Brendan Power & Alternative Harmonicas Forum

SEYDEL DEMOS at FRANKFURT MUSIKMESSE The excellent player-friendly German harmonica company Seydel makes two of my tunings, PowerBender and PowerDraw, and I'll be demonstrating them Fri/Sat this week at the Seydel booth at the Messe: Hall 8.0, booth C89 Friday 4.30 pm Saturday 2 pm. Here is the Seyd...

Diminished half-valved chromatic is a truly great harmonica combination, Eugene. Beginners who aim to play jazz on the chrom would be well advised to choose it instead of Solo. Unfortunately there is very little knowledge out there of excellent all-round alternate chromatics tunings like Diminished ...

Hi Pedro, please take a couple of close-up photos and email them to:

Feedback@brendan-power.com

Good page and tunes there John

Nice one Tony

Hi Slim, have you checked the slide is absolutely straight? With such tight tolerances the slightest kink or bend will stop it sliding smoothly. Look along the edge from the button end and back the other way. If you see a bend, very gently tease it out by pushing lightly from the opposite side. If i...

Hi Slim, have you checked the slide is absolutely straight? With such tight tolerances the slightest kink or bend will stop it sliding smoothly. Look along the edge from the button end and back the other way. If you see a bend, very gently tease it out by pushing lightly from the opposite side. If i...

Correct Jason :-) Half-valved PowerChromatic is used exclusively on a couple of my albums in Swing/Hot Club jazz style: BP and the Swingfellas http://www.brendan-power.com/Swingfellas.php Back to Back with PT Gazell http://www.brendan-power.com/BackToBack.php Great for that stuff, as the extensive u...

OK, I understand now. Yes, if you drill a small hole for the spring on the opposite side you can flip the slide over. Of course all notes will go down when you push the button, but I guess that's what you want? You can test it by playing with the slide held in and releasing to get the other notes, t...

Often the new tunings come about because I'm trying to play something in a way I hear it on another instrument and I can't. It could be an Irish fiddle decoration, or the way a Chinese Erhu can bend a long way on every note. I figure out what's missing, scribble down on a piece of paper a tuning or ...