From: Snaru~ol.com Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 00:19:50 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Harpie at Trossingen
Hello friends,
harp year 97 is over, since the Trossinger festival (October 15. - 19.) is past. Everybody who couldn't take part at this 'material battle' has missed a lot of amazing harp performances. Numerous members of the strong Japanese group showed again the specific Japanese technic to play chromatically on tremolo harps. Before they started with mostly classical pieces, they organized their 10 - 15 harps on little tables according to the sequence of the harmonies, always having at least two harps in hand which they simultaneously played by chromatic reasons.
Once, as such a trio of tremolists in white smokings entered the stage, Harpie had his great amusement, when all these 20-hole tremolos fell down from the table to the ground. Moreover, when the lead player tried to pick them up quickly and had yet placed some tremolos again on his portable table, another player fell to the ground on his back with the legs up to the air, simultaneously knocking down that table and the harps had again to be picked up.
Huuuuhu, heeeehehe, that was big entertainment for a lot of the gala audience who considered this a well-done gag.
Harpie immediately remembered Pete Pedersen when he entered the stage at the SPAH gala evening as a street sweeper cleaning the stage with a broom and said to me:
Hey Dad, do you know what will happen now? When the trio will start playing, one of the mics wont remain in the adjusted position and will turn down several times. Then, one has the wrong sheet, the other the wrong harp. When finally all seem to be OK, the loudspeakers start a siren sound etc. Harpie had lots of ideas why the trio finally left the stage without having played a single note. Later, I contacted the Japanese group to congratulate them for this fine entertainment, nobody was quite sure whether it was a gag or not. No, it wasn't one - unfortunately.
Rick Epping (USA), Brendan Power (New Zealand) and a German drummer performed one of the hightlights and played Irish music of the finest (Hey Linda, you must have heard it till Baltimore). Howard Levy tried one of my Toots-CX (of course, not on stage but during a sit-in with Lary (the Iceman) Eisenberg, Joe Filisko, Brendan Power, Harpie and other known harp greats. Howard found a big beer glas the proper resonance help for his shortie and remembered that later on stage. It was great.
Unlike SPAH, the Hohnerians in Trossingen organized each evening a gala concert and one of the gala greats was again Mauricio Einhorn I heard already at SPAH. However, unlike SPAH Mauricio's personal understanding of harmonica jazz caused the Trossinger audience to leave the room in rates, even during his performance. When Mauricio was at his end, half of the audience had gone.
As I mentioned to Harpie that the German audience obviously had expected to hear 'The last unicorn' from Mauricio Einhorn and showed its frustration like the opposition in parliaments uses to do, he said, no Dad, see it more positively. The audience was very polite in leaving the room. So, it avoided to show its diverging meaning by talking with the neighbours or start singing canons. Any way, I excused myself for this strange behaviour to Joe Carter.
That any kind of jazz performing isn't the taste of the average harp audience was unequivocally demonstrated when the Swiss trio 'D'Muuloergeler' (the Swiss term for 'mouth organists') played Swiss folk music, the audience accompanied with loud hand clapping. When they had to give an encore, Harpie asked me whether they hadn't played this tune just before because all melodies sounded the same.
In fact, it wasn't a good idea to take Harpie with me to Trossingen. He constantly asked me strange questions. When we attended Joe Filisko's workshop about 'repair and tuning', Joe said that a dense comb will give a bright sound unlike a less dense comb which gives a more mellow sound. Harpie immediately wanted to know whether a glass comb is dense or not, the only comb material familiar to him.
I only could remind Harpie of his own report on harp-L about glass harps. Dam and stupid guy Harpie, a glass harp is neither dense nor soft but invisible (your own words). So, a glass harp sound is invisible too, you got it?
However, I had a fine conversation with Joe who was one of the official repairmen (besides Rick Epping and Bill Stewart) Hohner had engaged to instruct blue-eyed harpers that harps are mass products which therefore have to be handled very carefully.
One afternoon it happened that Harpie sat in the repair room trying to adjust some harps for friends. A festival visitor asked him whether he could repair an at least 60 years old harmonica which he had heired from his father with x-times broken comb, missing reeds and filled with gunk up to the mouthpiece. Hmmmmmh, Harpie looked at me and asked the man whether he intends to play on his father's harp again. Again, he wondered? I can't play harp, but it's my fathers harp. Harpie insisted how he had known then that the harp isn't functioning. Because Dad had only harps which didn't worked and I never heard him playing.
However, there was also real fun in the repair saloon. Bill Stewart asked me whether I had my soldering equipment on board because he had to change the pitch of a reed by a semitone. I had and we did it. Later, Bill told me that this harper appeared again with his repaired instrument because that very reed rotated like a helicopter when he played the reed.
Harpie was immediately interested to know how I had managed this. Hey Dad, he triumphantly shouted, isn't this exactly what we called at the Oxfords a siren harp, i.e. a harp which alternately opens and closes the air stream for the sound giving slots by rotating reeds? No Harpie, you are wrong as ever. A siren harp must have also rotating draw reeds with time shifted slot closing. When the blow is going to shut the slot, the draw has to open it, otherwise, the siren effect can't work. You understand that, Harpie? No, not exactly, ah, it's similar the materials seminar.
What is with the seminar? I mean Dad, you see, ah, I want to say, ammmm, it's only that ...., hmmmmh. Harpiiiiie, would you please come to the point.
Dad, I was really convinced that the materials debate ended with the SPAH test and my glass combs would then take over. Are they now talking on harp-L about the glass sound or do they have forgotten something at SPAH which has to be continued?
Look Dad, Mic'll is already weary, uncle Vern is frustrated to constantly explain that harps do have probably a different sounding, at least the two Doussie combs produced one. I don't know whether his father has changed his mind too, but Dougie told me that SPAH has taught at least that not only the shape but also the player has to make the sound. To my understanding, the different materials are only necessary because some harpers can make fire with wooden MBs, while the plastic combs can be recycled after use. The metal combs only, specially titanium and stainless concrete, will remain after the materials debaters have found out that glass is of no material.
Well Harpie, I guess you should shut up now, because I wont have anything to do with such a crazy nonsense. Just the contrary, I, Harpie's father, declare that the materials question regarding the combs and covers is anything else than finished.
Some ideas only. The brass copy of the black CX 12 tested at SPAH is now teflon coated and has the same sound as the original CX 12 when it was uncoated.
At Trossingen, a harp friend played one of my CB 14 (brass covers, teflon coated, Super 64 plates) in a jazz competition and I carefully paid attention to his performing. The sound was poor because my friend as an average player and couldn't achieve the same amazing sound advanced players could produce on the very same CB 14.
As the two Doussie combs at SPAH showed and as Vern has already admitted (Lynda, it's no reason to make such a rumor about this 'accident'), the test has to be repeated, however, all test harps has to be played with one and the same reed plates. In order to play the test harps very quickly one after the other which, IMO, is essential for comparison, there's only one harp brand which allows a relative quick plate change, the CX 12.
To counter possible rejections, it's not sufficient to change the plates on different comb qualities only (could be done by clamping), but the test harps have to be played with cover plates. No harp brand allows a quick removing of the cover plates (to change the different combs) but the CX 12.
Another idea came into my mind when I read Lynda's article of October 17.,'re:perception and subjection' , as a reply to Jonathan Ross which I only can underline. In summary, Lynda pointed to the often negatively used meaning of the term 'subjective' vs. the completey undefined term 'objective'.
However, I'll continue the story at an other opportunity. It seems to be a crucial point in the material debate and I've spent already too long time before the screen. The next day will soon dawn. Good night everybody.
