Slidemeister (Chromatic & related only - no Diatonic discussion) > GENERAL CHROMATIC DISCUSSION

Embouchure Style

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Danny G:
JP
I didn't mean it as a rule only as an opinion. I think we're on the same page.

touché

Jp:
touché

Are you calling me touchy!?

 ;)

Danny G:
Are you calling me "EN Garde" ?

Ingo:

--- Quote from: Danny G on November 18, 2006, 01:05:47 AM ---Are you calling me "EN Garde" ?

--- End quote ---

HaHa...old post, but come on kids, no fighting!

Danny, Good point about using embellishments sparingly. I like the look on other muscian's faces though when you suddenly play octaves or doublestops or even a descending glissando (especially if u are in the key of F). They get a bewildered look in their face as if to say:"Who did that?"

Blackie S. always said to have as many tools as possible at your disposal...not necessarily used them unless really called for. Don't we all hate to hear somebody who has ONE trick in his bag and uses it incessantly?
Of course I'm a pucker player mainly, but I use all the other things a s well maybe except tongue switching which I haven't even attemted.
I guess you could say that you have more advantage being a PP'er than a TB'er, since you can effortlesly switch to TB from P but not the other way if you can't pucker. But then again that goes the other way too, I guess, Still can't see though, how you can play staccato or triple notes with TB. I know there's nipping the harp for staccato. I tried that and it's possible, but IMHO not as precise or sharply defined as TB.
I have a spot when playing "Kiss Of Fire" the tango,  where I play a triple note and apply the shutlle at the same time, slapping it as it were. The effect is almost like to notes being played as a tripple note simultaniously. I have actually only heard somebody else  do that once and that was Stan Harper.
Now, try that with TB! I would say it's impossible
Ingo

Danny G:
Ingo, it's story time:
I was told that in 1965(+-) General Motors held a talent contest in London, England. John Lionel Crown won the first place prize, a trophy and 10,00 pounds. John played a chromatic harmonica and had been supplementing his income playing the pub circuit. With his winnings, he paid off his mothers house, packed up his wife Anne, and moved to the Cleveland area to find a job as a Die Maker and play the pubs of Cleveland. He had a couple of jobs in small die shops and ended up getting job with Ford Motor Company. Unfortunately, the pubs weren't hiring harmonica players.

One day in 1978(again +-) I was coming out of the cafeteria at work and this English guy came up to me and said "I hear you play harmonica". I said "ya, I play". We walked over to the locker room and I whipped out my Special 20 and did my best to show off my stuff. A little look of bewilderment came across his brow and he said" that's nice, when you throw away that toy and get yourself a real harmonica, why don't you come to see me" ? It wouldn't be appropriate to tell you what I thought but I assure you it wasn't very nice.

The next time I saw John, (who preferred to be called Lionel) he pulled out a 270 and blew my mind. I didn't know who Larry Adler was at the time but Lionel  played using all of the Adler tricks. His ability to improvise jazz was just unbelievable. It was like listening to the golden age of the big bands. I put away my diatonic forever. Lionel became my harmonica teacher and my close friend. A few years later, I talked him into coming to Akron, Ohio one night to a Rubber Capital Harmonica Club meeting. After the meeting, the members of the Harmonica Star Review (at that time Rex and Eileen Dorsey, Leo Spishak and Judy (Simpson at the time) Smith) gathered around a table and jammed with Lionel. I have a cassette recording of it somewhere. 
The Carioca and (I think it's) the Blue Tango are the only songs I can think of where I use what Lionel called "twiddleybits" and I think it's the same  technique you're describing as nipping. This is where the button is "slapped very quickly and abruptly and left to spring return on it's own. It produces as close to a sharp staccato effect when playing octaves as I think I'll ever achieve, but truly not it's not as precise or sharply defined as can be achieved by other instruments.

When I wrote the post you're referring to, I was playing out about 20 hours per week.  Every now and then I'd  get the urge to experiment here and there and use the "tools". Honestly, sometimes it worked really cool, sometimes I wished that I wouldn't have done that. It's not that I think that Blackie or Wally are wrong or that there is anything wrong with using all the tools available to you. I've just decided that for me, playing cleaner octaves and single notes makes it sound less cluttered and maybe more up to date. I think that for the most part, playing without any or very minimally using embellishments is where I want to go. Ingo, If I had the imagination to make up runs like you do, I wouldn't worry about embellishments ever again.

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