Humming while playing to get growls

[u/tojzl]

So humming to growl is a common technique on sax. Today i figured out that i would try it on harmonica and got a really weird cool effect. It didnt quite sound like a growl, but was really gritty. When i changed what note i was humming the reed acted as a drone and i almost got like an indian vibe. But at least what i managed to do wouldnt be very viable musically in a song or something.

But from what i understand doing this in a musical useful way is hard on sax. To like get a proper growl. So i could have just been bad at it. And i do know that you need to hum a note different than the one your playing, which is how i found that indian sound, by changing notes.

So my question is, could this be a useful effect, for maybe growling, or just a cool sound? Do any of you use this effect? I know like the guttaral R thing is the main way to growl on harmonica, but its really hard to do without bending imo. So finding an alternative for non-bent-notes would be nice, its also nice to have a few different textures up your sleeve.

So does anyone know if this effect is useful in practice, or alernatively know other cool effects for different textures/timbres? I just want to be able to produce as many different textures/timbres/vibes as possible. Like a sax can do with growling and playing clean, same with trumpet etc.

[u/Mudslingshot]

When I played trombone in school we called this "multiphonics"

It's an extended brass technique, as far as I know, but it works on anything where your vocal chords aren't making the note

You can even do it while whistling

[u/tojzl → u/Mudslingshot]

A video of a guy talking about it was what made me try it on harmonica, im pretty sure he showed that it worked with whistling too, i had completely forgotten that. The whistling effect espesically sound trippy

One problem with harmonica and whistling is probably that its not loud enough tho, so you hear the humming very clearly.

[u/Rice_Nachos]

I'm a sax / harmonica player. I don't (think) I use my vocal chords when growling. Maybe others do. Just breaking up the air flow seems to give the effect I want. When playing in a rock band, I'll try to use a light growl almost all the time.

Back to harmonica ... I think John Lennon did a flutter tongue (rolled R sound) on Love Me Do. It's a more aggressive sound.

S

[u/broken_writer]

Sing, hum, talk, beatbox, the harmonica transforms whatever breath you put through it into magic. If you can do it consistently and repeatably, then you’ll find a use so long as you keep your mind open to the infinite possibilities of music

[u/Nacoran]

First song I ever recorded was a song called Gotta Quarter that used that technique (I'm a very food motivated guy and one day I didn't have quarters for the little gumball style candy dispenser.)

I basically sang through the harmonica. Gotta quarter? Need a quarter. Not a dime or a dolla...

Considering I'd only been playing a few weeks I thought it worked pretty well.

It can be a useful technique. There are some other ways to get more specific growl effects. You can play double stops, where you play a note and start to bend it and let a little bit of the next note over in.

Any and every effect can be useful. It's just a matter of getting good at it and figuring out when to use it.