Re: Introduce yourself
Posted: Wed Mar 27, 2024 5:33 am
Hello there,
I'm an engineer currently living near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.
I was at SPAH last year so I may have run into some of you already in person. With any luck I will be at SPAH again this year.
I used to play a lot of clarinet, and then bit of piano (not enough to be much good), and I've been playing harmonica for a while now; it started when I needed something to do after blowing out my achilles tendon playing sports I'm 20 years too old to be playing and I was couch-ridden for many months. I haven't put it down since.
I mostly play rock, some blues, and more recently, jazz standards.
I play almost exclusively Wilde Tuning, which is very similar to PowerBender, in fact I can convert between the two by only changing a few reeds.
After playing the Wilde Tuning for a while I decided that, while great for rock and blues, it can be a bit clunky in Jazz unless you happen to be playing in 2nd or 4th position. So I created a "Paddy Wilde" Tuning for my jazz playing, and discovered that makes playing easier in a bunch of positions. The downside being that the blow notes are not nearly as expressive, the root of 4th and 5th position, the 5 of 3rd position. Bothered me that they are blow notes.
So I got into half valving. I got good at valved blow bends: more expression on the blow notes, with a half valved "Paddy WIlde" tuning I can easily play chromatically up and down a diatonic harp. That said, 7th through 9th positions, the "Levy positions" are still very painful as they are nearly exclusively bends.
I began to wish for a way to have easy access to all the notes and so I stared searching for the "perfect chromatic", ideally one where I can play in all keys which already feel familiar to positions I already play on a diatonic, where I can have expressive bendable draws on as many notes as possible.
Back in the diatonic rock and blues land, If I could only bend from the 4 down to the flat 3, and from the 5 down to the 4, I could really track those tasty Angus Young licks on the harmonica.
I always have a harmonica in my pocket. The more I play this instrument the more my love/hate relationship with (how awesome it is / frustrations with its limitations) grows. I like playing a Low D, because its the same tonal range of a guitar, but I find the low end sluggish and have been looking for ways to improve reed response. Playing 2nd position in a low D is almost the exact same range as playing 3rd on a G, I can't fathom why I wouldn't be able to get a Low D harp to respond as quickly as a G, so I'm learning everything I can about the physics of these things to get better response out of them.
Armed with a 3d printer, a garage full of tools, my engineering degree and my physics / math minors, I will continue tinkering with these things and hopefully get closer to harmonic nirvana.
I look forward to bouncing ideas back and forth with everyone here.
Thank you,
-Dominick
I'm an engineer currently living near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.
I was at SPAH last year so I may have run into some of you already in person. With any luck I will be at SPAH again this year.
I used to play a lot of clarinet, and then bit of piano (not enough to be much good), and I've been playing harmonica for a while now; it started when I needed something to do after blowing out my achilles tendon playing sports I'm 20 years too old to be playing and I was couch-ridden for many months. I haven't put it down since.
I mostly play rock, some blues, and more recently, jazz standards.
I play almost exclusively Wilde Tuning, which is very similar to PowerBender, in fact I can convert between the two by only changing a few reeds.
After playing the Wilde Tuning for a while I decided that, while great for rock and blues, it can be a bit clunky in Jazz unless you happen to be playing in 2nd or 4th position. So I created a "Paddy Wilde" Tuning for my jazz playing, and discovered that makes playing easier in a bunch of positions. The downside being that the blow notes are not nearly as expressive, the root of 4th and 5th position, the 5 of 3rd position. Bothered me that they are blow notes.
So I got into half valving. I got good at valved blow bends: more expression on the blow notes, with a half valved "Paddy WIlde" tuning I can easily play chromatically up and down a diatonic harp. That said, 7th through 9th positions, the "Levy positions" are still very painful as they are nearly exclusively bends.
I began to wish for a way to have easy access to all the notes and so I stared searching for the "perfect chromatic", ideally one where I can play in all keys which already feel familiar to positions I already play on a diatonic, where I can have expressive bendable draws on as many notes as possible.
Back in the diatonic rock and blues land, If I could only bend from the 4 down to the flat 3, and from the 5 down to the 4, I could really track those tasty Angus Young licks on the harmonica.
I always have a harmonica in my pocket. The more I play this instrument the more my love/hate relationship with (how awesome it is / frustrations with its limitations) grows. I like playing a Low D, because its the same tonal range of a guitar, but I find the low end sluggish and have been looking for ways to improve reed response. Playing 2nd position in a low D is almost the exact same range as playing 3rd on a G, I can't fathom why I wouldn't be able to get a Low D harp to respond as quickly as a G, so I'm learning everything I can about the physics of these things to get better response out of them.
Armed with a 3d printer, a garage full of tools, my engineering degree and my physics / math minors, I will continue tinkering with these things and hopefully get closer to harmonic nirvana.
I look forward to bouncing ideas back and forth with everyone here.
Thank you,
-Dominick
