Mouth harp
An important part of my method for this project has been to learn to play the mouth harp. I got my first harp in December 2022 and learned to play from instructional videos I found on youtube (during the pandemic the annual Norwegian mouth harp forum had their meet up online and as a part of that uploaded some great instructional videos). Later I’ve taken lessons with Sigurd Brokke, Ånon Egeland and Hans Hulbækmo. It’s been great to play an instrument which already exist(exists) in the tradition, to not always have to be interpreting things, just to play them as they are. I feel that this has allowed me to understand this music better. Furthermore it also allows me to not only have this experimental approach to the tradition, I can simultaneously be a part of continuing it.
I’ve also incorporated it more and more into my solo concerts as-well as in other settings. One interesting aspect of the mouth harp is how closely it sounds to a synthesizer, as the principle on which it works is very much like sweeping a resonant filter to pick out overtones from a sharp waveform. This makes it easy to blend in. I also find it nice in the context of a longer concert, to be able to show an example of where music comes from and how it sounds in its traditional format.
An example of this can be heard in a recent concert here:
Synth patches
Besides playing the mouth harp I have also made some synth patches inspired by it.
Patch notes for emulating a mouth harp.
VCO with sawtooth wave four octaves below the fundamental (this should ideally change to two octaves below the fundamental for the even notes in the ‘mouth harp scale’)
-> Non resonant highpass filter with cutoff approximately at the fundamental (creating a spike waveform)
-> VCA controlled with an exponential falling envelope triggered by ´Gate´ out from keyboard
-> Highly resonant low pass/band pass filter with cutoff starting at fundamental. Keyboard controls the cutoff frequency of the filter with 1v /oct. Even without having the exact right tuning for the keyboard the resonances of the overtone scale 8-16 will be clearly audible.
Fiskaren
Trying to learn a new tune on the on the mouth harp and, in order to identify the individual pitches, I have transcribed it on the synth as well. I then got the idea to mimic the resonant strings of a hardanger fiddle using resonant bandpass filters and process the dry synth sound through this to make a sort of synthesized hybrid between a munnharpe and hardanger fiddle.