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From: Pat Missin
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 19:45:31 GMT
Subject: Bent notes on diatonic and chrom

Ironman writes:
> I theorize this is why some report that it is "impossible" to bend
> chromatics unless you remove the windsavers - which is not true in my
> case - I find chromatics easily bendable on all notes except those
> lacking windsavers, in which case only the upper note in that hole can be
> bent

Mic'l writes:

>I removed the windsavers for bends on my CX12, holes 1, 3, 5... notes D,
>A... Yields great draw bends on those holes! The CX12 is air tight
>enough that there is no problem.. The other holes.. ie draw 2, 4,
>doesn't help..you can bend farther valved.. (E/F = 1/2 step, B/C = 1/2
>step only)
>

Ok - we're back to apples and orangutans again!

You *can* bend all the notes on a chromatic, but those bends are not the
same as the classic blues-type bends on say 4 draw on a blues harp (and they
also require a more subtle technique - resonance: check the Ironman's posts
on this subject). The presence of a valve on the opposing reed (as on most
reeds of a standard chrom) means that only the normally sounding reed (ie.
the draw reed, if you are drawing, the blow reed if you are blowing) is used
for the bend - like bending a note on a sax, clarinet, etc. On a regular
unvalved diatonic, the pitch of the opposing reed determines how far the
bent note can be lowered. Brendan Power (and, I'm sure, others) removes the
valves from the blow reeds to allow the use of blues-type draw bends, but he
also uses altered tunings to allow different bent notes to a regular
solo-tuned chrom (he also prefers CX-12s, for the reasons that Mic'l gives
above). He also adds valves to certain slots of the diatonic harps to allow
extra chrom-type bends. For some reason, most makers do not add windsavers
to the top few holes of a chrom - check out some of the high draw bends used
by Larry Adler (St. Louis Blues, springs to mind). I prefer to valve the
whole lot of 'em, but that's just me.

Actually, *all* the notes on a diatonic can be bent, but usually only by a
few cents (one cent being 1/100th of a semitone) - this has been described
and measured by Robert Johnston. However, on a well adjusted harp, with
careful technique, I can bend certain notes by up to 100 cents (one
semitone), without using valves and without losing the "normal" bends and
overblows (stop me if I'm sounding like a smartass again!). For example on
my standard C major Lee Oskar, in hole six I can produce an F# (6 blow
*very* carefully bent), G (6 blow), Ab (6 draw bent), A (6 draw), Bb (6
overblow), B (6 overblow bent upwards) and a whole host of microtones in
between. The "careful" technique probably evolved during a few years of
playing partially-valved diatonics. I discovered the "extra" bends when one
day, I remembered that I had removed the valves from the harp I was playing,
but was still able to bend 9 draw down by a semitone.

It is also possible (despite what most books will tell you) to bend notes on
the tremelo and octave tuned harps, but that is another story.

Pat.