He inhales. He blows. He puckers.
Local jazz musician Clint Hoover plays the harmonica.
Haven’t we all swiped a harmonica past our lips? Swiped, maybe, but surely made a sound closer to “bbbrrpppttt” than to music. That’s because playing this instrument is not as easy as it looks. “It’s a cerebral exercise that requires a lot of manual dexterity,” says Mr. Hoover. “To play the harmonica, you have to hear yourself. It’s totally an aural thing.”
Most people call it a harmonica, but musicians have a slang term for the reedless and valveless wind instrument. They call it a harp, the shortened form of its nicknames: mouth organ, mouth harp or blues harp.
Mr. Hoover has the answers to some of your harmonica questions.
Q. How do you know where to go and how to find the notes?
When playing other instruments, you can tell where to go by fingering, or seeing the keys or holes in or on the instrument. The harmonica is the ultimate ear instrument.
If you can’t hear yourself, you can’t play. There are blow notes and draw notes (the polite term for sucking or inhaling). You move your mouth along the sound holes until you hear the note you want to play. Then the decision has to be made whether to blow or inhale, whether to push the button or not. Complicating matters further, the musician has to learn not to overshoot or undershoot the note. It takes some quick thinking and decision-making.
Q. Do you just pucker up?
Just as a trumpeter or a clarinetist needs to “develop a lip,” the harmonica player needs a specific mouth shape, or embouchure. The word is related to the French word for mouth (bouche). The proper shaping involves muscles in the lips, tongue, cheeks and jaw.
Q. Harmonicas come in many sizes. What makes them different?
The diatonic harmonica is the most common type. Often called the standard, it has 10 holes. It’s set in one particular musical key, usually C, and it’s the most widely used when playing blues, rock, country and folk tunes. That guy on stage in the overalls? You can bet he’s playing the diatonic. Professionals play diatonics too, but they usually carry a whole set of multi-keyed instruments, so that when the band leader hollers out the key of the next tune to be played, the pro can grab the one he needs.
The chromatic harmonica is what the big boys play. It has a magical button on the side. Think piano here. When the button is in the out position, the “white” notes are played. Push the button in, and the air is redirected and the “black” notes are played. The chromatic harmonica plays all 12 notes of the Western chromatic scale, and it has a “reach” of four octaves. This is the one used in symphony orchestras and by masters of the instrument.
Q. Symphonies? Masters? Really?
Back in the ’60s, John Sebastian Jr. played some diatonic harmonica with the Lovin’ Spoonful. Thanks to today’s media, he’s better known than his dad, John Sebastian Sr.
The father was a brilliant chromatic harmonica player. He toured and recorded on early record labels such as Decca, Columbia and Deutsche Grammophon playing Villa Lobos & Tcherepnin Concertos for Harmonica as well as Johann Sebastian Bach classics. His namesake, of course.
Larry Adler was widely acknowledged as one of the world’s most skilled harmonica players. Composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams composed works for him. Late in his career, he collaborated with popular musicians Sting and Elton John.
Mr. Hoover will join Mark “Lil Rev” Revenson in concert on stage at the Wilkins School Community Center in Regent Square on Saturday. Mr. Hoover’s latest CD is “Astoria” by EastSide, his jazz band from Minneapolis. To learn more and hear the music, go to: www.clinthoover.com.
First Published: October 26, 2014, 4:00 a.m.
