I had the pleasure in the winter of 1997 of attending the Harmonica Blowoff Workshop at Antone's Records in Austin, preceeding the Blow Off gig that night at the club. There were a lot of great harp players including Paul Orca, Ted Roddy, Walter Higgs, and Gary Primich. I watched Gary Primich do some of the most unusual acoustic tonal effects I have ever seen. The most unusual effect, used throughout his tune, was to hold the harp at the very corner of his mouth and make a VERY small pucker and basically "talk" the tone. It was a very profound effect, he was playing into a vocal mic plugged straight into the PA. He combined this with some very sweet hand wah effects.
Anyone who's seen or heard Gary play knows that he's a tone monster with a bullet mic and a tube amp, but this night he schooled us all on what makes a harp sound great. And that was with a Marine Band 1896 Anniversary Edition that I saw him remove from the plastic factory wrapping (toally stock, and no opportunity to set the harp up at all).
- -tim
Tim Moyer wmhar~exas.net +-------------------------------------------------+ | W o r k i n g M a n ' s H a r p s | | Customized Harmonicas for the Working Man | | http://tymoyer.home.texas.net/WorkingMansHarps/ | +-------------------------------------------------+
