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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
Buddha harp commentary
Buddha harp commentary
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snakes
395 posts
Nov 15, 2009
2:03 PM
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Here is my limited (due to the fact I am only an intermediate) impression on my new harp from Chris Michalek.
Key information:
1. This is my first custom harmonica so I do not have other customs to compare this harp with.
2. I am a died in the wool Suzuki player and my purchase was one of curiosity versus dissatisfaction with my current brand of harmonica.
3. I own Seydel (1847, 1847 Silver, Blues Session), Suzuki (Bluesmaster, Fire Breath, Promaster, Manji), Hohner(MB, SP20, Blues harp, Golden Melody, Pro harp, Big River), Lee Oskar (major diatonic, harmonic minor, natural minor), so this is the extent of my perspective.
My 2 centavos:
Out of the proverbial "custom" box the harp is noticeably different (much more pleasing with the rounded corners, etc.) looking than a stock Marine Band. It is also remarkably less demanding as to how much air is required to make it respond. I even had my wife blow and draw out of a stock MB and the Buddha harp and she noticed a difference (and she has never put a harmonica to her mouth before). With the cover plates so open in the back it is noticeably louder, yet with the MB tone one desires. The comb is a beatufilly polished red with a striking finish. I asked Chris to make it similar in profile to a stock MB and he accommodated this request superbly for me as I prefer thinner profile harps.
So how does it play for an intermediate and would I recommend one to a similar skilled person as myself? In a single sentence it is amazing. As for bending it is by far the easiest bending harp I have ever tried. The bends are so easy that instead of concentrating on the bending technique while accomplishing a bend the sensation is more like feeling a note and then it just happens. There is some kind of transcendance from applying a technique (what it feels like to me to bend on a stock harp) to feeling a song and having it emanate from you and your instrument due to the relative ease of accomplishing the bend. This relationship also applies for me on the Buddha harp when it comes to the ventriloqual aspects of the harmonica as well as the ability to emote through the harp without undue thought. It just lets me feel and do - that's the only way I can explain it.
I feel this harp makes me a better player. I may not be good, but I am definitely better when I play this harmonica. I would recommend one of these harps for any skill level of player. I'll analogize it to the difference between a one speed bicycle and an 18 speed bike. Why would you want to climb a hill with only one speed available when there are other speeds to be had if you can afford them. My advice is to try one if you can afford it and see if you like it. As with anything of quality one must be patient for its arrival, but it is well worth the wait in my humble opinion. So says snakes...
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e56505
23 posts
Nov 15, 2009
5:30 PM
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Im may be asking for one from santa this year. Im not an expert by any means, I know I have a long way to go. Out of curiosity which model did you get?
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barbequebob
81 posts
Nov 16, 2009
9:02 AM
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Actually, since you now see how little air you need to play, it really isn't the harmonica that's making you play better, but the real truth is you've immediately improved your playing technique by using much less breath force and this can easily be applied to any harp, custom or stock harp.
I mainly use customs, but from watching Big Walter Horton personally for a few years and even having him demonstrate the way he played his opening of his cover of the LW classic, "Can't Hold On Much Longer," seeing how he used very little breath force and he ws doing it on my stock Marine Band (when this happened in 1978, there were NO such thing as a custom diatonic back then) and it opened my eyes about what real breath control and tone control was all about.
I personally wouldn't give a custom harp to a newbie because 98% of newbies tend to be very brutally hard on harmonicas and they have yet to develop a key playing tenching technique and that's breath control and aabout 50-75% of intermeditate players haven't developed that either.
One of the things about a custom harp is that the reed work is far superior than anything out of the box (as doing this for manufacturers is far too time consuming and the labor costs involved becomes far too expensive for them because that's a lot of man hours to do all that) and the reed slot tolerances (the distance between the walls of the slot that the reed vibrates in and the edges of the reed itself are tightened up so much and this is where 95% of air leaks occurs on harmonicas) have been drastically tightened, The closest thing to this on a stock harp right now is on the Suzuki Manji, but a custom has that even tighter still and in the hands of a newbie or a very poorly skilled player who uses too much breath force, it can get blown out fast.
However, but taking the time to woodshed with breath control, a custom can last for many years and when a reed finally dies from metal fatigue, you send sit back to the customizer and all he has to do is replace the worn reed (a single reed, rather than an entire reedplate), set the action back up, and you have yourself a lifetime instrument, not the usual "if you blow it out, you throw it out" mentality that most players tend to have.
Again, it's really not so much the harp, but you're finally beginning to learn better playing technique more than anything else and playing with too much breath force is absolutely bad playing technique.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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snakes
397 posts
Nov 16, 2009
3:46 PM
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I'll take your word for it BBQ Bob, but all I know is that with the 6 or so stock MB's I own I can't do some of the stuff on them I can do with this harp. (Matter of fact the key of C I bought won't even give me one 3 hole draw bend.) Personally I prefer Fire Breath's and Manji's as my stock harps of choice, but even they seem to require more air now (and they seemed to require less air than the MB's). I do know some about breath control from voice lessons and a little about raising the soft pallet. Any further instruction you can give me regarding developing breath control would be much appreciated cos' now my stock harps seem to be demanding more air from me than I remember before. Maybe it is my imagination (I am open to that). I know if I could afford it I'd play all customs now at this juncture, but a kid in college, etc. has a way of prioritizing your funds. Just to not totally bash Hohner - I have had a much better user friendly experience with their SP20 model. I've bought several keys of them and never got a bad one out of the box. Thanks for taking the time to craft such a descriptive post BBQ Bob.
Last Edited by on Nov 16, 2009 3:47 PM
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harpcrab
30 posts
Nov 17, 2009
5:56 AM
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"However, but taking the time to woodshed with breath control, a custom can last for many years"
Hi BBQ Bob- any suggestions as to how to specifically improve on breath control?- ie- techniques or what to practice? I'd like to work on that but I'm not really sure how to go about it (other than just plain old "experience").
any advice much appreciated- thanks
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Buddha
1165 posts
Nov 17, 2009
6:26 AM
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the way I teach breath control is to force the student to breathe through the harp.
draw a note and just before you get to your limit then switch to a blow note. The key is to never remove your mouth from the harp and you can only inhale or exhale through the harp by using a note.
While you are doing this, make the note get louder or softer or both.
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"The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are." - Joseph Campbell
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barbequebob
82 posts
Nov 17, 2009
6:32 AM
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The best rule of thumb for playing softer is this, which I've posted in other forums and a few others who have listened have also quoted me and the advice is this: PLAY JUST LOUD ENOUGH THAT YOU DON'T WAKE UP A BABY SLEEPING IN THE NEXT ROOM.
Taking breathing and relaxation lessons from a vocal coach is a huge first step that I recommend to all players and from my own experience from getting vocal lessons helped me quite a lot.
Think of of playing harp like you're whispering thru it rather than shouting thru it as most players too often tend to do, especially when they're bending notes and here's where their biggest problem lies.
Even in a stock harp made of the worst qualities possible, using much less breath force works on it too, especially in the note bending process and 98% of players who have trouble getting the 2 bends in holes 2 draw and 10 blow, and the 3 bends in 3 draw all have one thing in common: they all tend to use far too much breath force, and in the note bending process, it gets 1000 times worse because the force they use gets even harder than necessary, and that is flat out bad playing technique and they always blow out harps fast and they're always the very first people constantly bitching and moaning about how their harps suck and they blow out too damned fast and they refuse to see where their real problem lies, and they're too quick to blame the harmonica (not that defects in manufacturing doesn't exist, which does, but most of their problems have little to do with that, and 95% of the time, it's their playing technique).
The other thing is that you need to physically relaxed all the time while you're playing and too often, for many players, that is far from the truth, and it's the ENTIRE body, including throat and facial muscles that have to be because from playing too hard, you constrict the air flow, wasting much of the air, and making things needlessly more difficult for yorself.
Much of the stuff both Walters and both Sonny Boys played is actually played very softly with an occasional harder hit note (but not as hard as the average player tends to do), and when Big Walter's little 5 minute lesson showed me how little breath force was needed, I went back to everything I've ever listened to and then played a lot softer, and it was a huge eye opener and what those guys did was let the gear do the heavy lifting in terms of volume.
Even LW had said in an interview before he died about why he preferred to play amplified was, and I quote, "so I don't have to be blowin' so hard." Yet, look at how many players flat out refuse to listen!!!
When you use the softer breath on the custom for a while and then use the softer breath on a stock harp, you'll be surprised at just howmuch more you'll be able to get out of a stock harp.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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MrVerylongusername
644 posts
Nov 17, 2009
6:52 AM
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Spot on Bob! When you listen to Little Walter you can hear that it's the amp that's doing the work. He's playing really softly most of the time. There is a real sense of dynamics in his phrasing.
If you're playing flat out the whole time - where can you go?
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barbequebob
83 posts
Nov 17, 2009
7:00 AM
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"If you're playing flat out the whole time - where can you go?"
That is a 100% true statement. Much of the stuff he's doing comes from his intense listening to big band/jump/swing horns and you can't do those things playing full bore force all the time.
For both Walter's, that is especially true. Even a guy like Lazy Lester, it's just as true as well. The same is true for guys like Kim Wilson and William Clarke. Way too many players think that's it's laregly in the gear, but that is not true at all, because it's their playing technique more than anything else.
When I opened for William Clarke at Gilrein's in Worcester, MA, a few months before he passed away, and he was telling me how he like what I was getting out of the Pro Junior I was using for an amp, we were really talking shop more along the lines of playing tecnique, and he did most everything tongue blocked and made it a point to say that he didn't play very hard and all of his harps were stock harps (customs were very new, as Joe Filisko first introduced them at the 1992 SPAH convention and the only custom harps prior to that were all chromatics).
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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Buddha
1166 posts
Nov 17, 2009
7:15 AM
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Filisko first had his harps at the 1991 SPAH.
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"The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are." - Joseph Campbell
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barbequebob
85 posts
Nov 17, 2009
7:27 AM
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Thank you for the correction!
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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