Can anyone help me with my new instrument, a chromatic harp?

John Watt

Member
okay... okay... you might not see me as having the most serious musical intent,
but I received a chromatic harmonica as a gift from a friend in British Columbia,
who remembered what I said about my harmonica as a child.
He included it in his box of gifts that he sent for his relatives here.

When I was in grade three I was watching a Frankie and Annette beach movie with my family,
and at the end Annette said let's go skiing and they all jumped up off the beach.
The next scene showed fur coats and sweaters hung up, all around a fireplace,
with the the actors sitting around this mountain chalet.
And then "Little Stevie Wonder" came out and sang a song and played harmonica.
I started walking around with my hand in front of my mouth singing the song,
and my mother bought me a harmonica the next day, the first musical instrument I owned.

The was a Hohner. It was big and came in a box with a mountain scene on top,
with green on the sides and bottom, two squares or blowholes for each note,
and it was double sided.
I had to sing the sharps and flats I couldn't play.

I've been talking about getting a chromatic harp for a while now,
saying I can see myself laying out there along the Lake Erie shore,
or anywhere on a long distance bike-hike, and play some harp.
I want to play it like a sax, thinking it's got that sound.

Hey! I've been typing enough already. I'm going to do a photo.


SAM_0721.JPG
 
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John Watt

Member
This isn't the Frankie and Annette beach movie soundtrack song I watched Little Stevie Wonder play,
his first big media appearance on corporate American television, but it's within the same year.


 

John Watt

Member
As well as Little Stevie Wonder, I used to see the Harmonicats on The Ed Sullivan Show, seeing them play this song.
Jerry Murad knew he had to do something different to sound as orchestral as he wanted to,
so he paid an instrument maker to build this bass harmonica.
Their recording of "Peg of My Heart" was the biggest selling single of that year.

 
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John Watt

Member
This video features Cham-Ber Huang, the man who manufactured the harmonica shown here.
He says he plays "upside-down" because his first Chinese made harmonica had the numbers "upside-down".
His upside-down is playing with the slider on the left.
I'm playing his harmonica with the numbers on top, where the slider is on the right.
I feel better using my most precise hand, my left hand, to hold and control harmonica position.
The slider is an intermittent function that my right hand has no problems with.

I recommend moving the slider and clicking it at seven minutes, when the playing starts to happen.
This isn't those wild gypsy Harmonicats, he's playing a European classical composition with a friend,
but it shows the respect Americans had for Cham-Ber Huang, featuring him at their first harmonica convention.
Look at these two guys go... no sheet music... standing beside a Shure SM58 low impedance microphone.
I'm also looking at those green Slingerland drums.


 

John Watt

Member
Here's Robert Bonfiglio playing Debussys' Reverie with the Boston Pops Orchestra.
The Los Angeles Times described Bonfiglio as "the Paganini of the harmonica",
but that's not true, compared to Jerry Murad and The Harmonicats.
I never heard Robert play as fast, for one thing, and that was a Nicolo Paganini trademark.

Here in North America, you could say the Boston Pops Orchestra was the first classical orchestra,
philharmonic, symphonic or otherwise,
to play arrangements of pop songs, making them the best selling orchestra of their time.
While playing Debussy here, featuring a harmonica soloist is the pop element.

On Sunday afternoons, American television featured programming that was selling recliner chairs,
and Columbia record club memberships, phone-in sales. These programs would have a host,
with a special guest also demonstrating the wonderful features of recliner chairs,
playing music while showing paintings of the great masters in between.
That's where I first heard Les Gymnopiedes, this Debussy piece, and saw my first impressionist artwork.

Hey guys! It's time for a slow dance, unless you want to recliner.

 
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elderpiano

Member
Hey John, you asked for help with your new instrument. It doesn't seem as though you specified the kind of help you need.
I think you probably know more than most about the chromatic harp.
I am not at all familiar with the instrument just that when I was a kid we called it a mouth organ. Of course the one you have is a bit more than that. Do you know why they are called a harp? I didn't realise they came in different sizes, as this rather nice video illustrates.

 

John Watt

Member
I appreciate your comments here.
Sitting around backstage with famous harmonica players, mostly blues bands,
I was never able to bend a note, having bigger, softer lips.
In high school I wanted to play French Horn, but as my music teacher said, my lips were too soft.
I'm saying that to show you why I never played blues harps, and that's not what I had as a child.
I had a Hohner, longer and wider than a blues harp, with notes on both sides.
It was getting this slider harmonica as a gift this last holiday season that got me going.

These Harmonica Express players are very good and have what look like very expensive harmonicas.

I posted here about asking for help because I think most members here probably had or have one at some time.
There are videos on YouTube, I know, but I like to comment on politics and ancient ruins and keep my music here.

I can't even find a scale. It's more difficult than I thought.
As far as your question about why they are called harps, I don't know.
They started off as mouth organs. They are a reed instrument.
 
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John Watt

Member
elderpiano got me going, and this is one of the few times I've tried to cut and paste an image.

Seeing this price on Amazon, $225, makes me think the one I had in 1960 wasn't the same.
The artwork on the case and the harmonica look the same.
Let me explain my price comment.
As a child, watching television, I wanted to be a drummer. I had my own can and box kit in the basement.
I'd sit in front of the TV and play on the carpet with my hands. I was asking for drums for a Christmas present.
I stress, that as Sons and Daughters of the Gael, my parents got us presents to be like everyone else around us.
The first two years my parents explained that if they bought me a set of drums,
they wouldn't have enough money left over to buy presents for everybody else. I could understand that.
When I was in grade three my parents weren't saying I wasn't going to get drums for a present. I thought I was.
It was bongos, and as my parents said, it was the only Christmas present I ever was disappointed with.
If I could have played them with sticks it would have been better.
Unfortunately, they were too loud to play in front of the TV when others were watching.
It did set me up for using my canteen as a bongo when I was outside hiking with flute and recorder playing friends.

Oh! The image worked! This is the first time I've said this. Now I gotta blow!


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John Watt

Member
Oh! This almost hurts a little to listen to.
You're showing me "albannach", but this is like a Mohawk rez fire for me.
Not a campfire, but a big bonfire where people visit to stand around or meet.
I haven't been there for a long time.

You might think my Ontario experience doesn't relate to this musically, but listen.
Do you hear the heartbeat drumbeat?
These vocalists are just shouting, not chanting along, the only real difference.

Drums are why I play guitar. Growing up as a teen that's all I wanted.
Clark and Rogers were seen as the kind of drums those British Invasion bands were playing,
and Gretch and Slingerland were left-over big band jazz era drums, expensive and less sturdy.
Carry those around in what used to be Canadian winters and they would warp.
As far as offshore product goes, a term not in use then, Stewart drums from Japan were popular,
looking fancy with metal-flake colours and being less expensive.

One afternoon, looking around our music store, I looked at the drums once and for all.
The cheapest set were kiddy drums, not real, like big cookie tins with carnival graphics, $150.
Clark and Rogers, depending on the cymbals, could be 3 to $4,000. Stewarts were around $2,000.
I could buy a new Kent electric with four pickups for $45, making $5 a week as a paperboy, so I bought it.
It took over a year before I plugged it into a friends' amp, and only two pickups worked.

Playing in pro bands, I only had three opportunities to sit behind drums onstage where I had time with them.
They weren't left-handed so it was difficult. I can mess around with a 4/4 drum beat, but that's it.
That's right! Here I am, 67 years old, and I've never sat behind a set of left-handed drums.

My newest drum fantasy is a set of drums that sound like Japanese kabuki drums, huge, a deep sound.
I always want a drummer to have two big bass toms on the floor, and doing more than Gene Krupa.
When the movie Mask came out I thought those old big band "jungle rhythms" would become a new thing,
but they really didn't. It took shows like Dancing With The Stars to bring out other rhythms,
but that was more about South American rhumbas and tangos, you know what I mean.

I've got a song concept that's about drums, starting with the sound of a womans' high heels coming down the sidewalk,
hearing that knocking on the door, having a verse about typing and clicking on a computer, and the heartbeat of love.

Now that the video is over, I can see Albannach has a Scottish thing with bagpipes.
I also see a band called "The Gael", which is more than just Scottish, with "The Best of Celtic Music", which is only Irish.
For my ancestors, drums and bagpipes were weapons of war, meant to stir the blood of your enemy,
before they even saw you. For bagpipes, that's called the skirlin'o the pipes,
and that's said to be the most difficult expression of music on the entire planet.
That's what my father played Sunday mornings, making sure we got out of bed and got ready on time.
The first time I heard Amazing Grace being played with bagpipes, I knew something was changing out there.
And for all of my life here in Ontario, I have never seen any Sons and Daughters of the Gael marching in a parade.
drums.... drums.... you really have to hit them.

Someone told me The Hu Band from Siberia use drums made with testicle skin from thawed mastodons.

elderpiano! I heard you were beating on a fallen hollow log so much at a Boy Scouts jamboree,
you got in trouble when deer came out and took over the bonfire.
 
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John Watt

Member
I already had a link in my clicker for a thread I planned on starting in discussions,
so I had to do that and come back here with a video.

This is The Hu Band, a bunch of Huns, or Mongols, and as we all can hear, it's about the same kind of drums.
Instead of humming a happy tune, whistling, or practicing a song in public, however quietly to yourself,
try some Hun ummmm ummmm and see how people react, especially their dogs.
I thing The Hu Band video is a powerful blend of traditional and modern urban, and I really like the lyrics.

This isn't a heartbeat drumbeat, it's galloping along.
The movie "Mongol", and yes, it's not a good title, is about Attila the Hun as a youth.
It's beautiful, the scenery, the clothes, how they live, and ends when he's maybe twenty.
It's not a war movie, and it's totally romantic. It made me cry to see such wonders.

 
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