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Date: Wed, 17 May 95 10:42:31 MNL
From: "Thomas B. Colvin"
Subject: Back to Square One

It's reassuring to see that others have their frustrations with our favorite instrument. My frustration has a slightly different slant to it -- and, yes, the frustration is actually proving to be very
productive.

After years of playing self-taught blues harp (and I actually thought I was pretty damn good!), I joined 2 yrs ago a blues band here in Manila that had serious intentions. Up til then, I'd never talked to another harp player -- and I finally decided it was time to get serious about the instrument. Since then I've been lucky to meet many players around the world, I subscribed to several harp magazines and look forward every morning to my dose of Harp-l :-). And my horizon has grown to emcompass jazz and classical chromatic.

In the process, I've grown very dissatisfied with my playing. I now realize that I never paid any attention to TONE. I was so focussed on the notes I was playing that I overlooked how those notes sounded.

For the past year, I've been slowly dissecting my playing until I've finally gotten all the way back to ground zero -- how to hold the harmonica. For example, I've always gripped the harp in my left hand and cupped the right hand over it (creating, I've now discovered, a rather sloppy cup with air leaking everywhere!). A recent check of instruction books shows that this basic hand position is the recommended way, for both diatonic and chromatic. But when I caught a Bonfiglio classical concert 2 months ago, I noticed that his left hand is often on top. While his right hand carries the chore of pushing the button, his left middle finger, resting on top of his hand cup, can wiggle up and down, creating a very nice, subtle vibrato. (He also uses other vibrato techniques, such as throat, etc.) Bonfiglio's hands take other shapes too in order to create tonal shadings.

That's set me to experimenting with hand positions. And the frequent allusions on the list to a tight hand cup has added to my experiments. While it's frustrating to find myself right back a ground zero, it's also been exhilirating and full of discovery. I am similarly experimenting, still with some difficulty, with various approaches to vibrato. I am in essence trying to rebuild my tone from scratch, this time with full attention to nuances. Hopefully by year's end, a reliable tone that I like will have emerged.

If you haven't tried the middle-finger vibrato, do so today. It's nice.

Thomas "Tomcat" Colvin
Manila, Philippines