I don't post often here, but I thought that this particular lesson, just uploaded to YouTube, might answer a few questions. Certainly these are questions that I had as a beginner back in the mid-1970s.
I was thinking about this, as noted in the video, the higher reed can get down close to the low reed. I’m not sure how close but let’s say, within 30-40 cents. I heard that Jimmy Reed would use those blow bends and blow them really flat as an alternative to using the draw reed. It occurred to me that this probably worked well for him on a 9 blow for instance, which on a Marine Band tuned to Just Intonation, as they were back in the day, probably would give a flat bent blow 9 closer to the true pitch of the melody note than the 9 draw, which being tuned to JI would have been very flat. JR’s flat blow bend might have been 10-15 cents sharp, whereas the draw reed would be nearly 30 cents flat.
Thanks for that Adam. I'm going to have watch it again with a note pad handy.That's a good way of explaining it. It appeals to my practical way of thinking. The other day I downloaded a tuner, is a tuner of use for practiising bends if so how many cents is half a step.
Thank you Adam, for a well done idea that demystified the harmonica layout more than just a bit. Previously I knew how many bends were on each hole, and just practiced hitting them tunefully. Now I understand WHY there’s only one draw bend on the 1, 4 and 6 draws! And WHY the multiple bends on 2 & 3 exist. The world (actually just the musical part of it) makes more sense now.
Last Edited by Sundancer on Feb 02, 2020 6:06 PM
