From: Roy Briere Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 23:55:02 -0500 Subject: a ferrous resonance with Doug
Hi,
In ref. to glottal stops and harp aging...all I can say is Amen!
I think the best thing I learned in years (and I can't really recall how) was getting volume and/or bends with less breath and exertion. If you asked me if I used the technique Doug described yesterday, I'm not sure what I would have said...but if I pay attention, I seem to. I also think it compensates for my lazy tendency to not use harder articulations much (ta da ka vs. wa ha la ... sounds kinda Hawaiian?)
It's natural at first (and for quite some time when bending in my case) to be too harsh playing. I no longer wipe out reeds (like 4draw) in the way I used to... I remember being proud I learned to tune harps and pulling out some old ones, only to find them unsalvagable (at my repaar level at least) apparently because the reed was just too stressed to tune up well. Nice vibrations are coll with metal, but the human respiratory tract can do some excellent metal fatigue work also!
I also go back to my miscellaneous old harps now, and they all sound OK, even if I thought they were hard to play when I bought them years ago. (I found Silvertones esp. hard to control when I bent like a asthmatic on speed...now, they're fun!)
SageAdviceFromSomeoneNoBetterThanYouButProneToDictums: Learn to bend while drawing very softly...just add it to the 'important goals' list if you don't get it soon enough; don't drop it forever!
I wonder if others have similar experience in bending- induced premature aging becoming less of an issue with better technique. (I'd ask Doug, but perhaps he considers Blues a quaint custom only a former colony could love. But I bet he goes out and wails in the potting shed when no one is watching! Anyone got a bootleg?)
So as much as I hate to resonate on the resonance thing, lest people insist my nick change to Rusty, I must! (esp. as a practicing physicist)
Blind Iron BBQ Grill Boy Quantum
'Better than 99% of people at Quantum Field Theory'
