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DATE: Sun, 21 Aug 1994 18:08:48 CDT
From: Winslow Yerxa <76450.32~ompuserve.com>
Subject: Brendan Power


FJM asks about Brendan's tunings. You already know about the
Power tunings for diatonic and chromatic. When he played me the
new CD I noticed some grace notes on the first cut that didn't
sound like they came from either standard or power tuning, and I
asked him about it. He said that he uses several variations on
the basic tuning in order to get the various grace notes. He
didn't elaborate, although I'm sure he would have.

By grace note I mean any note that is quickly alternated with a
main melody note. The only ways to do this *smoothly* is by either
using the slide, moving to a neighboring hole and back, or both.
Any breath change or hole leap will break up the smoothness.

If you transcribe one of his recorded melodies, remembering that
he plays chromatics in several keys and usually uses either the G
or the E minor position, and keep his "stock" power tuning in
mind, you can probably figure out where the variations in tuning
lie.

The only article published so far about Brendan is in an issue of
Harmonica World about two years ago. Steve Jennings, the editor,
is on the harp list and can be contacted at
100010.11~ompserve.com.

The Murphys CD is available in the U.S. from F&R Farrell Co. I
met John Murphy at the SPAH convention, and saw him playing irish
music on both tremolo harps and Richter diatonics (usually a low
F for the latter).

Instead of scratching your head for the title of that album, why
not get in touch with Green Linnet? I don't have their contact
information at hand, but they shouldn't be too hard to find.

One other Irish record involving harmonica: Kevin Burke recorded
an album called Open House with Mark Graham on harmonica. Brendan
played a little bit of it for me, and it was pretty interesting,
as Mark has great tone and was mixing up styles - he'd drop Sonny
Terry-style whooping into an Irish fiddle tune.

The Mark Graham entry in Harmonicas, Harps, and Heavy Breathers
also mentions a Mark Graham album called Natural Selections. He
mentions a harmonica player named Sam Hinton, who records fiddle
tunes on harmonica, on Folkways. He mentions, in addition to the
Murphy family, Irish players Eddie Clarke and Ciaron Hanrahan. I
have no idea if these guys made records. Perhaps you could ask
Kim Field to ask Mark.

Another thing Mark mentions is Quebecois harmonica players. Now
most French Canadians are descended from in habitants of Bretagne
(or Brittany), who are French Celts who migrated from Britian
during the various post-Roman invasions - same base music as Irish
music. I've heard some French Canadian music that sounds quite
celtic, including La Bolduc (sort of a francophone Roseanne
Arnold of rural eastern Canada in the 1920's and '30's). Mark
Graham mentions that there are several good players in Quebec and
mentions Robert Legault, Wilfred Boivin and Yves Lambert by name.
I have a record by Gabriel Labbe' that falls in that general bag
- again, tremolo harmonica, the use of two- and three-song
medleys. It's somewhat less celtic in its general sound - lots of
waltzes and marches, with some reels, quadrilles and polkas.

Brendan plays both Richter tuned and Power tuned ProValves. In
Power tuning, the high blow notes 7, 8 and 9 are retuned to form
the same chord as the lower draw chord:


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
=======================================================================
DR | | | | | | | | | | |
| D | G | B | D | F | A | G | C | E | A |
|------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+------|
| | | | | | | | | | |
BL | C | E | G | C | E | G | B | D | G | G |
=======================================================================

You still get to wail on Draw 6 and Blow 10

HIP No. 7 should be out around early to mid-1995.