any faults replace them if necessary. But they do give the harp player one more area of knowledge to learn.
The up side is that you can forget about all that super-critical embossing and hair's-breadth reed gapping that the overblowers require. Any stock harp will work great with half-valving. Reed gapping is far less critical; it just needs to be within sensible limits for your style.
Here's a video demonstrating half-valving for Irish music:
I'm curious about half-valved chromatic ; I have a rather old Larry Adler 48, the valves on the first holes are buzzing like hell and get sometimes stuck, so I'm considering buying a new chrom (I think about the 14 holes suzuki) and transforming the Larry Adler in a half-valved chrom. But I don't know which valves I should take out. Do you have a vid explaining that ?
good to see PT and Brendan chime in on this topic. Innovators...Im just flat out hooked on the valves. Ive got a 350-V from Suzuki, and plan on valving more of the ones I have myself...
I might not know much but, if you havent tried it, well... you just dont know what youre missing... ---------- Kyzer's Travels Kyzer's Artwork
Brendan is truly a wizard on both diatonic and chromatic. He is a world musician and I am always amazed at his musicianship. My contention is that if you can bend notes with good intonation, than you should be able to translate that to half-valved harmonicas. I teach that you should completely forget about the valves and just bend notes. While this may sound somewhat simplistic, it works. We have built up muscle and recall memory on the diatonic that says we can not blow bend holes 2, 5 & 6. Likewise draw bend holes 7, 8, ect. Once I made myself forget that ingrained habit, I was able to just let my bending (both blow and draw) technique take over. Brendan also mentions the expression gained by half-valving. This is such a huge plus for me that I can not play a regular harmonica anymore! One of the other cool things is that 5th position minor really works well with the valves. Here is clip of "In Walked Bud" played in 5th on a low F that is half-valved.
Thanks, PT
http://www.ptgazell.com http://www.youtube.com/gazell ---------- "Life...10 Holes & 20 Reeds At A Time"
Last Edited by on Apr 26, 2010 5:24 AM
Re. Half-Valved Chromatic, the same principle applies: remove the valves that affect the higher pitch notes to allow diatonic-type interactive reed bending. Because of the Solo Tuning, the useful draw bends are the ones on the odd-numbered holes 1,3,5,7,9,11. In those holes, the draw notes are a tone higher than the blows, which means there is the potential for bending them a semitone.
In practical terms, what you do is remove the covers and pull off the OUTSIDE valves (the ones you can see) on holes 1,3,5,7,9,11, on both upper and lower reedplates. On a C chromatic , that will give you semitone bends on all the D, Eb, A & Bb draw notes throughout the range.
BUT.... your chrom needs to be in good airtight condition to allow you to remove these valves and not end up with a leaky, wheezy white elephant. They're not called windsavers for nothing! The chrom is intrinsically less airtight than the diatonic because of the slider mechanism, so that in particular needs to be very airtight. Also, make sure the blow reed which is exposed when you remove the valve is gapped to the minimum possible for a hard breath; that will reduce the amount of air which passes through the blow slot when you draw.
Unfortunately, the chrom described earlier sounds like it might not be a great candidate for half-valving! However, if you use a nice airtight chrom, half-valving will give you lots of extra expression and enharmonic notes through bending.
Here are some solos from the Back to Back album I recorded with PT; all are played on half-valved chromatics:
Brendan Power WEBSITE: http://www.brendan-power.com YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/BrendanPowerMusic
Thank you for the answer Brendan ! Even if my chrom is not the best one to half-valve, I'll proceed to do that anyway, and tighten the reeds and see what it's like... It could not be worse than how it's sounding now, and I'm very curious of the result. If I like it, I will probably do the same to a new chrom, and play it more often than I do now.
