I listen to a lot of jews harp / jaw harp music. Who da thought there'd be so much of it on Spotify.
Eastern European and Turkic cultures are the keenest twangers with the Scandinavians not far behind.
As a player focused on the Vietnamese dan moi I'm an aficionado of a side branch of the whole shebang.
'Tis a very versatile instrument which can settle inside many musical styles. That the sound goes off inside your head makes for one helluva shamanistic-like bang for your buck.
Who needs an 'OM' when they can have a shivering TWANG!
I used to play harmonica. Chromatic as well as the classic blues harp, the Hohner Marine Band. A chromatic harp had a slide to squeeze in the flats and sharps into a scale.
With a blues harp -- you instead 'bend' notes to slur them -- and you play harps ready-made in various keys.
My problem was that I wasn't very good. I could play the Marine Band by ear. Sure surprised myself. But I inevitably blew out too many reeds and harmonica playing became too expensive as you just can't insert a new 'one'. You have to replace the whole instrument.
I loved the classic talking-blues players -- Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson. I was never a Sonny Terry man.
Check out Williamson's take on ' The Sky is Crying' ...
Anyway, the jawharp is a similar sound instrument with, I think, comparable versatility in the mouth.
The tongue is used differently. It's very active in jawharpery. With a blues harp the tongue selects your notes or chords.
And there is a lot of sucking with harmonicas than with jawharps.
But for the pure pleasure of playing an instrument -- the jawharp gives me so much fun and satisfaction. It's even a meditative tool.
I just got myself a dan moi with a lot of very low bass which takes the sound effect into throat singing mode. Since I play my harps just before bed each night -- who needs white noise? -- this low low beast is just the thing before nod off.
The good thing -- compared to the harmonica days -- is that I have x4 dan moi -- each with a different tuning ...and if I'm not heavy-handed (thumbed) I'm not going to bend these too much so that they lose their vibes.
It happens. But I have four to choose from.
All up they cost me around $80 (for the lot: from 3 different sources) - and there is some Hmong tribes person artisan in Vietnam living off my contribution to the fam kitty.
The other advantage of the dan moi compared to the blues harmonica is that blues-harpery can be so pretentious and rely on the same effects for its riffs.
Hello train...sounds.
As Sonny Boy used to say, blues harp playing is like talking ...and he could really talk them reeds.
With a dan moi you can actually pronounce letters and words to make coherent similar musical sounds. This may contribute to the popularity of jaw harps in some cultures, as their lingua franca may be guttural and driven from the back of the throat.
