OVERBLOWING - Where to From Here?
Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2017 3:46 pm
THE PROBLEM, AND SOME SOLUTIONS
As someone who started playing on the 10 hole diatonic, I share a love for the sound of this little harmonica with the majority of harp players on the planet. Like some of them, as soon as I got proficient and wanted to explore music genres that involved key changes and more chromaticism, I quickly felt frustrated at its apparent limitations. I wanted to keep that beautiful sound of the diatonic harp but make it fully chromatic too. I found several ways to do it:
1. From 1980, create alternate tunings on the 10-hole diatonic that gave me more chromaticism with note bending, such as Regular Breath Tuning and PowerBender, but retained the flavour of the blues harp.
2. Also 1980, invent half-valving on chromatics (and diatonics). Along with alternate tunings like PowerChromatic, this gives a diatonic-style interactive-reed-bending sound to the chromatic, with universal draw bend ability. Along with that comes full slide chromaticism and lots of bend-enharmonics (notes that can be obtained startight or as bent notes).
3. 1989 co-invent the X-Reed concept for universal bending on all reeds, regardless of the harmonica scale. (I say co-invent because I was one of several people who thought of this independently in the 1980s. The first was Will Scarlett; you can read the history of this idea here:
http://www.brendan-power.com/HistoryOfTheUltraBend.php)
ANOTHER, BETTER SOLUTION?
All of these approaches work to get the blend of diatonic-style tone and chromaticism I was after. But there was another idea aimed at the same goal, also first explored systematically by the inventive Will Scarlett: OVERBLOWING. Here is his own account of how he developed it back in 1968 and made the first serious overblow recordings with Hot Tuna in 1969/70:
http://www.brendan-power.com/images/HWOctNov12_Will.pdf
Will gave up overblowing after a few years, largely because he lacked the know-how at that time to customise harps to the level required for reliable playing. But, as with all great ideas, there was more than one person experimenting with this new sound. Howard Levy independently discovered overblowing just a year or two later. Here is his story of how and when it happened:
http://www.levyland.com/2009/06/how-i-f ... overdraws/
I'm not sure when Howard first recorded using overbends (overblows and overdraws), but his debut 1986 album, the seminal Harmonica Jazz, demonstrated a highly developed skill obviously honed over many years.
The 1980s/early 90s were a fertile period in the development of the diatonic harmonica. Another BIG name in the story of both the X-Reed harmonica and overblow-friendly harmonicas is Rick Epping. He invented the method of embossing reed slots that is essential for good overblow playing. Rick called the technique "burnishing", and here he tells the story of how it came about and was shared:
http://www.brendan-power.com/blogs/HWDecJan13_Rick.pdf
Epping's new reed-slot burnishing/embossing technique, which not only improved general response but also made harps much easier to overbend, was rapidly adopted and developed further by now-famous US harmonica techs like Richard Sleigh and Joe Filisko. The confluence of Howard Levy's musical genius and more user-friendly overblow harps led to an explosion in the numbers of players learning the overbending style. Though Levy is mainly a jazz player, overbending in a more rock/blues context has been popularised by top players like Carlos del Junco and Jason Ricci.
Their example has inspired many followers. At this point, the overblow method of attaining chromaticism on the diatonic harmonica is well entrenched as the dominant approach. Though a demanding technique to fully master, and requiring advanced harp customisation for optimal playing, the best players make it sound good, and it has many points to recommend it.
Probably the main one is that the harps used, though finely customised, have no extra bells and whistles: their components and construction are identical to any stock OTB 10-hole model. In fact the harp of choice is the iconic Hohner 1896 Marine Band in Richter tuning, and you can't get more traditional than that!
This gives overbending a kind of historical legitimacy: Howard, Jason, Carlos are using exactly the same harps as the great Blues masters like Sonny Boy Williamson, Sonny Terry, Little Walter.
Unlike my approach to the problem of combining blues harp tone with chromaticism (which involves changing the instrument itself) they, with the help of advanced hand customisation techniques, are taking the basic blues harp and pushing it way beyond what was ever thought possible on this simple little instrument. That deserves the utmost respect.
LIMITATIONS OF OVERBENDING
But respect for an astonishing achievement should not blind us to the shortcomings and weaknesses of overbending, even in the hands of the greatest players. These include:
Pitch Stability - it's easy to play out of tune, and even the greatest overblowers are guilty of this.
Evenness of Tone - it's not easy to get even tone between notes that are bent/overblown and uninflected notes.
Only a limited number of the natural notes can be bent a semitone or more on the un-valved diatonic harmonicas used: 8 out of 20.
Common semitone and tone trills/decorations as used in most music forms are not possible on the 10-hole Richter diatonic harmonicas used.
In my opinion the overblow approach has reached a point where the harps, no matter how well customised, have hit a ceiling that inhibits much further progress for even the most talented of players.
I believe that if overbending is to continue to thrive in competition with other harmonicas for playing advanced music, such as the slide chromatic, pushing further will require technical advancement in the harmonicas overblowers use. The 1896 Richter Marine Band and its type has been wrung out and stretched as far as it can go - it's time to advance the design whilst retaining its fundamental character.
To be continued...
As someone who started playing on the 10 hole diatonic, I share a love for the sound of this little harmonica with the majority of harp players on the planet. Like some of them, as soon as I got proficient and wanted to explore music genres that involved key changes and more chromaticism, I quickly felt frustrated at its apparent limitations. I wanted to keep that beautiful sound of the diatonic harp but make it fully chromatic too. I found several ways to do it:
1. From 1980, create alternate tunings on the 10-hole diatonic that gave me more chromaticism with note bending, such as Regular Breath Tuning and PowerBender, but retained the flavour of the blues harp.
2. Also 1980, invent half-valving on chromatics (and diatonics). Along with alternate tunings like PowerChromatic, this gives a diatonic-style interactive-reed-bending sound to the chromatic, with universal draw bend ability. Along with that comes full slide chromaticism and lots of bend-enharmonics (notes that can be obtained startight or as bent notes).
3. 1989 co-invent the X-Reed concept for universal bending on all reeds, regardless of the harmonica scale. (I say co-invent because I was one of several people who thought of this independently in the 1980s. The first was Will Scarlett; you can read the history of this idea here:
http://www.brendan-power.com/HistoryOfTheUltraBend.php)
ANOTHER, BETTER SOLUTION?
All of these approaches work to get the blend of diatonic-style tone and chromaticism I was after. But there was another idea aimed at the same goal, also first explored systematically by the inventive Will Scarlett: OVERBLOWING. Here is his own account of how he developed it back in 1968 and made the first serious overblow recordings with Hot Tuna in 1969/70:
http://www.brendan-power.com/images/HWOctNov12_Will.pdf
Will gave up overblowing after a few years, largely because he lacked the know-how at that time to customise harps to the level required for reliable playing. But, as with all great ideas, there was more than one person experimenting with this new sound. Howard Levy independently discovered overblowing just a year or two later. Here is his story of how and when it happened:
http://www.levyland.com/2009/06/how-i-f ... overdraws/
I'm not sure when Howard first recorded using overbends (overblows and overdraws), but his debut 1986 album, the seminal Harmonica Jazz, demonstrated a highly developed skill obviously honed over many years.
The 1980s/early 90s were a fertile period in the development of the diatonic harmonica. Another BIG name in the story of both the X-Reed harmonica and overblow-friendly harmonicas is Rick Epping. He invented the method of embossing reed slots that is essential for good overblow playing. Rick called the technique "burnishing", and here he tells the story of how it came about and was shared:
http://www.brendan-power.com/blogs/HWDecJan13_Rick.pdf
Epping's new reed-slot burnishing/embossing technique, which not only improved general response but also made harps much easier to overbend, was rapidly adopted and developed further by now-famous US harmonica techs like Richard Sleigh and Joe Filisko. The confluence of Howard Levy's musical genius and more user-friendly overblow harps led to an explosion in the numbers of players learning the overbending style. Though Levy is mainly a jazz player, overbending in a more rock/blues context has been popularised by top players like Carlos del Junco and Jason Ricci.
Their example has inspired many followers. At this point, the overblow method of attaining chromaticism on the diatonic harmonica is well entrenched as the dominant approach. Though a demanding technique to fully master, and requiring advanced harp customisation for optimal playing, the best players make it sound good, and it has many points to recommend it.
Probably the main one is that the harps used, though finely customised, have no extra bells and whistles: their components and construction are identical to any stock OTB 10-hole model. In fact the harp of choice is the iconic Hohner 1896 Marine Band in Richter tuning, and you can't get more traditional than that!
This gives overbending a kind of historical legitimacy: Howard, Jason, Carlos are using exactly the same harps as the great Blues masters like Sonny Boy Williamson, Sonny Terry, Little Walter.
Unlike my approach to the problem of combining blues harp tone with chromaticism (which involves changing the instrument itself) they, with the help of advanced hand customisation techniques, are taking the basic blues harp and pushing it way beyond what was ever thought possible on this simple little instrument. That deserves the utmost respect.
LIMITATIONS OF OVERBENDING
But respect for an astonishing achievement should not blind us to the shortcomings and weaknesses of overbending, even in the hands of the greatest players. These include:
Pitch Stability - it's easy to play out of tune, and even the greatest overblowers are guilty of this.
Evenness of Tone - it's not easy to get even tone between notes that are bent/overblown and uninflected notes.
Only a limited number of the natural notes can be bent a semitone or more on the un-valved diatonic harmonicas used: 8 out of 20.
Common semitone and tone trills/decorations as used in most music forms are not possible on the 10-hole Richter diatonic harmonicas used.
In my opinion the overblow approach has reached a point where the harps, no matter how well customised, have hit a ceiling that inhibits much further progress for even the most talented of players.
I believe that if overbending is to continue to thrive in competition with other harmonicas for playing advanced music, such as the slide chromatic, pushing further will require technical advancement in the harmonicas overblowers use. The 1896 Richter Marine Band and its type has been wrung out and stretched as far as it can go - it's time to advance the design whilst retaining its fundamental character.
To be continued...