PowerBender/PowerDraw/PowerChromatic for Irish?

[mr grouchy]

I use a D/C# chromatic, D and G Lucky 13’s and a D Easy Third for Irish and Quebecois tunes. Each gives a different personality to the music. Has anyone tried and posted their thoughts on using any of the Power harmonicas for this music? I can bend notes but not quickly nor cleanly enough to play many of the melodies but I’m wondering if there is way to use any of these to achieve a more “soulful” expression in the music, especially the Irish slow airs.

Thanks for any thoughts as I continue on my journey.

Ken

[Brendan]

Hi Ken, thanks for your post.

Playing Irish traditional and related folk music (eg. Old Time, Bluegrass, Quebecois) with greater bending expression than stock harmonicas offer is a topic I find particularly interesting. On both slow and fast tunes, fiddle players in particular use bending all the time! I find that aspect particularly alluring, because it's so expressive.

Trying to emulate their bends requires retuned harps, and I've made a few different ones with that aim in view.

PowerChromatic, PowerBender, PowerDraw give you bends on all the draw notes: a significant improvement over standard chromatics and even Richter diatonics. The new bends are mostly 1 semitone down, which does give nice expression. However it's not what's typically used by trad fiddle players, who are generally bending 2 or even 3 semitones (depending on where the bend happens in the scale). Those tunings were devised more for easy chromatic playing, not specifically for traditional folk music.

So to answer your question: you will get some nice extra expressiveness from PC/PB/PD, but not the ability to play exactly the type of bends used by folk fiddle players.

Since you already play Solo tuned chromatics, try half-valving one on the odd-numbered holes 13579; you'll then be able to bend those draw notes. (By half-valving, I mean remove the outside valves on those holes).

To emulate the bends used in fiddle and some other traditional instruments, more radical retuning is required. That goes further than most harmonica players want in terms of altering the instrument, but personally I love exploring this direction! Here are a few tracks playing some more extreme harmonicas to get wider bends:

https://youtube.com/shorts/brvP1n7zvVA? ... Tk3buvngTZ

https://youtube.com/shorts/vlkbb3pDUDA? ... ZkeUZSjnoT

https://youtube.com/shorts/pGhj8Q-D_pU? ... rp4PqPPq7w

https://youtube.com/shorts/56TCHEFdvbQ? ... lOYDz61aAa

https://youtube.com/shorts/fQFJHMy5-FU? ... 5JWxNsAlsk

The goal of adding more flexible bending to harmonicas, for traditional folk music, blues or indeed ANY style of music, is something I'm trying to achieve using different approaches. I have another thread on it in this Forum, with extra discussion and examples. But certainly playing Irish trad with more "soul" was one of the prime motivating factors.

[mr grouchy]

Hi Brendan,

Thanks for taking the time to reply with your thoughts and your history with this idea and the musical examples. I play button accordion with no bending capabilities. I am enjoying learning and discovering the great emotional pleasure of bending notes on the harmonica. Could you add a link to the other discussion on this Forum that you mention?

Besides learning how to play harmonica i also enjoy spending time “tinkering” with the harmonica (gapping, reed profiling, embossing slot, mangling reeds beyond repair, etc). I’m interested in hearing more about what can be done to a standard harp in order to be able to get it to bend notes more easily and throughout its range. AS I get older and transition from full-time work to semi-retiremtn I have time and still have the interest and energy to open the harps and learn to do more surgery on them.

From your videos and descriptions your Power series seems to be able to do much if not all of whjat I am looking for. I won’t know until I buy one of each and try them for myself.

If possible I’d like to hear from others on the forum who have tried these Power harps and about their experiences and thoughts and possible recommendations.

I will half-valve one of my chromatics and hear how that responds. Will I need to make any other adjustments to prevent air loss?

Thanks again for taking the time to answer. So far I’m loving my journey with the harmonica!

Ken

[Brendan]

Re. Half-valved chromatic: reduce the blow reed gap on the odd numbered holes where the outside valve is removed, to minimise air loss. Embossing will always help if you want to go that far, but isn't necessary.

Here's the link for the other thread:

Lhttps://www.brendan-power.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... =906#p4110

Enjoy your tinkering!