Dip Bends
Hi Winslow - David describes the "dip" as a bent note with a slur to the non-bent note. I find that with my Seydel chrom. it is a very delicate touch thing and hard to get but with my Hohner, it's much easier. Also with the Seydel, some holes (reeds?) are easier to get this technique. Is there something that can be done to the reed - like adjusting the gap - to make this easier?? I've done some work on my diatonics but never to the chromatic. Or am I better off to keep working at getting the technique??
Thanks Winslow - think I'll forget the valve approach but definitely will try raising the gap of the reed tip a bit. A small bonus will be to see if I can get the thing back together and have it still work!! ;-)
Hank -
Try it first on the draw reeds, so that you can experiment without removing the reedplates.
As always Winslow - great advice which I will use today and report back for others to take as useful info. And by the way - Happy BC Day!!
Hey WInslow - that did the trick - especially on 1 - 5. The 6 reed was a little tougher (I'm guessing because of the length of the reed??) It is better but I didn't want to overdo it and bend too far. It also (along with 7) has a bit of a 'sqeek' and then will 'pop' or stall (no sound) I'm guessing that is because the windsavers are preventing further action - ???
But the main thing is I now do have a much easier (still delicate) dip bend on 1 - 5 and a bit on 6, so many thanks.
Hank - Glad it's working out.. The squeak and the no sound may be because you're not tuning your mouth to a high enough note. The higher the note, the smaller the mouth chamber. You might want to experiment with sliding the bend activation point farther forward in your mouth. If you can't move the K-spot any farther forward, try moving the constriction point farther forward on your tongue, closer to the tip.
hank -
Chromatic s can be touchy on bends because they don't have the blow/draw reed pairing that helps strengthen and stabilize bends on diatonics. Consequently, bendiness on chromatics varies a lot from harp to harp and even from reed to reed on the same harp.
A very broad hint to making chromatic reeds more bendy is to raise the tip gap a little. When you bend a note down, the reed pulls closer and closer to the reedplate and the amplitude of its swing diminishes (you can see this in a mirror of you hold a diatonic reedplate up to your mouth with the reeds facing away from you, and do a draw bend on one of the longer reeds).
To make a sound, a reed needs to chop through the slot and then emerge again. During a bend, as the reed gets closer to the slot and swings less, it eventually blanks out. So setting the tip gap a little higher helps it to bend a little farther without blanking.
General airtightness always helps with bending as well. A chromatic has plenty of places to leak - in the mouthpiece, in al the places where the reedplates touch the comb, and around the reed slot. Tightening up the mouthpiece is probably the biggest single improvement you can make. That's a rather long article.
Some players remove outside valves for the notes D, F and A, and for Eb, Gb, and Bb. This makes these draw notes bend like a diatonic, with the blow reed involved. But it also reduces airtightness. Some players are OK with this and value the change to bending tone (and accept the reduced bending range), while otheres find the loss of airtightness unacceptable. It's easy to try. And if you pull the valves off carefully, you can always replace them with a dab of glue if you don't like the result.
Hope this helps a little.