Introduce yourself

[dominico]

Hello there,

I'm an engineer currently living near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

I was at SPAH last year so I may have run into some of you already in person. With any luck I will be at SPAH again this year.

I used to play a lot of clarinet, and then bit of piano (not enough to be much good), and I've been playing harmonica for a while now; it started when I needed something to do after blowing out my achilles tendon playing sports I'm 20 years too old to be playing and I was couch-ridden for many months. I haven't put it down since.

I mostly play rock, some blues, and more recently, jazz standards.

I play almost exclusively Wilde Tuning, which is very similar to PowerBender, in fact I can convert between the two by only changing a few reeds.

After playing the Wilde Tuning for a while I decided that, while great for rock and blues, it can be a bit clunky in Jazz unless you happen to be playing in 2nd or 4th position. So I created a "Paddy Wilde" Tuning for my jazz playing, and discovered that makes playing easier in a bunch of positions. The downside being that the blow notes are not nearly as expressive, the root of 4th and 5th position, the 5 of 3rd position. Bothered me that they are blow notes.
So I got into half valving. I got good at valved blow bends: more expression on the blow notes, with a half valved "Paddy WIlde" tuning I can easily play chromatically up and down a diatonic harp. That said, 7th through 9th positions, the "Levy positions" are still very painful as they are nearly exclusively bends.

I began to wish for a way to have easy access to all the notes and so I stared searching for the "perfect chromatic", ideally one where I can play in all keys which already feel familiar to positions I already play on a diatonic, where I can have expressive bendable draws on as many notes as possible.

Back in the diatonic rock and blues land, If I could only bend from the 4 down to the flat 3, and from the 5 down to the 4, I could really track those tasty Angus Young licks on the harmonica.

I always have a harmonica in my pocket. The more I play this instrument the more my love/hate relationship with (how awesome it is / frustrations with its limitations) grows. I like playing a Low D, because its the same tonal range of a guitar, but I find the low end sluggish and have been looking for ways to improve reed response. Playing 2nd position in a low D is almost the exact same range as playing 3rd on a G, I can't fathom why I wouldn't be able to get a Low D harp to respond as quickly as a G, so I'm learning everything I can about the physics of these things to get better response out of them.

Armed with a 3d printer, a garage full of tools, my engineering degree and my physics / math minors, I will continue tinkering with these things and hopefully get closer to harmonic nirvana.

I look forward to bouncing ideas back and forth with everyone here.

Thank you,
-Dominick

[triona]

Hello Dominick,
welcome here.

I created a "Paddy Wilde" Tuning

That sounds interesting. What does the layout look like?
Is it like this?




dear greetings
triona

[dominico]

Hello Dominick,
welcome here.

I created a "Paddy Wilde" Tuning

That sounds interesting. What does the layout look like?
Is it like this?




dear greetings
triona

Very close! I also raised 7 blow to an A:

C | E | A | C | E | E | A | C | E | A
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
D | G | B | D | F | G | B | D | G | C

I play it half valved, so the missing Eb is a valved blow bend on 2, 5, 6, and 9 blow, and the Ab is now available as valved blow bend on 3 and 7 blow.

[triona]

Thank you.
I missed that the Will Wilde Rock Tuning is repeating the "Richter-note-duplication" of 2d=3b in holes 6d=7b. Considering this your alteration to Will Wilde on 7b as well makes sense.

Maybe I should have a try on this, because I like to play Paddy Richter as well as Will Wilde Rock tuning. Paddy I use mainly for Irish folk. Will Wilde I use mainly for march music (like e.g. Yorckscher March).

I just do not like valves very much. But I do not really understand blow bends either. Maybe I have played them already since long. But I never did this consciously. But I think this is a question to discuss at another place than here.


dear greetings
triona

[dominico]

SPAH 2024 registration, flight, and hotel are booked.

Hope to see some of you there!

[burkeingraffia]

Hi, my name is Burke Ingraffia. I am a songwriter, guitarist, and wannabe harmonica player living in the Richmond, VA area. I have been looking for this sort of community for a long time, as I am also a coder and techie by day.

I have been playing Lee Oscar harmonicas mostly. Here is a song of mine on the harmonic minor tuning, playing a song I wrote called "Traveling at Night." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLL65GvCfwg

I have some neck problems due to cancer when I was an infant and spent a long time looking for the best neck holder. The best one I have found (and I have no affiliation) is from Farmer's Foot Drums here: https://www.footdrums.com/product/gecko-harp-holder/. All of the others out there are either too little or two much, with not enough pivot points for someone like me with a short and small circumference neck. It's not perfect, so I'm still looking for something better that doesn't even require a neck but can also be backed off of the mic easily.

When I discovered the MINIMIDI-JOYSTICK I was intrigued. I'd love to see how people are using it with vocal mics to play virtual instruments with the voice or breath.

[triona]

Hello Burke,

welcome here.

I have some neck problems due to cancer when I was an infant and spent a long time looking for the best neck holder. The best one I have found (and I have no affiliation) is from Farmer's Foot Drums here: https://www.footdrums.com/product/gecko-harp-holder/.

The Farmer / Seydel Gecko indeed seems to be the best neck holder on the market at the moment to my experience too. Only harmonicas with covers of brass or any other non-magnetic metal - like e.g. Easttop, including Brendans's Lucky13 - can not be fixed to the holder. I have been told that magnetic tape attached to the harmonica cover could help. But up till now I could not find a tape that has sufficient adhesion.


dear greetings
triona