Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

You guessed it.. I play harp. Always looking for a new idea: like what happens when you play through a certain effects pedal, etc. For instance, I recently found that an Octaver pedal can turn you into the bass player but it has restrictions. Only one note at a time can be processed. A chord chokes it. Also, the type of mic you do it with really matters a lot. Stuff like that interests me. If you have any special harp discoveries you've made lemme know.

Gahhhhh...clicked into this thing thinking you were talking about an actual harp (stringed kind). Which leads me to a question - how in the world did the harmonica come to be called a "harp"? I have been curious about that for a long time.

there was a very old blues harmonica player named Trashmouth Baker who couldn't pronounce the word harmonica, calling it a harpmonica, which was shortened to harp, thus the "blues harp," and the rest is history. I never thought about having a real harp player in my blues band, might be an interesting sound to add to a blues band. (Is it possible to play slide harp?) Later...

Irminsul wrote:Gahhhhh...clicked into this thing thinking you were talking about an actual harp (stringed kind). Which leads me to a question - how in the world did the harmonica come to be called a "harp"? I have been curious about that for a long time.

Going along those lines, i'm surprized that this is still using it's name.
We better keep this hush hush though...the ADL might be browsing.


http://www.jewsharpguild.org/history.html

fisherman bob wrote:there was a very old blues harmonica player named Trashmouth Baker who couldn't pronounce the word harmonica, calling it a harpmonica, which was shortened to harp, thus the "blues harp," and the rest is history. I never thought about having a real harp player in my blues band, might be an interesting sound to add to a blues band. (Is it possible to play slide harp?) Later...

Thank you very much for that info. Interesting story.

I believe Blind Lemon Jefferson was doing a gig many decades ago, and being blind he couldn't see the beer bottle in his left hand, started to play a song, accidentally pressed the bottle against the neck, and slide was born. It's amazing how many musical techniques have been discovered by dumb-ass luck. Later...

O.K. I can see there aren't many harp players on this forum so I'll just throw out a gem in case any ever show up: Theres a cool thing that Shure Bros. made back in the 40's that's called a "Model A86A Transformer". It's a barrel shaped thing with an input and output cord that goes between your mic and your amp. It boosts the signal from your bullet mic's element. Depending on what type of element you have in your mic, it let's you get up to twice the amplification before your amp feeds back. I've used it with a Fender Blues Jr. and a Fender Vibroverb with the same result. It was originally for ham radio usage as were bullet mics such as the JT30 and Turner mics. The list price on the box is $17.50. That was a chunk of change back in the 40's.

LittleLuke wrote:O.K. I can see there aren't many harp players on this forum....

Harmonica players? No, haven't seen any in particular besides yourself. As for harp players, there is me and....well that's all I've seen so far.

Both of you guys seem to be few and far between; although Harmonica players are more or less common.
Irminsul i do see how that misnomer for harmonica is aaugh for you.
It's akin to asking the Boston Pops where the Fiddle player is.

Franny wrote:<snipped>
It's akin to asking the Boston Pops where the Fiddle player is.

THAT was funny!