Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Joel Andersson interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 66

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Joel Andersson joins me on episode 66.

Joel is an Irish harmonica player from Sweden, while also building one of the best reputations in the business for his harmonica customisation skills. 

Joel first fell in love with Irish music on the harmonica when he heard Rick Epping’s playing. He spent time in Ireland with Rick, learning both the music and the art of fine tuning harmonicas.

Joel went on to release a solo harmonica album: The Irish Harmonica, where he simulates the sound of a fiddle and accordion through the use of techniques such as vamping, octaves and drones.

Joel goes on to explain the different levels of service he performs on his custom harmonicas, and how he became a Hohner Affiliated customiser.

Links:
Joel’s website:
https://jaharmonicas.com/

Joel’s webshop:
https://jaharmonicas.com/webshop.html

Joel’s Irish Harmonica site:
https://www.irishharmonica.com/

Berlin Harmonica school Irish harmonica course discussed during the episode:
https://harmonica-school-berlin.com/product/irish-harmonica-complete-course/

Mikael Backman website:
http://harpatwork.com/

Sam Hinton:
http://www.samhinton.org/harmonica/

Joel's upcoming workshops and gigs:
https://www.irishharmonica.com/dates


Videos:
Hohner artist profile:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VVTq1fQwKY

Hohner Masters Workshop 2019:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBOqpP-yNiM

Doyle & Andersson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uptGmJNrns

‘Harmonica Hang’ with Jason Ricci at Harmonica Masters workshop 2022:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kcb1TFcmrx8

Playing with Brendan Power:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCfHr709c8M


Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/

Support the show

SPEAKER_00:

Joel Anderson joins me on episode 66. Joel is an Irish harmonica player from Sweden, while also building one of the best reputations in the business for his harmonica customisation skills. Joel first fell in love with Irish music on the harmonica when he heard Rick Eppings playing. He spent time in Ireland with Rick, learning both the music and the art of fine-tuning harmonicas. Joel went on to release a solo harmonica album. the Irish harmonica, where he simulates the sound of a fiddle and accordion through the use of techniques such as vamping, octaves and drones. Joel goes on to explain the different levels of service he performs on his custom harmonicas and how he became a Horner-affiliated customiser. This podcast is sponsored by Seidel Harmonicas. Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seidel1847.com Hello, Joel

SPEAKER_02:

Anderson,

SPEAKER_00:

and welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Hello, Neil. Great to be here. Well, thanks for joining me, and you're from Sweden, and I understand you might pronounce your name differently, so you maybe just pronounce it how you say it in Sweden. Well, in Sweden

SPEAKER_03:

you would

SPEAKER_00:

say Joel Andersson. Yeah, fantastic, yeah. You are renowned as an Irish harmonica player slash folk harmonica, and also an expert customizer, so we'll talk about both these things in the interview today. Yeah. But first of all, let's just talk about Sweden. I believe you're living in the north of Sweden, and you moved further south, and there was quite a good Irish scene to where you've moved to.

SPEAKER_03:

exactly I was born in the north and lived up there until 2017 moved down to the south and like you say there's a big scene for Irish music down here we have two regular sessions every week in Lund and Malmö close to me and then there's also two sessions every week in Copenhagen which is only about an hour away with Drain there's a lot of Irish music and also a fair bit of Irish people living around here playing music

SPEAKER_00:

yeah so did Do you know why there's such a vibrant Irish scene over there?

SPEAKER_03:

Actually, not really. Copenhagen, of course, is a big city and usually in every major big city in the world, you'll get a lot of sessions and Irish musicians. I don't really know why it's become so big. One of the sessions is in Lund and Lund is obviously a big town for students. I would suspect that there are one person who started and then the next one tagged along and et cetera, et cetera.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, of course, it's a very exciting form of music, especially in a pub session So that's one good reason. I'm sure everybody loves it. So did you move south in Sweden to be near the better music scene or were there other reasons?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's better music scene and it's way closer to the continent, to Germany, to Hohner, to England, France and whatever. If you're traveling from the north of Sweden... and heading to south of Germany or something, the longest travel time is actually through Sweden. Yeah, so that's one thing. And then the next thing is that I don't like cold. I like warmer degrees. And it's a big difference down here in the south from the north.

SPEAKER_00:

About how you got started playing harmonica then. I believe you started playing at age two, is that right?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, or at least I got my first harmonica at the age of two. I mean, some things in life seems like it's meant to be. The harmonica with me seemed to be like one of those things. I got my first harmonica when I was two. I have pictures of me mainly chewing on it. Then at the age of, I think I was eight or something like that, then you were able to choose an instrument, to play in school and then most people they choose like accordion or guitar or piano or something like that but already back then it was like oh well harmonica would be kind of cool but there were no teachers and they said ah come on joel you gotta choose a proper instrument a real instrument and it's like i started to play the saxophone then and did so for four years up until i was 12 it was good i learned the basics in like music theory and all of that but it didn't really appeal to me that much. And then on my last saxophone lesson, when I put down the saxophone in the classroom, walking out from the room, then I see there's a pile of flyers. And these flyers then says, try harmonica three times for free. It's like, oh, perfect. I'll grab that. That was Sweden's first and only educate harmonica teacher, Mikael Beckman, who lives up there in the beautiful old-time country music. So I started out taking lessons from him. One thing turned to the other. When I was 14, 15, I was searching around on Hohner's website for harmonicas, obviously. I stumbled upon the XP-40, which was this revolutionary new extra bendable harmonica. I was like, oh, cool. What's that? Clicked on the sound sample and I was totally blown away. And that was Rick Epping playing an Irish jig in a bluesier kind of style. And when I was growing up, My father always listened to a lot of different folk music styles, everything from Eastern European to blues to Irish music. So I guess I've been hearing the Irish music since I was more or less born and growing up. I guess it was bubbling there inside of me. And then when I heard Rick playing this jig, it's like...

SPEAKER_00:

wow

SPEAKER_03:

I gotta learn this

SPEAKER_00:

yeah so of course Rick Epping invented the xp40 of course which I talked about in the earlier podcast episode about that so yeah so is that the first time then that you started playing Irish music or were you saying that Michael Bachman he was a traditional player as well so were you already learning that style from him

SPEAKER_03:

yeah I mean like most players you start out with learning how to bend notes and obviously you start to imitate what little Walter and big Walter Horton did and all of those but I suppose one thing was maybe I didn't really get a hang on it. Maybe that's one reason why it didn't really appeal that much to me. With Irish music, it... or appeals to me and talks to me in a different way. From that day, then I started to learn more and more Irish music. And then up until 10 years ago, it was only Irish music.

SPEAKER_00:

And so have you dispensed of the saxophone now?

SPEAKER_03:

I never took it up again. Is

SPEAKER_00:

it right you play a little Melodion?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, exactly. A little bit of Melodion and the two row Irish style accordion, C sharp D, the older type of style and Melodion. Melodion is fairly similar to the harmonica. In short, it's basically hole four blow is button number four push and hole four draw is button number four pull. So it's basically a harmonica. And to me, it's fairly easy to just transpose the tunes that I play on the harmonica to the melodion because it's the same blow and draw, push and pull pattern most of the time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's quite a good tip actually for people, isn't it? Maybe you want to take up another instrument, like you say. There's a lot of similarities. Is it something you could pick up quite easily, do you think?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, there is. And like you say, it's pretty easy in that sense. The only thing that I'm struggling with with it is that The melodion that the Irish people use is usually tuned in the key of D, which means that you can play very easily in D major or E minor, which would, on the D harmonica, it would be first position and third position. When I'm playing a tune that goes in, let's say, G, then I would choose a G harmonica. But on the melodion, you have to learn to play this G tune with D. melodion in the key of D. So that would basically be playing in second position.

SPEAKER_00:

So of course, melodions and accordions are both reed instruments. Yeah. So there's also that similarity.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Kind of get the same sound, slightly different because with the melodion and two row accordion there, you usually have like three reeds sounding at the same time. while a harmonica if you're just blowing into one hole you will only have one read most of the time

SPEAKER_00:

yeah so obviously we'll get into your customization later but are melodians something that you tinker with as well or do you not touch those

SPEAKER_03:

ah i've been retuning and repairing a few like melodians and also accordions and concertinas and a little bit but these days my main thing is only harmonicas because i honestly don't have time with anything else

SPEAKER_00:

great so so then you got into playing Irish music then quite seriously when you heard Rick Epping play that's when you really got stuck into it isn't it you started learning the Irish tunes

SPEAKER_03:

exactly and then I was lucky enough to have my dad been listening to a lot of folk music, so he obviously then had a lot of albums. The early recordings of the Chieftains and the Bothy Band and a lot of obscure Irish recordings that would be hard to even find in the stores today. So I got into the real deal, like the hardcore trad scene straight away.

SPEAKER_00:

i heard you talking about how um harmonica was actually quite popular in irish music up until about 1910 and then it um it sort of then the london sort of took it over is that is that right it was a bit of a history on the harmonica

SPEAKER_03:

there yeah from the stories that i've heard from various places and then putting one plus one together it was that the harmonica came there i mean honer the company obviously was founded 1857 if i'm not totally mistaken so basically around 1850 the The harmonica came and then in the 1880s and around there the production of harmonicas was huge. The good thing with harmonicas was that they were cheap and they were portable. Irish people haven't been famous in the past at least to have a lot of money. So, of course, they tried to get in hold of the cheapest instruments possible or the instruments that they could afford. So a lot of them started to play harmonica because a lot of them being farmers working out in the fields all day and stuff like that, they could bring the harmonicas with them. The problem with the harmonica, of course, is that anything you have in your mouth will end up in the harmonica. And if you don't have proper breathing techniques, you will start to blow out reeds and stuff fairly quickly. So obviously, they were going through a fair bit of harmonicas when they started to play more and more to dance and stuff like that. And then playing with other people, they also needed the volume from the instrument. And that's one thing that the harmonica lacks. It's not that loud. Then somewhere around 1910, the Melodion became very popular and affordable. Basically the same thing. Hole number four blow, button number four push. Didn't go out of tune. It was way louder and it was easier to play because you could actually see what you were doing. So why really bother with the harmonica? So then it kind of died out at that point. The reason why there aren't any recordings and stuff, early recordings of harmonica players is that the recording industry hadn't really started. There are a couple of recordings with harmonica from like early 1920s, early 1930s and around there, but not much at all. And then I think it was somewhere around 1960, Hohner actually founded a harmonica factory in Galway. From what I've read and from what I've heard, one of the reasons was that the school's people or the students' pupils, they were taught Irish music and they were taught on the tin whistle, penny whistle. Then during the 1960s, they thought and gave it a try that, hey, we could maybe teach them on the harmonica. So they started doing that. And then they, of course, they needed a lot of harmonicas and that That's why they founded the factory. And then obviously they encountered the problem with the harmonicas going out of tune and not being that simple to play as the tin whistle, because again, you couldn't really see what you were doing. So then it kind of started to fade away, die out again. Then it's, I would say like recently, like 1990 and upwards. And then especially today, I mean, the harmonica has never been this big in Irish music ever. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

definitely experience a renaissance, isn't it? There's lots of Irish players, a few of which I've talked to on here and some great players in Ireland. Of course, Brendan Power has been a big part in popularising as well with what he's done. So what is it you think about why Irish music works so well on the harmonica?

SPEAKER_03:

A lot of the music were written for fiddles, violins and for flutes. And then, of course, when the accordion and the by accordion players as well. And you have the similarity between the melodion and the harmonica. So it's used in that sense. And then a lot of tunes, they don't consist of that many like chromatic notes. So it's basically the key of G with the F sharp and that's it. Sometimes you have a flat note here or there, but not much at all. So when I play an Irish tune in the key of D, you could basically pick up a D harmonica and then you can play it without any bending or overblowing or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so it fits on the instrument well, doesn't it? The diatonic especially, although of course there are different tunings and there's a chromatic, which we'll get into. But yeah, you don't play too much chromatic yourself, do you?

SPEAKER_03:

Not that much. I have a new tuning for the chromatic harmonica for Irish music, which I tend to play quite a lot. I That's, in short, basically two diatonic harmonicas in one chromatic. So that I do play, but then the next question comes, is it really chromatic?

SPEAKER_00:

So is that two different keys or just a tuning?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's two different keys. In one way, it's not a new thing to have two diatonic harmonicas in one. Brendan Power has done it before. I think he called it the Irish session harp. So he had a G and a D in the same chromatic, so it was in the key of D. when you didn't push the button and when you pushed the button in, the whole harmonica became in the key of G. So it was easy to play in D, G or A minor, E minor. Mine would be similar, but I would have slightly different tunings on the two of them. With this harmonica and the layout, it would cover about like 80% of all the tunes.

SPEAKER_00:

And will it be bendable?

SPEAKER_03:

You could definitely bend on it. The one I have is fully valved. I rarely use bends in in irish music

SPEAKER_00:

but yeah you're right of course traditionally folk music and irish music wouldn't wouldn't have bent notes in it particularly anyway would it apart from the odd one yeah

SPEAKER_03:

not not too much it would be maybe like fiddle players and stuff they they would slide up to the note when playing instead of playing they would just have that Just a tiny, tiny bend to ease into the note.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, like you say, sliding up on the string on the fiddle, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, not really much more than that.

SPEAKER_00:

So I take it then you were playing around the sessions a lot in Sweden and I think you went and you spent a bit of time with Rick Epping over in Ireland as well. Did you really absorb yourself in the music over there with him?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I met Rick the first time in 2011. I came up with the daft idea that I should do the same thing as my mom and dad did back in the 80s to take the car and drive from Sweden to Ireland, which I did. And I spent a month in Ireland going around more or less the whole country. So yeah, that was the start of a great friendship with Rick and also a lot of other musicians and harmonica players. And then from 2011 and up to 2017, I was in Ireland at least once a year. Every time I met up with Rick and we would, of course, play music and all of that, but he also taught me customizing, repairing and yeah, basically showing me how to do it. I mean,

SPEAKER_00:

I play some traditional music as well. Myself, I play some old time stuff, some Irish and, you know, but I guess like quite a lot of harmonica players now, they probably dabble in playing some, you know, sort of traditional music and then you wouldn't call myself an expert at it, but I can play some tunes quite well. So, you know, what do you think? I asked this question about how much you feel you have to absorb yourself in the music to really sort of become specialized in it. Clearly that's something you do, you know, you're focused on the Irish music quite strongly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Hard

SPEAKER_03:

question, but I guess it has a lot to do with being, what do you call it, self-critical and then trying to imitate what they're doing and really listen a lot to to it and one thing that i find that with the students that i have and teach that it seems to be an easy thing but when you start to play it it's actually not and that is to get the the rhythm for it you want to get that swing to the tunes if you have a tune and you just play it so I mean, it's good, but it's more or less like a MIDI file. So you want to have that...

SPEAKER_02:

Obviously,

SPEAKER_03:

if we take things from the beginning there... One thing that I always talk a lot about when teaching is breathing techniques and how important it is to be able to make the harmonica sound big. There are only benefits from it. Partly you will be getting a louder sound from your harmonica and your harmonica will last longer. The reeds will last longer because you're putting less pressure onto them. And then also you as a player will be way more relaxed when you're playing because Irish music is dance music there's no breaks no pauses or anything it's not like in blues music you usually play a lick or something and then you can have a short tiny break so you have enough time to either take a breath or to swallow but with irish music you don't so you really need to be focusing on being relaxed in basically the whole body without a big good tone i feel that you can't really be that relaxed

SPEAKER_00:

yeah i mean you've picked the really key point for me when i playing tunes which is exactly that the uh you don't have a chance to take a breath or to swallow it's a real challenge isn't it when you're playing

SPEAKER_03:

it is yeah yeah and then the next thing is just when you play the tune through once then you're gonna repeat that usually two times more and then you're gonna switch over to the next tune and then usually third tune as well so the sets that you're playing are fairly long i mean they could be anything from like three minutes up to eight minutes sometimes without any breaks or pauses You really need to be able to relax and especially to relax in like your lips and your mouth. Most of the time when you have a very thin sounding tone and when you take like a beginner harmonica player, they usually... try to squeeze their lips and like kind of kiss the harmonica can never like get a nice even flow and get up to speed with Irish music playing like that.

SPEAKER_00:

This culminated to a large extent with you releasing your album in 2018 called The Irish Harmonica which is available on your website of course I'll put links to that on so people can find it. So this is a solo harmonica album isn't it? No other instruments just you and various harmonicas yeah?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah

SPEAKER_02:

That's

SPEAKER_03:

only me and myself, and it's recorded in one take, which means that there's no overdubbing or anything done prior to mixing and mastering. So basically what you hear on the album, I could play in front of you.

SPEAKER_00:

And I think the album, you know, you did it solo. You wanted to sort of showcase the harmonica for Irish music as well, yeah?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, that was kind of the thing. There was a guy in Ireland called Noel Hill who plays concertina. And he released an album called The Irish Concertina. And when he released that album, it's like, whoa! Everyone stopped and just listened to it and was like, wow. This is great. This is brilliant. Setting kind of a new standard for Irish concertina playing. So in the back of my head, I thought that, yeah, well, why not make a solo harmonica album and then just trying to set the new standard for the diatonic harmonica in Irish music.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, great. I noticed there is a foot tapping in a lot of it. That's you, I take it, and your foot tapping.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. So we put the microphone next to the foot as well to add something even more to the mix

SPEAKER_00:

yeah I was going to ask is that something you do when you're performing live as well you know try and you know get some foot tapping in there for a bit of percussion

SPEAKER_03:

exactly and usually so far it works because when we're playing these days I'm playing with a singer and when I'm playing tunes or if we're playing up tempo songs and stuff we usually tend to stomp our feet so hard on the stage so you don't really need to make it up it doesn't need any like amplification or anything

SPEAKER_00:

And so on the album, I understand you use a few custom harps. You use an octa harp, which is an octave harp and an XB40 and a Hohner Rocket. Now, was Callaghan's an example of you playing an octave harp?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

I

SPEAKER_03:

think, yeah, the first two are played on an XB40.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And then the last one is played on an octave harmonica. That's also another thing to get a difference in sound because I'm switching harmonicas when tune changes key. The first tune is in the key of D, the second one is in the key of G and the third one is again in the key of D. So there I would be using a D-XB40-G-XB40 and then going over to D octave harmonic.

SPEAKER_00:

And you're also using a Hohner Rocket, but you're using a low-tuned Rocket, is it, a lot of the time when you're playing those?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, low D, because when you use low D, then you would be in the same range as the violin and the flute.

UNKNOWN:

.

SPEAKER_00:

So I know you like to use the easy third tuning. Is that... Did you use that on this album or did that come a little bit later?

SPEAKER_03:

No, I used that on that album. I think the only tune on that album that's not easy third tuning is the O'Farrell's Welcome to Limerick, which actually is the tune that I heard Rick Epping play. The bluesier way that I play it on my album there is kind of the way that he played it on that Hohner site when I heard it for the first time. Kind of a tribute to Rick with that track. That is an XB40 in G. Richter tuning that is used on O'Farrell's Welcome to Limerick. On all other tracks where I'm using Dex B40, they are tuned to easy third.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah, let's just talk about the easy third tuning. I mean, I have talked about that tuning before on the podcast occasionally, but so yeah, maybe just explain to people what the easy third tuning is and why it works well on Irish music.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, so the easy third tuning is actually maybe one of the simpler retunings. Basically means that your whole one, two and three are tuned to the same notes as whole four five and six so if you take a c harmonica you would have c e g on blow and then on the draw on four five six you would have d f a and with the easy third you also have d f a on one two three draw so it's basically the whole one two three is the same as whole four five six which is great for minor playing Because you now have a minor chord in the bottom end. And also it's great because now you have octaves between hole 2, 5 and 3, 6 draw. Which you normally don't have.

SPEAKER_02:

On

SPEAKER_03:

a regular Richter tune you would have the classical blues... But with the easy third, of course, you would be getting that octave. So it's great for octaves and it's great for chords. And also you get those missing notes in the bottom end of the harmonica.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So the harmonica that I have here now is in the key of G. One thing that Brendan Power came up with was the Paddy Richter tuning. What that meant was that he's... three blow on the G that would be note D. So he would tune that D note up to E to get that missing note in the bottom end. On the easy third you have that E note on the draw side instead. And you also have that additional C. So the only note that you're missing out in the bottom end would be your seventh note, your F sharp. The good thing with the Irish music is that that seventh note in the bottom end, the F sharp is usually a passing note. So usually you can get around it. Some tunes you really need it, but there I always choose a regular Richter tuned harmonica.

SPEAKER_00:

I want to talk a little bit about also about your approach on the album but also when you're performing is that you like to you know this solo harmonica approach you know is very much about sort of a chordal accompaniment to yourself using octaves using drones you know you know very much this kind of full sound rather than just playing single note melodies yeah you're seeing that as a really important part you're playing yeah

SPEAKER_03:

yeah exactly and and what i'm trying to do when i play is that i'm trying to imitate a cross between a fiddle violin and an accordion so So if you would have an accordion, he would play the melody part would be... Same as the violin would do. But on the accordion, you have the basses. And they would usually use these basses in the backbeat. So you would get that... to get a little bit of lift, a little bit of more swing to it.

SPEAKER_00:

There's a player I'm aware of, a guy called Sam Hinton. I don't know if you've heard him. I think he was quite a pioneer of this approach to playing the diatonic, wasn't

SPEAKER_02:

he?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Exactly, Simon Hinton, he was great. So yeah, and then the next thing that I'm trying to do is that the fiddle would sometimes play drones and stuff. So it would be playing two strings at the same time. So then you would be getting stuff like... Combining these two, then you're getting the drones that the violin would do, and you're getting the bass work, the vamping that the accordion would do.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's a really great approach to playing, isn't it? I think when I play tunes, you know, I do put some chords in and things and some octaves. But yeah, it's great. It really makes me think more that you need to work, you know, just getting away from playing the single line melody, which can get quite repetitive, can't it? And yeah, so it's definitely a good direction to play in that style.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and like you say, that repetitive way, I think that's one of the things that I'm trying to make variations. Sometimes or a lot of times in Irish music the variations that people would put in might be melodic variations which I mean a lot of times works of course but personally I don't feel that comfortable with making too much melodic modifications and a lot of times I also kind of feel that you kind of lose a little bit too much from the melody the original melody when you put in too many melodic variations and then it's nice to be able to vary it with the rhythms and the drones and the chords. And obviously the style that I'm doing with so-called harp switching, I'm playing in the key of G on the G harmonica, first position or A minor, third position on the G harmonica. And then if the tune goes over to D, I would most of the time then choose a D harmonica. But what you also can do is that you can play a lot of the G tunes on a D harmonica. to vary it and to vary the sound and to vary the interest for yourself as a player.

SPEAKER_00:

so you mentioned there as well as obviously your solo album you play with other people you play with Dorian Anderson and he was a

SPEAKER_01:

singer yeah and you also

SPEAKER_00:

play with a fiddle player called Early Howl so you've got a couple of sort of outfits you're playing with now yeah

SPEAKER_03:

yeah These days, mostly it's the Doyle and Anderson thing, and it works brilliant with the harmonica and the voice together.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I noticed with him, you're really putting some chordal accompaniment behind the singing, which is really interesting to hear as well from a harmonica, you know, with just the harmonica and singing.

SPEAKER_03:

Exactly, and that's something I'm always thinking about when playing with him, that I am the one supporting him. So it's like you say, it's a lot of working with that...

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, so let's go on to your other side of your music career, which is your customization work. So you've got a successful customization business called JA Harmonicas. And again, I'll put the link to the website on there. So you've done very well for yourself. I think you founded this in 2016 in your customization business, yeah?

SPEAKER_03:

Exactly. 2016 was the year when I started my company. But I usually say that I've been going on selling to friends and friends of friends since 2013. You know,

SPEAKER_00:

I believe you like to tinker around with seeing how things work and things. Yeah, that's what kind of got you interested in doing this, yeah?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I spent a lot of time with my grandfather, who was like a carpenter. I've been working a lot with wood, but also doing a lot of metal work. And then also my father, Levonen, farm and always tinkering with something, improving stuff. And I educated to become an auto electrician. So I worked as an auto electrician for about 10 years. So yeah, always been interested in knowing how this works and why it works like it does. Of course, when I started to play harmonic, I didn't go many hours before I was starting to think, hmm, what can we improve here?

SPEAKER_00:

Did you then stop working as a car mechanic and then devote yourself entirely to your customization business as Exactly.

SPEAKER_03:

So in 2016, I went down in time. So I was working 80% as an auto electrician and then 20% plus evenings and all of that with the harmonicas. And then in 2017, when we moved down to the south of Sweden, then I went over full time to customizing harmonicas. The timing couldn't have been any better because the autumn of 2017, just before I quit my work as an auto electrician, I became one of the Hohner-affiliated customizers, which means that you basically fulfill the highest demands of a custom harmonica. In short, you're sending a couple of samples to Hohner, which then they forward to the man himself, Joe Felisco, and then he He checks them out and then basically says yes or no. And then luckily he liked my work and then I got approved. That was good because that gave me a little bit of more promotion and stuff. Then in November in 2017, I attended the World Harmonica Festival in Trossingen. There I had a small table showcasing custom harmonicas and selling a few harmonica combs and stuff. That was really, really good for the business because I met so many people and players. Also, I thought that, hey, why not compete in the competition that they have? So I competed in the octave and tremolo competition class. So it was basically me surrounded by Chinese and Asian people playing the tremolo and all these classical hits and stuff and fantastic players so I thought but hey well I'll give it a try and I'll do my best and then yeah just enjoy myself and then they had the prize giving ceremony and then suddenly I ended up on second place which I never ever could have believed and that was playing Irish

SPEAKER_00:

music was it for you

SPEAKER_03:

yeah so that was Irish music on an octa harp super well done

SPEAKER_00:

so yeah so you got your business then and you know I'm always full of admiration of people who are able to work on harmonic full-time. So congratulations for that. So it's still working out well for you and your business.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, that was the start of it. Then in February or around there in 2018, I didn't have too many orders, but then one order came and then the next order came and then the next. And well, you know how it is. It's like a snowball rolling down the mountain. Most of the time I sell custom harmonicas where I provide the harmonica. I can always customize harmonicas that people sent to me but i usually say that i can't guarantee a 100 result because the harmonica is used and i don't know the condition of it and i do repair harmonicas as well so repairing cleaning tuning all of that

SPEAKER_00:

this is a thing i'm very curious about so i again i i can do a certain level of customization myself you know i'll do some embossing i can tune the reeds improve air tightness a little bit so what's the difference between what you can do and what you know i can do and other people who do it themselves to some extent what would you say the value add was for your services you know how much better is your harmonica than the sort of person you can just kind of improve it to certain extent themselves

SPEAKER_03:

i think one thing that makes if so to say my embossing better than your embossing is because i've done it 10 000 times more than you have

SPEAKER_00:

yeah

SPEAKER_03:

sure so it's basically what i do is that same thing that a lot of other people do as well it's just that i've done it more

SPEAKER_00:

and you've got these different levels haven't you for your reed work talking about embossing here specifically you've got basic advanced master and top of the line so what are people getting on those different levels so like you say reed work basic

SPEAKER_03:

it's better tuned than from factory most of the time from factory they are tuned extremely sharp 443 444 hertz which is way too sharp according to me i tune most harmonicas to customers at 442 hertz and a couple of times at 441 as well and then Then of course it's flat sanded drawer reed plate and flat sanded comb and then gapping and a little bit of curvature. You'll get something that is way better than out of the box. Plus, the most important thing is that when you buy a basic harmonica from me, you know that each reed will respond to the basic level. It won't be the best, but it will still respond to the same levels. Then the advanced would have the same things, of course, but it would also be embossed, and it would be more care and attention to curvatures and to the flat sanding, and then also a little bit more time spent on the tuning. And embossing would only be like part of the slot that would be embossed. The master model would be full slot embossing. Also, the reeds will be polished. Same thing there, care and attention to curvatures. And then also the reeds will be reprofiled, which means that when they are milling the reeds from the factory, sometimes they might be a little bit too thick in the middle, or they might be a little bit too thick at the base of the reed. So what I'm doing there when I'm reprofiling the reads is that then I'm removing material from different parts of the read during over the read length to get read that has the optimal read profile to be able to get the optimal response and that means that you will get a harmonica that is basically responds to the same air pressure from hole 1 all the way up to hole 10 and then there's if you choose the marine band model with the master model you will also get modified cover plates and then you have the top of the line reed work where there I'm removing every reed flat sanding both sides of the reed plates and I'm flat sanding the reeds themselves as well I'm able to modify the reed plates even further because i'm removing the reeds from them then here the profiling is done to like perfection and same thing with curvatures and

SPEAKER_00:

do you attach the reeds with screws when you put them back on

SPEAKER_03:

yeah so then i attach them with screws a lot of people have thought throughout the years this is my opinion on it and some people might agree some people might disagree but there's always been this kind of myth saying that you can't play hard on an overblow harmonica. People have been more or less getting afraid of that term overblow harmonica. It's like, oh yeah, no, no, I'm not using overblows. I can't play that. But the thing is that with my harmonicas that I build, if you choose like the master reed work, then you will be able to hit those overblows perfect. You will be able to hit the notes hard when just playing a regular, let's say if you're playing Irish music, for instance, and you will also have perfect bends and it will be perfectly tuned. And I think that what happened back then was that a lot of, if you call it self-proclaimed customizers who made custom harmonicas, calling them overblow harmonicas. And basically what they did was they gapped the reeds very, very tight. And yeah, of course you can play overblows on them, but you can't do anything else. And then with the harmonicas and reed work that I have, if you choose like, again, the master reed work, everything is done to like perfection. which means that you can hit these notes hard at the same time as you can perform the overblows on them. So if you take, for an example, you have...

SPEAKER_02:

That

SPEAKER_03:

is playing pretty hard. At the same time, on the same harmonica, you can... You can do the overblows and you can...

SPEAKER_02:

Played

SPEAKER_03:

extremely quiet.

SPEAKER_00:

The one thing that I have a doubt in my mind is that, you know, harmonicas don't last forever. Reeds don't last forever. So if you spend this amount of money on a customized harmonica, you know, it won't last forever anyway, right? So, you know, what would you say about that?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's a bit of both because like you say, in one way, no, it won't last forever if you have a very dirty mouth before you play. if you drink coca-cola or if you eat the burger fries and stuff and you blow into it then the reeds will get stuck or if you have poor breathing techniques it won't last long but if you have good breathing techniques and if you have a clean mouth when you play they will last pretty long i mean i have harmonicas that i've played for 10 years and the only thing i've done with them is retuned them and i would say that i'm a pretty hard player at times

SPEAKER_00:

yeah i guess people can send them back to you as well and you can rejuvenate them

SPEAKER_03:

yeah of course it's not just to change your reed when it breaks because you have to do the profiling you have to do the curvature and all of that do it to get it to perform as it did from the start so it's not like a guitar where you can change the string yourself it has a lot to do with on how you handle the instrument and i'd say that 95 percent of the times it's the player that's the the problem

SPEAKER_00:

So as well as your reed work, you've already mentioned that you offer your own custom harmonicas. Again, on the same four levels, you've talked about basic advanced mass from top of the line. So you do chromatics, diatonics, you do the slip slider, which is...

SPEAKER_03:

So you can play fully chromatic with only using bends. You don't have to use overblows with it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and then you do an orchestra and a chord and bass as well. So obviously you do chromatics as well.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I do a lot of chromatics. And that's also one thing that people haven't really... understood in the past and one of the reasons probably is because no one has really done it but the reed work of a master harmonica the benefits that you get from the volume and the response from like regular blow and draw you have a huge advantage as a chromatic harmonica player to get a pair of customized reed plates i'm building a lot of like top of the line reed plates for asian chromatic harmonica players and they love them because they have better response they have more volume and they have way better dynamics when they're playing

SPEAKER_00:

so so as you said you're a honor affiliated customizer but you do do the other brands as well yeah

SPEAKER_03:

no the only um thing i do for other brands is that i service them like tuning cleaning and that

SPEAKER_00:

So

SPEAKER_03:

the only customized harmonicas that I provide are Hohner harmonicas.

SPEAKER_00:

Great. And you do some, you mentioned earlier on, you do some combs. So you've got some different combs available as well.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. So I have a comb concept, which I call performance combs. From the outside, the comb, all the holes, chambers look the same. But on the inside, the hole one, two, three are actually slightly bigger, wider. And then on hole four, five, six, they become narrower. And then seven, eight, nine, and 10, they're even more narrow, which means that in the lower end, you will be able to get more air to the reeds. And then in the top end, you'll have a slightly smaller chamber in the comb, which gives you better response when performing like bending and yeah, regular blow and draw notes as well.

SPEAKER_00:

And these combs come with your custom harmonicas, I take it?

SPEAKER_03:

They come with a custom harmonicas and you can buy them. Yes. as combs as well

SPEAKER_00:

yes and custom covers you mentioned you do those as well

SPEAKER_03:

yeah and now i'm finally i've been tinkering around with wooden cover plates and stuff for i think it's two years more or less haven't really come up with a good surface finish treatment to them which is stable because there are a couple of people out there who are offering wooden cover plates for titanics and for chromatics and stuff but all the covers that i've seen so far i have I haven't seen all of them, but the ones that I have seen, they have all been warped, twisted and turned in all kinds of ways and directions. That is, of course, the problem with wood, that if I would build a pair of wooden cover plates here in the south of Sweden, and then I would send them to America or to England or to India or Australia, whether the temperature, the humidity, everything would be different. But finally, I've gotten in hold of some more material. So now I'm going to make... covers from the same material as I make the combs from. So this is 100% waterproof and very stable and tough and hard. So that will work.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I definitely want to try out your harmonicas, Joel, and see what it can do. So if anyone else wants one of yours or other work that you do, again, check out your website. I'll put the link onto the podcast page. And you've had some very nice things said about you from some of the people on your website, the brand and said you're the best of the new generation of harmonica customizers. Rick Epping, of course, he said nice things about you. But also recently, I just want to touch on, you went to the Harmonica Masters at Trossingen this year, just a few months ago.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, teaching an Irish class down there.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and you're teaching an Irish class there. And you spent some time with Jason Ritchie, and he's done a little video with you, and he also said some nice things. So what was it like hanging out with Jason? Jason

SPEAKER_03:

is great actually the first time I met him I've talked with him a couple of words here and there before but brilliant guy brilliant guy fantastic human being and musician.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and he went on Sephora to say that one of your harmonicas is like a sacred item, so you don't get much better praise than that.

SPEAKER_03:

No, not really. I was going to build a harmonica to him, and so the thing that I've done, of course, when I started out my journey with customizing harmonicas, I put up a few pictures and links, and then I talked about the harmonicas and said this and that and blah, blah, blah. But from my experience is that then you will always have some people who say that, okay, no, no, I don't agree with that because of blah, blah, blah. And then the discussion starts, which is an endless discussion. So then I always come down the road that it's way better if I build harmonicas for some really good players. And then if I can get some feedback from them, that feedback can speak for itself. And I don't have to say anything.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a very good approach. And that seems to serve you very well. So far, yeah. So you mentioned as well that you're teaching there you did teaching the harmonica masters workshop just recently and also you you've taught at the harmonica school berlin as well and done some workshops for them

SPEAKER_03:

yeah

SPEAKER_00:

and you got some private students and you do teaching over skype as well yeah

SPEAKER_03:

yeah i don't have too many students over skype i'm so busy with everything else but it's great to be teaching a bit and like you said harmonica masters that was great i think everyone enjoyed it and it's it's nice because if i would only sit here and build harmonica so i think i would be losing the sense of what does people really need and how do they react to playing different things and stuff. And I think teaching is also a very good thing to do because then I become better at explaining and also understanding.

SPEAKER_00:

And I read that you're going to be launching a new online teaching platform. I don't think that's out yet. Is it coming soon?

SPEAKER_03:

We've been working on that for basically three years. So I met Marko Jovanovic in 2019, became very very good friends and been working very closely together he was here in 2021 and we recorded a whole course he was here for i think like 10 days and when he went home he had around 10 terabytes of material and then now they have been editing editing this material and then making this new online teaching platform, which will come very, very soon. Personally, I think this is setting like a new standard in online teaching because the quality and the visual aspects and the visual animations and everything of it is so good. The quality is like top notch.

SPEAKER_00:

great and is that going to be available through your website or a different platform

SPEAKER_03:

it will be linked through my website yeah but it will be available through the harmonica school berlin website and it will be in the format that you can create an account and you can then buy videos and you can buy packages of videos or you can buy buy the complete course and when you have bought like one video then you can watch it forever online so you can't download it so there's no subscription i find that if you have a subscription you kind of put some pressure onto the student that they really really have to practice now and to learn now because they paid for it for this month but with this concept they can sit back and relax and do it in their own speed

SPEAKER_00:

so a question i ask each time joel is if you had 10 minutes to practice what would you spend those 10 minutes doing

SPEAKER_03:

well if you're talking about me i would be concentrating my time on on repeating and trying to re-memorize tunes. Because the thing is that with Irish music, you have to learn a lot of tunes because there's no improvising in Irish music. One tune is played in one key in one kind of way. And yeah, that's about it. Then you have to learn the next and the next and the next and the next. And then, of course, the problem is that you have to be able to remember all these tunes. Human brain is somehow magic on how many tunes you actually can remember but then of course some of them slips away sometimes so it's nice to refresh the the memory on them so But also practicing, again, like breathing techniques and just simple train rhythm things and stuff like that to keep the breathing techniques going. Because it's, again, doesn't matter what kind of style you're playing. It's so important.

SPEAKER_00:

So we've already talked about, obviously, the gear you use a lot. And obviously, I take it you're playing whole harmonicas pretty exclusively, as we've already discussed.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, modified in different ways. And

SPEAKER_00:

easy third is the tuning. that is probably your favourite tuning as we've already talked about. Definitely. And what about your embouchure? Are you using tongue blocking? Tongue blocking 99% of

SPEAKER_03:

the time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and that's partly down to the sort of solo approach that we talked about earlier on, you know, the different techniques.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, partly that and then also I mean, everyone is different but at least I am able to get more lips up onto the covers of the harmonica when I'm playing tongue blocked because you don't have to get that only like one hole in the mouth which means that at least i can relax more in my lips

SPEAKER_00:

and overblows i mean do you use them much yourself again in the irish music probably doesn't call a great deal for them does it

SPEAKER_03:

no and the thing with irish music is that a lot of people think that irish music is fast and in fairness when i recorded my album in in 2018 i was playing freakishly fast these days i've slowed down a lot and it goes up and down sometimes you play fast sometimes you you play slow but being able to play overblows if you play something I mean it's Hard to be able to have time to squeeze them in there. To me, I avoid them. I either use retuned harmonicas to be able to get away from bends and overblows. And also if there is a tune that contains some kind of half note bend or something, then I usually try to work around it so I don't have to bend it. It doesn't really suit the sound.

SPEAKER_00:

Equipment-wise, you're just using acoustic microphones and PAs, are you? You're not really using amplifiers?

SPEAKER_03:

No, I have a Beyer M88 dynamic microphone. It picks up a lot of the low frequencies, the bass notes of the harmonica. That's, of course, one thing that the harmonica lacks is bottom end. So the more, the better.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you hold the mic when you're playing or do you stand off it?

SPEAKER_03:

I usually hold the mic and I like to actually, like, cup it. I find that I get a really strong, powerful sound when I do so. If I have it only on a stand, I find that the tone, the sound kind of gets maybe a little bit too thin for my taste. But those are things as well that might vary over the years. Sometimes you want the other kind of sound. And

SPEAKER_00:

do you use any effects at all?

SPEAKER_03:

No, nothing.

SPEAKER_00:

Not even any reverb or anything on the PA or anything like that?

SPEAKER_03:

Maybe just a tiny, tiny bit, but Not that much. It was kind of funny. We did a gig in Finland, me and Colm Doyle, who I play with. And he's a singer, obviously, so he doesn't have any instruments at all. And I have my harmonicas and a microphone. And then when they asked us about the flight tickets, they asked if we needed any extra luggage for our instruments.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

that's all so talking about gigs you've got some gigs coming up there's quite a list on your website again people can check you out which countries are you playing in in the next few months

SPEAKER_03:

It's mainly now, I think the next one would be in Berlin in Germany at the FEN Festival that Harmonica School Berlin, Marco and those people are organizing down there. It will be a great festival with a lot of people coming from all over the world. Gordon Lee from Asia and Santiago Alvarez from South America. We'll have Bill Barrett and Steve DeBruyn and all those top names. Steve Baker will also be there. also be there so that'll be really really good it's not nothing really that I'm pushing that much searching for gigs because yeah again i'm so busy with the the custom harmonica work so i i wouldn't really have time to do that much extensive touring and what about any plans recording another album yeah the thing with time again but yeah me and column doyle we are gonna record an album together so that will be with harmonica and voice song and then i'm also Thinking more and more about doing the Irish harmonica volume two, this time in half the speed. Yeah, basically done in the same way, I think. I thought about maybe incorporating a couple of more instruments and stuff, but

SPEAKER_02:

it's

SPEAKER_03:

kind of nice to keep on the same idea with only the harmonica and that's it.

SPEAKER_00:

So that's great. Thanks so much for joining us today, Joel Anderson. Thank you, Neil. Great being here. Thanks to Zydle for sponsoring the podcast. And be sure to check out the great range of harmonicas and products at www.zidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zidel Harmonicas. Thanks so much to Joel, still a young guy at 31, I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more from him. And I also look forward to his further advancements in harmonica customisation. Remember to please check out the podcast website at harmonicahappyhour.com and if you feel the need to make a donation to help with the running cost of the podcast, then you can do so there. Now it's over to Joel to play us out with his brand of Irish

SPEAKER_02:

harmonica.

UNKNOWN:

.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you.