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From: "Armand Thieblot"
Date: 9 Jun 1996 01:56:28 -0400
Subject: Re: 1-note jams; also, Rich

Two dumb things this evening:

I've been trying to understand the current thread about one-chord jams. Didi
Neumann, responding to something of Jon's, just posted a whole list of songs
she says can be done with one chord, but I'm darned if I can make them work
for me (those of them that I recognize). All I get is dull. If all I have to
work with is the major triad, where does any musical tension come from? If I
add other notes for tension, am I not bringing them in from different chords,
albeit perhaps in the same key? Similarly with bends or overblows. What am I
missing. Help. Could you share a bit of notation or tab on a couple of them?
It seems to me I'm not far off from bugle calls or trying to jam with a
police whistle.

Here's a different topic, also brought to mind by recent discussions. I
understand the "what" of the Richter scale, and recognize that some people
might get jollys from being able to bend 3 semi-tones in the same hole, but I
really don't understand the "why" of the system. Specifically, why is it
necessary to be different from octave to octave, and what is gained by it?
Chromatics (also keyed instruments, although players seem to avoid wearing
belts full of them for different keys). They double up their tonic notes so
as to maintain the same progression from octave to octave. Why don't
diatonics do this. [I've got a C-C# slide diatonic that "plays just like the
diatonic," although it is almost chromatic, but it has the same
characteristically weird bottom and top octaves. Seems to me I'd be better
off with a diatonic that "plays just like a slideless chromatic."] Why is it
not a rational system for a C diatonic to either leave out all the As (which
could be bent for as is now done in the 3rd hole, or double up the Cs (over
the Bs and over the Ds). Either way you'd still have lots of places to bend,
and your tongue might not have so many knots in it after a while.