X-HARPS : Personal Experimental Harmonica Project
Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2023 11:00 pm
Over recent years I've spent a lot of time and creative energy devising ways to increase the expression of harmonicas that I don't play myself. In particular, the ubiquitous un-valved Richter diatonic - unchanged in any important respect since 1896.
Frustrated with its deficiencies, I gave up on it myself over four decades ago in favour of half-valved harps in various alternate tunings (Regular-Breath, PowerBlow, PowerBender, PowerDraw, Paddy-Richter, Paddy-Solo, Paddy-Extended, and many others). But since it remains the manufacturers' default model (and therefore the choice of probably 95% of diatonic players), yet has some glaring limitations, I found it interesting and challenging to come up with new designs that wouldn't take away from its essential qualities, but would still offer harp players more expression.
My main products derived from this effort are the Overblow-Booster and the SlipSlider. They're now released in updated versions that I'm pretty happy with. Although my main work on them is done, as time goes on I'll extend the range of applicable models and work to release the OB as a Parts Kit for retrofitting to players' existing harps.
But last year I decided to change focus from satisfying the mainstream to exploring different ways of creating MY personal Dream Harmonica - regardless of the fact it's likely to appeal to virtually nobody else! That's because what I want out of a harp is kind of crazy...
First, and most important, it should bend all blow and draw notes via interactive reed bending to give two different stable bends on each note: a semitone lower for chromatic playing, plus a lower bend of an optional amount (2 or 3 semitones, depending on the scale).
In addition I'd like it if every blow note could be played as a draw, and vice versa, including the bending provisos above.
Ideally I'd also like it to be fully chromatic without bends, whilst retaining the funky tone of a diatonic.
This is a combination of the best qualities of several of my favourite harmonicas: Diatonic Harp, AsiaBend, Slide-Diatonic, Half-valved Chromatic.
This is a pretty demanding set of criteria to try and cram into just one harmonica, and it's had me scratching my head a lot over the past 9 months since I began the project! But the more I thought, the more possible ways of achieving at least most of those criteria started to emerge. I've now made probably 20 prototypes, all very different from each other. None ticks ALL the boxes yet, but they all tick most of them - and some do it pretty well.
Here's a short music example played on one of my prototypes, which I'll give the working designation of X-HARP #1. It has the compact outward form of a standard 10-hole diatonic, but enables four different kinds of blow and draw bends. You can hear three types on the track.
X-HARP #1 : First Test https://youtube.com/shorts/56TCHEFdvbQ?feature=share
Frustrated with its deficiencies, I gave up on it myself over four decades ago in favour of half-valved harps in various alternate tunings (Regular-Breath, PowerBlow, PowerBender, PowerDraw, Paddy-Richter, Paddy-Solo, Paddy-Extended, and many others). But since it remains the manufacturers' default model (and therefore the choice of probably 95% of diatonic players), yet has some glaring limitations, I found it interesting and challenging to come up with new designs that wouldn't take away from its essential qualities, but would still offer harp players more expression.
My main products derived from this effort are the Overblow-Booster and the SlipSlider. They're now released in updated versions that I'm pretty happy with. Although my main work on them is done, as time goes on I'll extend the range of applicable models and work to release the OB as a Parts Kit for retrofitting to players' existing harps.
But last year I decided to change focus from satisfying the mainstream to exploring different ways of creating MY personal Dream Harmonica - regardless of the fact it's likely to appeal to virtually nobody else! That's because what I want out of a harp is kind of crazy...
First, and most important, it should bend all blow and draw notes via interactive reed bending to give two different stable bends on each note: a semitone lower for chromatic playing, plus a lower bend of an optional amount (2 or 3 semitones, depending on the scale).
In addition I'd like it if every blow note could be played as a draw, and vice versa, including the bending provisos above.
Ideally I'd also like it to be fully chromatic without bends, whilst retaining the funky tone of a diatonic.
This is a combination of the best qualities of several of my favourite harmonicas: Diatonic Harp, AsiaBend, Slide-Diatonic, Half-valved Chromatic.
This is a pretty demanding set of criteria to try and cram into just one harmonica, and it's had me scratching my head a lot over the past 9 months since I began the project! But the more I thought, the more possible ways of achieving at least most of those criteria started to emerge. I've now made probably 20 prototypes, all very different from each other. None ticks ALL the boxes yet, but they all tick most of them - and some do it pretty well.
Here's a short music example played on one of my prototypes, which I'll give the working designation of X-HARP #1. It has the compact outward form of a standard 10-hole diatonic, but enables four different kinds of blow and draw bends. You can hear three types on the track.
X-HARP #1 : First Test https://youtube.com/shorts/56TCHEFdvbQ?feature=share
