5/6/2023 0 Comments Whammer jammer haro player![]() ![]() I’ll go into details later, but first, why not simply experience what this harp sounds like via two recordings I made with it? The chords that this harp produces include one major chord and one minor chord, but with extension notes above and below the chord notes that make for some unusual and beautiful sounds. And sometimes, even though a harp is designed to give a particular set of individual notes, it ends up plays some really unusual and cool chords. I go in the opposite direction, Sure, I check out all that stuff, but the first thing I do is check out what chords the harp will play. Now, give an alternate-tuned harp to most harp players, and they’ll look for what notes bend, what scales it plays, and what cool licks they can play. (I’ve since replaced the comb with a linen Blue Moon comb that approximates the original appearance, and am working on replacing the bad reed, though it’s hard to match the reed size with the required pitch.) ![]() I held on to it because I love the unusual chords it produces. It was a nailed-together Marine Band with a wood comb that was musty from what seemed to be mildew, and one of the reeds was cracked, but that wasn’t why I kept it. (At the bottom of this page I give links to the videos where I explain and demonstrate each tuning.)īut I kept the most unusual Magic Harp for myself. ![]() I figured the tunings out pretty quickly, and later, when I was back home in San Francisco, I sold four of the harps via Facebook Live posts where I played the harps and explained their note layouts. When I arrived at the Harmonica Collective teaching event in New Orleans a few days later, Jason handed them to me and said, “Here, figure out how these are tuned and let’s sell them.” They had been offered for sale on eBay and were acquired by Jason Ricci. In early November of 2018, I came into possession of five Magic Harps, all built for a single customer by customizer Jimmy Gordon. They aimed to have the Magic Harps commercially produced, but that didn’t happen, and the few Magic Harps out there were built by custom harp builders. The inventors were Pierre Beauregard (founder of the Cambridge Harmonica Orchestra) and Richard Salwitz (aka Magic Dick of J. Every Magic Harp tuning gives a unique combination of chords, by design and not as an afterthought.In the one I’m featuring in this post, it occurs only twice over a span of nearly four octave, but it does repeat. In some Magic Harps, the layout repeats every octave. The tuning layout repeats, instead of changing every octave the way it does on a standard diatonic.In every hole, the draw note is always higher in pitch than the blow note (unlike standard tuning on diatonic harmonicas where, starting in Hole 7, the blow note is higher than the draw note).Not quite – though we can all wish! Back in 1993, two harmonica players from Massachusetts patented a system of harmonica note layouts (or tunings) that they called “Magic Harps.” All the note layouts have three things in common: "But I'm far too heavily invested in both fields to give either one up at this point.Uh, what’s a Magic Harp? Is that a harp that will magically make me an awesome player? "I don't really know very many harmonica players-slash-doctors," Bailey says. ![]() Bailey's new album features a duet with Gussow - a cover of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition."Īs Bailey develops his innovative harmonica technique, the multi-talented young musician is also completing a pre-med program in pediatric neurology at the University of Memphis. He says discovered his first harmonica mentor, Ole Miss University professor Adam Gussow, through a series of videos Gussow posted on YouTube. BAILEY is an innovative harmonica player.īailey uses new technology as a window onto tradition in more ways than one. He says discovered his first harmonica mentor Read Full Bio BRANDON O. Bailey was the 2008 winner of the Orpheum Star Search, and the blues harp isn't his only field of study:īailey uses new technology as a window onto tradition in more ways than one. While firmly rooted in traditional blues, Bailey also pushes the envelope by using a percussive vocal technique he calls "harp-boxing," and by using a loop pedal to create multilayered harmonica arrangements. BAILEY is an innovative harmonica player. ![]()
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