ornamentation on non chromatic harmonica,and chromatic
ornamentation on non chromatic harmonica,and chromatic
I use a number of different ornamentations, including tongueing,single grace notes[hole above same direction,and same hole,blow suck or suck blow]., and the occasional bent note, plus hand vibrato,it must be impossible to do rolls?
anyone got any different suggestions.
on the chromatic .,I have noticed some players playing with the slide in,and releasing the slide, for ornamentation,but otherewise playing it like a non chromatic,is this still very common.Dick Miles
Re: ornamentation on non chromatic harmonica,and chromatic
Its how you hold your nose, well sort of like 'read my lips' but with the nose.
Well I used play it both ways, but to start I played on the inside row. Pity about the makers not realizing thats how Irish Trad Chromatic players play. It is nearly impossible to get Hohner to understand. I tried many a time to have them reverse the D/D# into D/C# but no luck.
Played for decades but quit in the mid 90s, then I moved on to bigger and hopefully better things. Sometimes I wonder about that now... less said the better.
On this site the resident expert is Steve Shaw, and to be quite honest with you, not in half a lifetime have i heard such inventive and entertaining playing of Irish stuff on Harmonica.
But back to the possibilities on the two row - well there are triplets - the mainstay of Concertina decorations - and there are other triplets. A is got from the same note graced and repeated, while B is over three notes. A bundle of these can sound like a roll or long roll depending on your ability.
The method of stopping notes - like uh and huh when on TW of Flute - is down to practice and lots of time getting it just so it sounds like a Box.
Otherwise theres a certain set of tunes everybody greedily learns - because they are fairly easy - then just a few heros will try the impossible.
Generally tunes that don't jump around too much can sound good, but others that do tend to sound out of time. That said there are some mighty players in Irealand and the last time I checked it out there was one chap in the south who could make it hop, but apart from that theres Mr Power and he is a bit of a wag to be honest. Sounds to me like he is trying to out do the Box.
The Chromatic Harmonica has its own sound and once smitten you cannot get away from that.
My 10 c
PS If anybody knows where I can get hold of a C#/D let me know.
Re: ornamentation on non chromatic harmonica,and chromatic
It is possible to do a roll -- i.e., a long, or 5-note roll -- on the chromatic harmonica in "Irish" or "Eddie Clarke" tuning. An example would be B-D-B-Bb-B, (played on a key of G harmonica), starting as a blow on the #6,followed by blow7, blow6, blow6 slide in (giving the Bb), then back to blow 6. Another example would be A-C-A-Ab-A, starting as a draw on the #5. These can be devilishly hard to pull off at session speed, so I generally use them only on slower tunes, like hornpipes. Triplets, on the other hand, are very easy to do on "Irish-tuned" chroms, simply by playing a note, pushing in the slide for the note a half-step below, then releasing it again. In fact, triplets are so easy to play in in this fashion on the chrom that the trick becomes NOT to overdo them. The late Eddie Clarke of Co Cavan was the master of this style, and he's well worth listening to if you can find his few commercial recordings (Crossroads, with fiddler Joe Ryan, and Sailing into Walpole's Marsh, with Maeve Donnelly). I believe the latter has been re-released, but the former is still unavailable on CD.
Re: ornamentation on non chromatic harmonica,and chromatic
You can amke a C#/D chromatic harmonica. However, it requires reed plates from two harmonicas.
You take a Tenor C harmonica, such as a Hohner 270, Hering 5148, or Seydel Deluxe. The lower reedplate is the C# reedplate. Remove it (this is easier on harmonicas held together with screws instead of nails).
You take a D harmonica. Remove the lower reedplate, which is the D# plate.
Replace the D# plate on the D harmonica with the C# plate from the C harmonica - voila - a C#/D harmonica.
The slider will make the note go down in pitch instead of up. To change this so that the note goes up, unscrew the mouthpiece and flip the slider over so that the bottom is now the top.
What to do with the other parts? You could make a C/D# harmonica - very useful for certain types of music (but nobody has figured out what).
By the way, this wont' work with a CX-12, as the reeds for keys of C and C# (and for D and D# on a D instrument) alternate, hole for hole, between the top and bottom plates. Converting one of those requires either retuning or transplanting half the reeds in the harmonica. This is more work, but you could do it with a single D instrument; you'd just have to tune 24 reeds down a whole tone each - fun!
One amendment to Winslow's comment - if you're going to make a C#/D harmonica, you need a tenor (Hohner terminology) or baritono (Hering) C# plate, not a C# plate from a regular C instrument. That's because the octaves don't line up on regular C and D chromatics - the C is the highest and the D the lowest pitched instruments. So the lowest octave on the normal C# plate matches up with the middle octave on the normal D plate. You can send a Hohner instrument to the manufacturer for alteration, but may have to pay for a whole new set of reed plates, not just the one you need.
ornamentation on non chromatic harmonica,and chromatic
ornamentation on non chromatic harmonica,and chromatic
I use a number of different ornamentations, including tongueing,single grace notes[hole above same direction,and same hole,blow suck or suck blow]., and the occasional bent note, plus hand vibrato,it must be impossible to do rolls?
anyone got any different suggestions.
on the chromatic .,I have noticed some players playing with the slide in,and releasing the slide, for ornamentation,but otherewise playing it like a non chromatic,is this still very common.Dick Miles
# Posted on October 30th 2007 by Dick Miles
Re: ornamentation on non chromatic harmonica,and chromatic
Its how you hold your nose, well sort of like 'read my lips' but with the nose.
Well I used play it both ways, but to start I played on the inside row. Pity about the makers not realizing thats how Irish Trad Chromatic players play. It is nearly impossible to get Hohner to understand. I tried many a time to have them reverse the D/D# into D/C# but no luck.
Played for decades but quit in the mid 90s, then I moved on to bigger and hopefully better things. Sometimes I wonder about that now... less said the better.
On this site the resident expert is Steve Shaw, and to be quite honest with you, not in half a lifetime have i heard such inventive and entertaining playing of Irish stuff on Harmonica.
But back to the possibilities on the two row - well there are triplets - the mainstay of Concertina decorations - and there are other triplets. A is got from the same note graced and repeated, while B is over three notes. A bundle of these can sound like a roll or long roll depending on your ability.
The method of stopping notes - like uh and huh when on TW of Flute - is down to practice and lots of time getting it just so it sounds like a Box.
Otherwise theres a certain set of tunes everybody greedily learns - because they are fairly easy - then just a few heros will try the impossible.
Generally tunes that don't jump around too much can sound good, but others that do tend to sound out of time. That said there are some mighty players in Irealand and the last time I checked it out there was one chap in the south who could make it hop, but apart from that theres Mr Power and he is a bit of a wag to be honest. Sounds to me like he is trying to out do the Box.
The Chromatic Harmonica has its own sound and once smitten you cannot get away from that.
My 10 c
PS If anybody knows where I can get hold of a C#/D let me know.
Thanks
# Posted on October 30th 2007 by Schlongbow
Re: ornamentation on non chromatic harmonica,and chromatic
It is possible to do a roll -- i.e., a long, or 5-note roll -- on the chromatic harmonica in "Irish" or "Eddie Clarke" tuning. An example would be B-D-B-Bb-B, (played on a key of G harmonica), starting as a blow on the #6,followed by blow7, blow6, blow6 slide in (giving the Bb), then back to blow 6. Another example would be A-C-A-Ab-A, starting as a draw on the #5. These can be devilishly hard to pull off at session speed, so I generally use them only on slower tunes, like hornpipes. Triplets, on the other hand, are very easy to do on "Irish-tuned" chroms, simply by playing a note, pushing in the slide for the note a half-step below, then releasing it again. In fact, triplets are so easy to play in in this fashion on the chrom that the trick becomes NOT to overdo them. The late Eddie Clarke of Co Cavan was the master of this style, and he's well worth listening to if you can find his few commercial recordings (Crossroads, with fiddler Joe Ryan, and Sailing into Walpole's Marsh, with Maeve Donnelly). I believe the latter has been re-released, but the former is still unavailable on CD.
# Posted on October 30th 2007 by alec b
Re: ornamentation on non chromatic harmonica,and chromatic
thanks,I suppose on a non chromatic,you could roll,blow5blow6blow5 blow4blow5,and same sort of thing on suck holes.DickMiles
# Posted on October 30th 2007 by Dick Miles
Re: ornamentation on non chromatic harmonica,and chromatic
You can amke a C#/D chromatic harmonica. However, it requires reed plates from two harmonicas.
You take a Tenor C harmonica, such as a Hohner 270, Hering 5148, or Seydel Deluxe. The lower reedplate is the C# reedplate. Remove it (this is easier on harmonicas held together with screws instead of nails).
You take a D harmonica. Remove the lower reedplate, which is the D# plate.
Replace the D# plate on the D harmonica with the C# plate from the C harmonica - voila - a C#/D harmonica.
The slider will make the note go down in pitch instead of up. To change this so that the note goes up, unscrew the mouthpiece and flip the slider over so that the bottom is now the top.
What to do with the other parts? You could make a C/D# harmonica - very useful for certain types of music (but nobody has figured out what).
By the way, this wont' work with a CX-12, as the reeds for keys of C and C# (and for D and D# on a D instrument) alternate, hole for hole, between the top and bottom plates. Converting one of those requires either retuning or transplanting half the reeds in the harmonica. This is more work, but you could do it with a single D instrument; you'd just have to tune 24 reeds down a whole tone each - fun!
# Posted on October 31st 2007 by Winslow Yerxa
Swapping reed plates
One amendment to Winslow's comment - if you're going to make a C#/D harmonica, you need a tenor (Hohner terminology) or baritono (Hering) C# plate, not a C# plate from a regular C instrument. That's because the octaves don't line up on regular C and D chromatics - the C is the highest and the D the lowest pitched instruments. So the lowest octave on the normal C# plate matches up with the middle octave on the normal D plate. You can send a Hohner instrument to the manufacturer for alteration, but may have to pay for a whole new set of reed plates, not just the one you need.
# Posted on April 14th 2009 by blarneystar