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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
bending notes on the valved harp
bending notes on the valved harp
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bluesharper
153 posts
Sep 19, 2010
6:03 AM
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Okay any tips on bending the draw notes on my valved harp. The reeds seems to stop playing and then the bent notes comes.
Any ideas on how to get it fluently?
And i know practice,practice and practice
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Greyowlphotoart
28 posts
Sep 19, 2010
8:34 AM
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I understand you mean the valved draw bends 7 to 10. Yea these are tricky. I have found you need a much softer approach to these bends. I use a tighter embouchure and drag a small pocket of air from just behind my teeth then drop my jaw very little and not nearly as far as for a normal bend. I still get a rather weedy note which is in contrast to the stronger sound you get from draw bending the unvalved notes.
"Inside every old person there is a young person wondering....What the fu*k happened"
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barbequebob
1248 posts
Sep 19, 2010
9:42 AM
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He`s 100% CORRECT here and it`s VERY obvious that you are guilty of using far too much breath force in your playing, ESPECIALLY when bending notes and you`re trying to force things to happen and what you`re doing is flat out bad playing technique. Playing a chromatic requires the very same considerably lowered amount of breath force and much more focused approach is EXTREMELY important and it cannot be stressed enough. 98% of newbies and 50-75% of intermediate
players are often clearly guilty of this because they`ve yet to learn the importance of breath control. What I usually tell players is play just loud enough that you don`t wake up a baby sleeping in the next room. Valved diatonics and chromatics are a good test to see if you are guilty of playing way too hard and if any note blanks out on you during the note bending process, then it`s clearly obvious you`ve got a HUGE problem with both breath force and breath control and you`re not alone.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
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Kyzer Sosa
798 posts
Sep 19, 2010
5:18 PM
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i wouldnt put 100 percent of the guilt on breath force. my first valved harp, id had for 10 days when i visited PT. I played it for him and knew that i couldnt hit some of the 7-10 draw bends, he said i should look at the gapping, i did, and he was right, it wasnt me at all, but the gaps that impeded my abilities...
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walterharp
458 posts
Sep 19, 2010
8:24 PM
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i might be wrong, but it is a bit more subtle than that. the first attach is a bit strong then easing off once the valve seals into place.. now bob not really hard attack at first, but a bit of force is required?
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PT
52 posts
Sep 21, 2010
5:28 AM
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First of all I am very happy to see a regular chatter about half valved diatonic playing. I really believe that this technique is a viable alternative to overblowing. It is not better or worse, but a viable alternative. It will appeal to some, but not all. In my opinion melody players that prefer to pucker seem to really take to this method. Buy a half valved harmonica from Seydel and you will see the difference. The reeds are set up to accommodate half valved playing. The material of the valves all but eliminates rattling and buzzing. It is how my instruments are set up. Unless you are playing half-valved all the time and not just experimenting with it, you are all just guessing how to do this and what the reasons are. I have six years of full time playing half valved exclusivley and have figured it out. We all bend notes a little differently depending on what the harmonica is like and how it is set up. That is also true in this case. The real test is to be able to hit valved blow and draw bends spot on without sliding in or bending down. That is a function of reed setup. You can order anything Seydel makes including getting anyone of their 10 diatonics half valved by going to my site and clicking through to Seydel.
http://www.ptgazell.com/Seydel_Harmonica_Shop.html
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"Life...10 Holes & 20 Reeds At A Time"
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DirtyDeck
139 posts
Sep 21, 2010
7:30 AM
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There goes Bob on another one of his Breath Force rants ;)
Nah seriously, its something I've been giving some thought to recently. It's only recently that I've discovered the real tonal possibilities using less breath-force, trying to get alot of those Little/Big Walter sounds.
However, I seem to remember a video of Adam's where he talks about the likes of Jason Ricci claiming that you should be able to play everything with a minimum of force, and while this may be true, I'd be inclined to side with Adam in saying that there are certain sounds that you can only get when playing with that extra force!
Of course, I don't mean to shronking to the extent where you're blowing out reeds every 2 seconds, but neither do I think you should play softly to the point where it detracts from the energy, soul and balls of your performance.
The other thing, then, is that since I've switched over to 100% TBing, I've been having throat trouble on and off. I accept that some of this is down to muscle-development and the like, that must take place when learning to bend TB, and the trouble eases as time goes on BUT! perhaps also this is one of the perils of playing too hard?
Heal me, Bob ;)
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barbequebob
1253 posts
Sep 21, 2010
11:43 AM
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Dirty Deck, if you're experiencing soreness, it sounds like you still have a tendency to play while your physically very uptight and that detracts from what you're doing and besides the soreness, it heavily constricts your air passages and makes things a lot more difficult than it has to be and unfortunately, it's far too common among the average player, and often times players who've been used to using too much breath force, this nearly always comes along with that and it still sounds like you may need to relax more and allow your embouchure and the inside of your mouth shape to be more flexible.
The thing about hitting some notes harder for emphasis both Walters did, but because much of what they played is using very light breath force, the so called "harder hit notes," which in reality, by comparison would be normal breath force by the average player, seems quite a lot harder than it actually is and they both played very relaxed and when you're relaxted, the air passages are much more wide open and you get more volume (or in this case "oomph") yet using a lot less breath than you think.
I'm sure you've now discovered that with breath control, much of that stuff has very little to do with the equipment to get the tone they're getting.
PT is one player I really admire for how well everything is totally under control and as far as different valve materials go, tho I have yet to try ultra suede, many stock valves are lacking and I've played chromatics from different companies and vales will all eventually buzz, tho some materials are clearly better than others as are designs.
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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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