From: midnig~acline.co.uk (David Michelsen) Date: Fri, 4 Oct 96 10:57:47 BST Subject: Playing a train
The following is the copyright of David Michelsen 1989. This is an excert from my book Talkin' Harp. for this to make best sence you would need to also see the music and hear the tape. With all the exercises and rhythms in this book you need to make your phonetics just as clear on in-drawn breath as on the outward breath.
You may well find that the in-drawn breath is just that much trickier to keep a constant rhythm going on. This is not uncommon, many folk find this. So if you find this too don't worry you are not alone. After all how much time do we spend speaking whilst breathing in?
To help yourself with this you should try speaking each paten in both breath directions before you put the patens on the harmonica. It is a good idea to tape record yourself from time to time so you can review your progress and hear yourself as others hear you.
You should take great care never to blow or draw hard when chugging, or when playing the harp in general. It is literally the same amount of air one would use for normal speech . Just like when speaking, if you try to blow out hard whilst trying to speak you will lose all clarity. Using too greater force of air will make your tone corse, mess with your breathing. If you blow or draw with too greater force you will find that you will be either running out of air or filling up with too much air and always at the wrong times.
Gentle air pressures will make your harmonicas last longer and sound better.
phonetics
The Ga sound is pronounced as in Gather. The Gi as in Give. The Ge sound as in Get. The Ka sound is like can. The Ki sound as in Kin. The Ke sound is like Keep. The Ta sound is like Tar. The Ti sound is like Till. The Te sound is like Tee. The Da is like dapple. The Di is like Dip. The De is like Deep.
As before you should play this through till it feels easy and natural. Feel how the 'off beat' picks the rhythm up and gives the chug more life and zip.
To feel the difference more clearly we are now going to play the first paten four times followed by the second paten four times.
Again we are going to start on the in-drawn breath. Each paten is one bar or measure in length and each of these measures has four beats.
Play this round and round so that the change between paten 1 and 2 is smooth and easy and the beat is constant.
One of the party pieces that every chugging harp player should have in their grab bag is a train. You can make all sorts of trains, diesel, subway and so on. The train that I am going to show you here is a steam train of mine which I have developed over the years and taught to many students.
This train is played on a G harp and you will be playing in second position so you are playing in D. This train is played mostly at the bottom end (holes 1 to 5).
The train that you get from this book should be the building blocks for making your own steam train. The way to customise this train so that it becomes your train is to put in your own additions.
What these additions are, will depend largely on what you visualise, what you see in your mind when you play. So you could ask your self some of these questions:
Is your train a passenger train or freight. train?
If it is the former, then changes in speed are going to have to be very smooth, so as not to be knocking the passengers about.
Is your train going to stop at any stations?
Will there be other trains passing it in the other direction ?
If so, how will all that sound?
Will it be going through any tunnels, over or under any bridges ?
Will it go past level crossings which have a traffic warning bell?
Moving sound has the Doppler effect, like when a fire engine passes you on the street.
The more completely you can visualise your train and the journey it takes the more interesting and real it will be for the listener and the more fun it will be for you to play.
Though the train I play on the tape may well sound as if it is going very fast, do not be misled by that impression of speed into thinking that I am breathing in and out very fast.
As with all rhythm, the work is being done with the tongue. So we are back to the idea of a quick, crisp, light tongue action.
Once again don't try and put too much air through your harp. If you try that you will slow the train down and make the rhythm indistinct and un-train like.
It is worth remembering that not all trains are fast trains, freight trains or almost any English train can be slow. The speed of your train is not the only factor to consider by a long chalk.
You should be aiming to paint a picture in the mind of the listener and not just make a fast noise. So lets dress up the start, announce the trains departure. Apart from anything else it lets the listener know to expect a train song of some type and this will put them in the right mind frame right from the start.
Here I am going to break the train up into several parts, this part is:
DEPARTURE
"The train now standing at platform No 1 is leaving for all points south. All aboard" followed by a whistle, draw on holes 3, 4, & 5. In playing the whistle you make like you are saying 'wha wah'.
Steam noises can be made by making a "tshhh" sound. The "tshhh" sound does not go through the harp. You don't want to make any noise with the reeds here , just steam noises.
You don't have to take the harp out of your mouth to avoid putting this sound through the harp. All you have to do is to drop your lower jaw a bit and aim your "Tshhh" sound at the floor.
Wheel spin on the lead engine is a fairly characteristic sound for freight trains but less so for passenger trains. A wheel spin noise can be made by saying:
Tk-kr hu KaTk-kr hu Ka
a couple of times. The tk-kr are draw sounds and the hu Ka is a blow
ENGINE RHYTHMS
Now we are starting with a slow train patern:
Tar hu Ka, Tar hu Ka./Tar hu Ka, Tar hu Ka./ Tar hu Ka, Tar hu Ka./Tar hu Ka, Tar hu Ka./
Fig.9. You will hear the difference it makes to the sound saying Tar or Tor. Even though you are playing the same notes in the same holes, the Tor phonetic will sound that bit deeper than the Tar phonetic. Apart from the Hu Ka phonetic, which is on the blow the rest is all on the in-drawn breath
At this point your train is gaining momentum but not much extra speed, it should be sounding a bit more constant and less hesitant. Round about now would be a good place to put in a whistle, just like the first one.
Now your paten should be:
Tar Hu ka Tu Ka Hu ka / Tar Hu ka Tu Ka Hu ka /
Tar Hu ka Tu Ka Hu ka / Tar Hu ka Tu Ka Hu ka./ Fig.10.
CHANGING GEARS
The whistle can be used to good effect to cover up any major changes of tempo or speed.
Now the rythm is falling into two bits:
Tar Hu ka and Tu Ka Hu ka.
In order to make the train sound faster you are going to replace Tar Hu ka with Tu Ka Hu ka and visc a versa. Your new paten should look like this:
Tu Ka Hu ka Tar Hu ka, /Tu Ka Hu ka Tar Hu ka/
Tu Ka Hu ka Tar Hu ka,/Tu Ka Hu ka Tar Hu ka/ Fig.11. The next step up in apparent pace is:
Tu Ka Hu Ka Tu Ka Hu Ka/Tu Ka Hu KaTu Ka Hu Ka/
Tu Ka Hu KaTu Ka Hu Ka/Tu Ka Hu KaTu Ka Hu Ka/
Fig.12 The next speed hike that we are going to put in is the phonetic:
Di Da Le Hu Ka.
In order that the train doesn't lurch we are also going to drop the Tu Ka for now giving us:
Di Da Le Hu Ka Tar Hu Ka/Di Da Le Hu Ka Tar Hu Ka/
Di Da Le Hu Ka Tar Hu Ka/Di Da Le Hu Ka Tar Hu Ka/ Fig.13 Fig.14. Like all the other patens you can reverse the order of the riff, see fig.14, to good effect, giving you:
Tar Hu Ka Di Da Le Hu Ka/Tar Hu Ka Di Da Le Hu Ka/
Tar Hu Ka Di Da Le Hu Ka/Tar Hu Ka Di Da Le Hu Ka/
Now you can replace:
Di Da Le Hu Ka Tar Hu Ka
with: Di Da Le Hu Ka Tu Ka Hu Ka/Di Da Le Hu Ka Tu Ka Hu Ka/
Di Da Le Hu Ka Tu Ka Hu Ka/Di Da Le Hu Ka Tu Ka Hu Ka/ Fig.15. Again we reverse where in the bar we put the triplet : Di Da Le , so it is now at the end of the bar, so it looks like this:
Tu Ka Hu Ka/Di Da Le Hu Ka/Tu Ka Hu Ka/Di Da Le Hu Ka/
Tu Ka Hu Ka/Di Da Le Hu Ka/Tu Ka Hu Ka/Di Da Le Hu Ka/
In Fig 16 you can see this quite clearly. Fig.16. Fig.17.
In Fig.17. we are going flat out. The patern is:
Di Da Le Hu Ka Di Da Le Hu Ka/Di Da Le Hu Ka Di Da Le Hu Ka/
Di Da Le Hu Ka Di Da Le Hu Ka/Di Da Le Hu Ka Di Da Le Hu Ka/
Through all of the train you are not aiming to create true speed but rather the impression of speed. So as you go up through the phonetics you wouldn't be breathing any faster but it would sound faster. Then when you got it sounding as fast as you could, before increasing your breathing, you would need to change gears in order to make the entire thing to sound faster. I would do this by covering the 'gear change' with a whistle.
Then I would start the phonetic at Fig.12. and do the entire process again and againe till I was both breathing and running the phonetics as quickly as I could. There are a number of ways that you can cover this 'gear change' process so that it sounds natural.
There was a time that I performed this train and I would tell the audence that every time they would hear the train whistle blow I would play twice as quickly. I wouldn't play twice as fast but I would play faster after each whistle. The fact that the audence was listening out for the whistle would make them apprecate each increase of apparent pace more keenly.
Effects:
Tunnels and bridges can be imitated by the opening and closeing of your hands Level crossings. I hope that this gives you a better idea of how my train goes. It is quite possable to play this chugg pattern for hours as it's not your breathing that's going fast but your tongue. If you want to hear it as well you can order Tape 2 from me at a special Harp l discounr which takes it from 15 bucks down to 10 - David
Dr Midnight AKA David Michelsen, 6a Plesant Row, Woodford, N'hants,NN14 4HP, England. Phone or Fax 01832 735860
