Brendan Power & Alternative Harmonicas Forum

Yes, you are right, he didn’t switch the blow G to A. I forgot about that. That was the one I was initially interested in playing around with, but decided triple bends on the 6th and 9th draw holes might make it too difficult, and double blow/draw notes everywhere was not ideal.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. I just put plastic Saran wrap between the comb and the draw reed on my harmonica. That allowed me to instantly experience what i can expect with valved harmonicas (of course my draw reeds wouldn’t work anymore till I took of the saran wrap). Right away...

Thanks Brendan, I wouldn’t even be playing harmonica if I didn’t stumble onto your website, learn about alternative tuning, and order a powerbender harp from you. The reason I settled on Equal Temperment Paddy Extended* is because I started playing harmonica (first musical instrument really) at 40 a...

Thanks Triona, I never heard of Sirius, but I’ll look them up. The harmonica scene seems quite small in Taipei as far as I know. It doesn’t seem like they like the instrument too much here (at least the diatonic) - but then again, I’m not super great at socializing and connecting with the music scen...

Nice diagrams and analysis Rishio. Since you've been playing this tuning for a while now, do you have any video or recordings you'd care to share? Well, It’s been 7 years since I started the harmonica - I’d say about 4 of which have been productive, and 3 of which I felt like giving up because I fe...

Thanks Brendan. I’m so curious about how it sounds & feels - do you think completely blocking off my draw reeds with a piece of paper or tape (on comb side of the draw reed) would accurately simulate how the blow reeds would respond and sound with valves?

I apologize if this has been asked, but I haven’t seen it in my quick search of this forum. Recently, I’ve been considering to half valve my harmonicas since I’m not interested in overblowing but I am interested in extra blow expression. All my harmonicas are in ED tuning, so it’s a regular breath p...

Thanks Brendan. I really appreciated your iPad series - it’s been gold for me. It confirmed in my mind that it could work and gave me the insight to get started on my own system. Right now I’m having fun keeping it simple with Garageband. As I gain more experience, I’m going to try out some of the o...

Hey Brendan, I’d be happy to change the name of the Title for this thread (not sure how to). I kind of don’t know why I called it one tuning compared to another. They both have their advantages and disadvantages - and this is your forum so my full respect to the history of the tuning as you say. I a...

Woops, I missed this thread when I posted my iPad setup. I use it for both live performance with no noticeable latency, and also for recording, as shown in the FB links below. The software I use is Garageband - nothing else. The speaker I use is awesome, as it has AUX in without latency (a rarity th...