I'd heard this was possible, but it still came as a shock when it happend accidentally for the first time last night.
I was playing a rhythm on the 3 draw with a super-tight cup when the 9 Blow squeaked out! It seems if the cup is airtight, drawing out all the air creates a vacuum that nature abhors by sucking air through any unsealed holes at the front of the harp...in my case 9 Blow.
Luckily it harmonises, but I've no idea how far you can take it.
Has anyone come across this before? And can you run with it and use it musically or is it destined to be a cute parlour trick?
Congratulations! You have achieved Cupping Nirvana. It takes a lot of practice to get THAT airtight a seal. I have experienced the phenomenon while playing around (rarely) but have never tried to take advantage of it. When I'm on the 3 my thumb is usually over 9 and 10 in any case - but of course if I was getting my cup completely airtight there would be no sound at all! ---------- /Greg
Pat Missin describes a similar phenomenon (though involving different holes) in the "Uncommon Harmonica Techniques" section of his site. Here's the link to a page entitled, "Simultaneous blow/draw Chords":
http://www.patmissin.com/uncommon/uncommon01.html
BTW, I think this is my first post here. I've been lurking for years, but I guess it took something as unusual as a simultaneous draw and blow to get me to speak up!
I know this player named Chris Turner, who in the late 70's, early 80's, was a European harmonica champion and he did this recording that most of us istening to it thought was something he overdubbed by from the recording engineer, who I knew very well, and also a harp player, told me that it wasn't because part of this chord he played was with draw notes and part with blow notes.
One day, before doing a gig with the Cambridge Harmonica Orchestra, Chris does this thing in front of me and Pierre Beauregard and what he did was play the draw notes with his mouth, with the harp held lengthwise, and the blow notes was done thru his nose and we almost crapped our pants silly watching him do it and the first thing I thought was that this guy had to be double jointed in the skull to do it. It totally blew my mind!! ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
@ bluemoose definately the creamy wholesome guiness goodness.
i have a guiness hat ( not a baseball hat but a real mick job). i'm gonna put it on, pop a soldier, and try this technique. ---------- MP hibachi cook for the yakuza doctor of semiotics superhero emeritus
I've played around with the technique a little, particularly on my LLF. I can get the 10 hole to sound on a low blow or draw, and if I move my thumb over the 10 hole I can get the nine to sound. I can get the 7 and 6, but by that point the harp is leaking enough air so they don't sound great (and neither does the low end where I'm actually playing).
You can block the holes above where the note you are trying to sound with your thumb to make the note stronger. I've actually thought about trying to use a guitar finger pick or something narrow to see if I can get lower notes. You can control it a little by pushing the harp holes you aren't using against the side of your face to block/unblock them. I can do it on other harps, but I think it sounds best on low harps.
If you can get so you can do it on the 9 or 10 with blow or draw strongly you've got 4 notes up there you can use for a little mini-melody. With a big face or big hands and a longer harp (a 12 or 14 holer) who knows what you could do!
I've been able to get some blow/draw going...I remember vaguely someone talking about overtones or something...maybe it was Jason Ricci? I was trying to work on some double stop stuff and somehow had gotten the impression that a tight cup was the effect and not necessarily embouchure???
Ninja, yeah, it's all about the tight cup. The air can't have anywhere to go except back into the harp and out the top. You can actually stop the effect just by opening your cup up a tiny bit.
The best thing about a cup that tight though is how dramatic you can make your hand wahs. There is that point where the air just doesn't want to go through the harp and the slightest movement gives you a great wah.
Great work swampboy. If you decide to investigate the phenomenon more, give us updates. I suspect there are some neat possibilities if someone really worked on it to the point where they could work it into their playing naturally.
Yeah the Pat Missin site was where I first came across the concept but never took much notice.
Being a pessimist I assume everything has already been done! But I suppose if no one has deemed this worth bothering with before, there's a chance for someone to come up with something original...I'm not sure I'm that man!
It could only ever be a cool trick and the meat of my playing still needs work!
Harmonica Bruce can do it. Then again, he shoves the whole harp in his mouth backwards and plays with his fingers too. Some of the folks here saw him do some of his crazy stuff at HCH.
It happened to me at a gig the first time I played a Special 20 live. The side vents on a Marine Band make this effectively impossible for me to do. In my case it was a draw note coming out while I was doing a blow chord. Of course it was unintentional, and I sure got a funny look from our singer! ----------
