@saregapadanisa: It's "pseudo-slow-motion." They filmed using a strobe light, so you only see the reed when the strobe light was on. They set the frequency of the strobe light to be a little off from the frequency of the reed's vibration, so you can see the action of the reed in what looks like slow motion.
Last Edited by on Jan 13, 2010 10:17 AM
Seriously, from the videos, before realizing thanks to The7thDave that it was "pseudo slow motion", I had the impression that the reed moved very slowly, and that they should also vibrate while moving in order to produce anything near 440 hz sound wave from that A harp.
The reeds work together as a pair. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
BBQBob: So, does that imply that if, say, I've got a 3-draw reed that doesn't play quite right, the 3-blow reed might be playing a part in that as well?
Thanks, GermanHarpist! I've got a Special 20 that hasn't been playing right for a while; this might just have something to do with it. Time to gap some more reeds!
@BBQBob: It would be cool if they had a similar set of stroboscopic videos showing both reeds in the hole being played, but there are some pretty significant technical challenges to doing that.
7th- A while back I tried lobbying for everyone to try to convince that show on Discovery with the slow motion cameras to do an episode on what goes on inside a harmonica. I think only a couple people went over. I think if I was building a rig to take the shot I'd play the end reed slot(either the highest or the lowest) and cut off the end of the comb and plug it up with a tiny camera.
7thDave, I thought exactly the same thing. This study, which is in many other respects very interesting, (LINK) actually shows it in a graph, but it would have been nice to see it filmed.
---------- germanharpist on YT. =;-) - Resonance is KEY!
