Brendan Power & Alternative Harmonicas Forum

I've been continuing to explore this project using different harmonica platforms. Most recent are customised versions of plastic shell chroms like the Hohner CX12, Kongsheng KB12 and Easttop ET12, as well as the JDR Trochilus. Here are a couple of clips using the Trochilus as my base platform, playi...

Sorry for the belated reply... PowerChromatic Tuning on a half-valved chromatic is my favourite for playing jazzy music with nice bending expression. I agree, 12 holes or longer is better than 10 for PowerChromatic. It's easy to retune PC out of standard Solo tuned chroms, and you can simply remove ...

Sorry no... The reedplate screw placement and reedplate width are different. I never got around to designing Gasket-Valves for the Hohner MS series.

@ Riverharp: a couple of practical things you can try are: 1. To reduce the 'blanking out' effect of valves bends, and to make them easier to hit as bent notes, try increasingly the reed gap of the valve-affected reed. On a Richter harp, that's the lower 6 blows and upper 4 draws. This works well on...

Isolated Reed (valved) bends are never going to be as stable and controllable as Interactive-Reed (double reed) bends. It's the way of things, that's just how it is.

I was playing through a hand-held mic into an effect that emulates a valve amplifier. It simply fattens the original harp signal: all the vibrato and bending comes from my mouth in combination with the harmonica.

A blues lick using electric guitar-style bends & vibrato, played on my latest experimental harmonica in this project:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C74yDwVo ... lpYzc4YXZk

Thanks Triona for your excellent, in-depth explanation with photos and extra links of the Hohner Chordomonica II. I've long been an admirer of the many innovative harmonica ideas of the designer Chamber Huang, and this is one of his best

And here's a 1 minute lesson on how to play a Blues Turnaround in 2nd Position in the middle octave of a Richter MORBENDZ in C:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/6hCV-8j1ef8

Here's an amusing but instructive short MORBENDZ clip made by our esteemed Forum Moderator David Ireland, getting good views on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7RxanLo ... BncTE5M2tu

The tune is played in 1st Position in the middle octave.