DATE: Mon, 24 Jan 1994 16:56:00 CST From: Robert Johnston Subject: bending damage
Gordon
I just thougt I would make this contribution to the idea that bending damages harps.
Bending on diatonics does damage reeds as every hard player knows. This is especially true of hanging on the bottom of the bend and overblowing. This is because when you overblow or are playing the bottom of the bend (full bend as you say) on a diatonic you are actually playing the wrong reed in the air way as an opening reed (that is instead of playing the reed that is pushed closed by youre breath you are playing the one that is pushed open). The closing reeds that are normally played have a sort of natural limmit to how hard you can play them because eventually they go in side the plate. But the opening reeds do not hqave this guard. You can just go on playing louder and loader with the reed vibrating through a bigger and bigger angle until they break off (well nearly - at least they will be fatique damaged)
However when you play bends on a chromatic (with the valves on) you are playing the closing reeds. This is why you dont get the same type of bend. This means that there is basically no difference between what happens to the reed when bending and normal playing. The vibration is just *pulled* away from its normal pitch by the mouth resonance. So I beleive you can safely bend to youre hearts content.
