Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Andre Godoy Coelho (and Brendan Power) interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 113

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Andre Godoy Coelho (and Brendan Power) join me on episode 113.

Andre is a Brazilian who relocated to Portugal in 2018, performing and recording two albums with the Rio Grande band in Sao Paulo, before recording a recent album in a duo in Portugal. 

Andre quickly became interested in harmonica customisation when his first harmonica didn’t quite perform as he wanted. This has turned into a full time business for Andre, who has now teamed up with Brendan Power on his x-reed harmonica range. The partnership has just released the Morbendz, a diatonic with a slide which increases the number of available bends from 8 to 14, providing the missing notes from a standard diatonic, while playing just the same.


Links:
Website:
https://linktr.ee/agcoelho 

Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/andre.coelho.1694059/

Order the Morbendz and other x-reed harmonicas:
https://x-reed.com/products.php

Harmonetta information:
https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/nmah_1306551

Videos:
Andre's YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@agc_custom_harps

Little Lady Hip Hop track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx05yBNybXw

Lapa & Godoy duo:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB0l7d8Zq0HLoVfSIdapXoOEvKox4JCjn&si=dOzFb8z6lC7MmGfk

Andre and Brendan playing together:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KPaUDT9RbM

Brendan introduction video to Morbendz diatonic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z3WLTRymYU

Andre playing on the Morbendz:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwYRXqgwTv8

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
--------------------------------
Blue Moon Harmonicas: https://bluemoonharmonicas.com


Support the show

SPEAKER_04:

Andre Godoy Cahelo and Brendan Power join me on episode 113. Andre is a Brazilian who relocated to Portugal in 2018, performing and recording two albums with the Rio Grande band in Sao Paulo, before recording a recent album in a duo in Portugal. Andre quickly became interested in harmonica customisation when his first harmonica didn't quite perform as he wanted. This has turned into a full-time business for Andre, who has now teamed up with Brendan Power on his ex-Reed harmonica range. The partnership has just released the More Bends, a diatonic with a slide which increases the number of available bends from 8 to 14, providing the missing notes from a standard diatonic, while playing just the same. This podcast is sponsored by Seidel Harmonicas. Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Seidel Harmonicas. Hello Andre Godoy Coelho and welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_02:

Hi Neo, thank you very much for having me and for all the great work that you do.

SPEAKER_04:

And so you're originally from Brazil and now living in Portugal.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, that's right. I moved to Portugal in 2018. My wife is Portuguese. My daughter was also born in Portugal, but we were living in Brazil for about 10 years before we decided to move for good to Portugal.

SPEAKER_04:

Why the decision to move to Portugal?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, it's many things, you know, like I think once we get comfortable in a place, my wife was living in Brazil. for 10 years and we just decided it would be better to change a little bit and just come to portugal to stay with her parents because they were quite older so we just wanted to to have some time with them and then started everything again here.

SPEAKER_04:

So not for harmonica

SPEAKER_02:

reasons then? No, no particular harmonica reasons.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, it's interesting because obviously you've had a, we'll talk about your time on harmonica in Brazil, but since you've come over to Europe to live in Portugal, you've really stepped up your customization business and obviously that's a big part of what you do as well as people may know. So we'll get into all that. But first of all, let's talk about Brazil. So we had a few Brazilians on the podcast before and a great harmonica heritage in Brazil Partly, as I understand, from the Herring Factory being based in Brazil, and that kind of really made the harmonica a really popular instrument in Brazil, yeah?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, true. Well, herring has been around for over a hundred years now and that created like some tradition for harmonica groups back in the, or players in the radio, like back in the 50s and 60s. But I think in the 90s was the moment that blues became like really popular in Brazil. So I started to see bands in Rio de Janeiro. Blues Etílicos like the oldest blues band there and some other bands in São Paulo and that became like really popular so that was a really a golden moment for the harmonica there.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah and so where were you living in Brazil?

SPEAKER_02:

I was living, well, it's not in the city of São Paulo, but nearby. Great.

SPEAKER_04:

So you were inspired by this blues boom in Brazil. Were you in the 90s or before then? You know, what got you started playing harmonica?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I started playing in, I think it was 96 or 97. No, 96, yes. I was hearing like some people started playing. My cousin was a very good player, actually. And so I started learning from him and buying stuff. some records. Back then, we didn't have much access to material, especially on blues licks. And learning more about blues was something a bit hard to find. But it was the early days of the internet back there. And yeah, that helped a lot to try to discover new things.

SPEAKER_04:

yeah and again certainly Vitor Lopes who had I think probably the last Brazilian he had and he was a chromatic player and he played the Choro fantastic Brazilian music and so there seems to be this division between the kind of chromatic players playing the more traditional Brazilian styles of music and then blues so were you ever into the more Brazilian sort of style of music?

SPEAKER_02:

I tried hard you know like but chromatic was something relatively more new to me I used to play a little bit but But it was more after I started actually working on the instruments and customizing and servicing chromatics that I got more interested in that. But yes, there was a tradition of chromatic players like playing classical music. Choro, yeah, which is the Brazilian really genuine style. Bolsa Nova, like you have like some very good players from spread like around in different states of Brazil.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, but it's been blues for you mainly, has it?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I mean, from the start, like I really focused on the blues and maybe like my first band there was actually a pop rock band, you know, like playing classics from the 80s. And I was always trying to use the harmonica sometimes with some effects to feel like the gaps there, whatever the guitar couldn't do or the keyboard. We didn't have like a keyboard player. So I was always trying to use the harmonica to fill those gaps. But the sound was always bluesy because I didn't know like how to do something very different back then Do

SPEAKER_04:

you remember a first song that inspired you or a first harmonica player that inspired you?

SPEAKER_02:

I'm not afraid to say I think Bob Dylan was really the first harmonica that I actually heard, you know, like recorded as an instrument, as part of the song. And I remember it was the song called If Not For You. But after Bob Dylan, it was like right after that, I got a CD from a band called Blues Etílicos, which is the biggest blues band in Brazil. And yeah, then I heard that CD like so many times until I could get some of the songs right and i still listen to that because it's a very impressive album

SPEAKER_04:

So I understand your first harmonica was a Special 20 MS model, and you didn't like it that much, so you had to do a bit of customization on it to make it play better. Is that how you got into customizing?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Well, the first harmonica that I ever got was the MS, and I think the Special 20 MS was only done for specific countries. I don't think it was ever sold in the US, for example, but it had those huge rivets and the sound was didn't like have much resonance anyway it wasn't a bad harmonica but you know like it was more like an experimental attempt of honor from moving to the handmade series to the MS so not very impressed by that one and because I always liked to tweak things and you know like whenever I got like a toy as a child I would want to open that and see what was going on and I did the same with the harmonica and I figure like some things like right away were not right the gapping was not consistent and I did small adjustments until I break the harmonica I broke like some reeds and well I'll move on to another brand and model and then I it grew on me

SPEAKER_04:

so what stage was that was this on like the very first time Monica you sort of was starting to think about improving it were you

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think because I only had this one back then, it wasn't so easy to find music stores that carried harmonicas, at least not blues harmonicas. Some of those stores would have the tremolo harmonicas or octave harmonicas, which I was not interested in. But not long after that, I started seeing some harmonicas, Chinese harmonicas from Huang. They started selling in Brazil. And they were actually quite good. They were really cheap harmonicas, but they had a very nice sound. I got some of those. Then I bought some herring harmonicas. And after a little while, I had about 10 different types of harmonicas, 10 different brands and models. Yeah, I just started experimenting and seeing which ones would sound best, which ones would bend best, and then tried to come up with some conclusions. develop some work from there.

SPEAKER_04:

Great, yeah, so we'll get more into your customizing shortly, but just a little bit more about your music. So I understand you also play some guitar. There's a nice YouTube video of you playing harmonica on a rack, maybe slightly better than Bob Dylan, on a song called So Much in Love. So Much in Love. So when did you start playing the guitar and what role does that play in your harmonica

SPEAKER_02:

playing? Yeah, the guitar was actually my... It was not my first instrument, but I remember when I was five and I really wanted for my birthday to get a guitar, an acoustic guitar, and I got it. And I was very happy just plucking the strings, but then I wanted to start taking some music lessons. Then I was quite disappointed because the teacher would say okay your hands are still too small for the guitar you're not going to enjoy playing so why don't you start with the keyboards and I think ever since that day I started hating the keyboards but anyway it was not like always because I learned like a bit of theory during that time it took like maybe five or six years after that before I started playing like again but it was It was never my main instrument, like the guitar, because by that time I was already trying to mess with the harmonica and the harmonica was always my main instrument and the guitar always came second, I think.

SPEAKER_04:

What age did you

SPEAKER_02:

start playing the harmonica? Well, if it was 97, I'm from 84. I think I was about 12 or 13 when I got my first one.

SPEAKER_04:

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SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_04:

So this is a blues rock band based in Sao Paulo. Tell us about that band.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, well, I got with that band. Well, after I finished the university, I lived in Norway for one year. I studied there. This is where I met my wife, but I eventually came back to Brazil to finish my credits, my undergrad studies. Then I met the guys from the band, from Rio Grande, and they were already playing. Well, they needed a harmonica player, you know, like I just went like the first time there to record a track for a demo cd that they were working on it just worked like right away so right after that we we decided okay let's follow with the work here and then we played together for about five or six years and in the meantime we managed to record the those two cds

SPEAKER_04:

Okay, so great. So you were doing that in Sao Paulo. And then any other bands in Brazil?

SPEAKER_02:

Then I had like another band with my friend from school. He was always more into heavy metal and, you know, like always playing the guitar with a lot of distortion. And I always told him that one day you start liking to hear and play the blues. And definitely that happened because one day he just told me, okay, like, why don't we start a new band, you know, like something... in that blues tradition but not the blues rock stuff more focus on the swing and jump blues style we got together we found a singer a very talented singer like and she really changed the the approach that we were trying to to put to the band like in the band name was called Bloody Mary and the Dry Martinis and it was all about fun like we were playing like jump blues tunes some little walters some sonny boy williamson like the more dancing stuff then we started mixing some uh well-known songs like pop songs and tried to play them in in that style a bit like a post-modern jukebox something like that

SPEAKER_04:

And then more recently, since obviously you've been living in Portugal, you've been in a duo called Lapa and Godoy. So you released an album, and this is with a guitarist, yeah, playing in this duo. And just to point out as well that you used your middle name, Godoy, as your sort of stage name.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, this has been like more of a... I haven't actually met him in person. We're just recording our parts. I record my parts at my place, and he has his own studio. And so we've been working on to make like an album of that collaboration and then start playing live. but I have also another band that I get like more regularly here in Portugal, but we don't have like anything recorded yet, but it's more like a traditional blues playing and it's called Big Johnny and the Citizen Blues. Yeah, but lately I'm not so much focused on the playing part. I'm really, really interested in the customizing harmonicas, working on harmonica gear and also my collaboration with Brandon Potts has shifted my interest more into the innovation of the harmonica than the harmonica playing itself.

SPEAKER_04:

right yeah sure yeah so yeah again we'll get into that shortly but just touching on that album it's interesting that you say you've got this kind of remote recording so how did you meet with this guy and you know agree to start doing recordings remotely

SPEAKER_02:

it was really by chance like I always post you know like some demos of the music I work on or you know like if I work on a different harmonic a new tuning I want to demonstrate how that works and how that sounds and he just saw one of those videos by accident on facebook and got in touch he normally does lots of collaborations with different musicians in portugal but normally it's just one song he has like a guest for to record something and but he really enjoyed the harmonica and he felt okay we could definitely make a bigger project out of that you know like not just for one song but work on kind of a bluesy jazzy versions of jazz standards featuring the harmonica as a as a main solo instrument then we recorded one song and then after a few weeks we recorded another and now we are we almost have like a full album to to release

SPEAKER_04:

there's quite a lot of jazz on here you've got it necessarily so you've got old blues and watermelon man playing diatonic and I think some chromatic on here as well, isn't there?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, on some of the songs I would use the Koch harmonica, like the diatonic with the slide. I think most of the songs that I recorded with him uses the Koch harmonica because I think it has a very distinct sound and it also opens a lot of possibilities for phrasing, which for jazz are important. Although I can't and play the overbands and I use them in my playing like regularly to have like you know like the necessary freedom to improvise in jazz works much better if I have like a special harmonica for that

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, it's interesting you should say that. I've never actually tried that cock harmonica. So what does the slide do on that?

SPEAKER_02:

Basically, if you have a C cock harmonica, you basically have a C diatonic harmonica and you press the slide there and you have a C sharp harmonica. You still don't have all the notes there because you still need to do some bends on the first octave and on the 10th hole to complete the scale. But still, it makes it much easier because on that You can also overbend, but you have like different possibilities to get the same notes. For instance, if I want to get like that B flat on the sixth hole, I could either do like an overbend there or I could just press the slide and draw that note. And each note has a different flavor. They are the same pitch, but they have like different flavors to it.

SPEAKER_04:

Interesting, you have to try one of those. So you're not playing any chromatic on this album?

SPEAKER_02:

I think there's maybe one song which I don't remember which I'm using a more traditional chromatic, but on most of those I'm using the slide harp or the clock harmonica.

SPEAKER_04:

And do you play much chromatic nowadays?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think because when I started the customizing work here, one of my first customers was Antonio Serrano because someone just gave me just gave him my contact and I you know like he sent me some harmonicas and I did some setup and he was quite happy about that he made like a video kind of a review and after that like lots of chromatic players started to reaching me even though like I always worked more on the diatonics it just got to a point in which I received as many chromatics as diatonics to service or to customize. And of course, when you customize, it's not just about setting up the instrument, but you have to know how to play to get a good feel if this is going to work for another player. And the same was true with the chromatic. I really became more into playing and trying to learn a bit more about that because I wanted to make sure that whoever received those would be happy with the results.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, Antonio Serrano is certainly an excellent first customer.

SPEAKER_02:

It was And a great review, so I was thrilled about that.

SPEAKER_04:

Brilliant. So again, just before we get into customisation, just talk about some of the YouTube videos that you have. So you've got some really interesting recordings that you put out on your YouTube channel. So, for example, you're playing the Honour Little Lady, which is this kind of little mini harmonica, which is just one octave. And you're playing a kind of hip-hop song on that.

UNKNOWN:

MUSIC

SPEAKER_04:

and then you play Sonic the Hedgehog theme. You're playing various harmonicas on there. I definitely heard a bass harmonica on

SPEAKER_02:

there. That song with the little lady was actually for one of Constantine Reinfeld's challenges because I always participate like every month because I think it's funny to, it's a challenge, you know, like for us to learn something new. I just decided to see what I can do with that. Like I started customizing that because you can hear in that video, I use some overbands as well. And it's really cool. Like on such a small instrument, you have like a mini fully chromatic harmonica. Yeah. And then like most of the videos that I post are, you know, like experiments with harmonicas on special tunings that a customer asks for. And I do a test in the end or, you know, like just for fun. Like I really always loved the video games, Sonic video games. And I decided, well, I really want to record the track. And I use the harmonica, which I really, really love. And also I was using like, it's not a bass harmonic in itself, it's a Larry Adler 16-hole chromatic that I retuned one octave down, so it has more of a bass sound.

SPEAKER_04:

So you retune the low reeds a whole octave down. Yeah. The actual existing reeds. Yeah, well. Well, interesting you mentioned the harmonetta, because so Spang, who's the last people I had on the podcast, they use a harmonetta, as you may know, instead of a chord harmonica.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, I heard that.

SPEAKER_04:

And Yoko was really sort of singing the praises of the harmonetta, saying it was much more versatile than a standard chord harmonica. So, yeah, so those harmonettas, people should get playing them. Again, I don't own a harmonetta, but I was thinking, yeah, maybe. But I hear they're quite difficult to fix, but you're able to sort them out, are you?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think I'm maybe one of the two or three people in Europe that is going to service like a harmoneta. Of course, like some users, they know how to service their own harmonetas, but yeah, it's really hard to find someone who does that in Europe. And even in the US, maybe I know like three or four people that will do it. Yeah, I received one and it was mostly a challenge to myself. Like he asked, can you repair that for me? And I said, okay, I can try. I opened that and it took me about two months before I could put it back again but after I got it working I just I serviced like about 15 or 20 other harmonettos like after that time and I got one for myself because I really agree it's much more versatile than a normal chord harmonica you can do like so much more with that

SPEAKER_04:

yeah so maybe if people are interested myself included what exactly are they like on the inside so you kind of press keys don't you and then it selects a combination of notes. Is that right? So it's kind of like a keyboard, is it? It's a very

SPEAKER_02:

unique instrument. It has two reed plates, and if you blow or draw in the same spot, you are going to get the same note. So you have one blow reed and one draw reed in the same pitch, which has the channel open when you press the button there. But it's a very complex mechanism. I think the guy who invented that probably was reading to typewriters or something like that because it it has like some similarities you know like in the way uh it works but yeah it's uh i know it's i think it's a zacharias earns i'm not sure but he invented like many different models for for a owner you know like he has many patents and very very impressive cutting edge stuff

SPEAKER_04:

can you still buy them new or are they all secondhand ones that

SPEAKER_02:

no i think like i think the last ones they made were in the 80s uh so yeah you have to buy secondhand And when you buy secondhand, you're most likely have to service that because they used to come with the with valves with leather valves. Those will dry like, you know, like after after some time. So you get like a lot of noise. And the first thing would be to change the valves altogether.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay, so yeah, and about your work as a customizer. So I think you officially started doing customization work in 2019, André, yeah?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, exactly. It was the COVID times and because when I moved to Portugal, I started, you know, like trying different odd jobs and I opened a restaurant, a kind of a cafe restaurant. Nothing really worked well and it's very hard to start life again in a new country. And then to make things worse COVID started and I had to stay at home because my wife is a nurse she was at the hospital most of the time and I had to take care of the kids and my father-in-law here back then I was doing some harmonica work for close people but yeah it was pretty much like when I decided to focus all my efforts and since I'm going to stay at home I'm going to do the best out of it you know I'm just going to use my time in the best possible way yeah from there I started doing like harmonica harmonica work customizing and

SPEAKER_04:

I understand that you met Joe Felisco I think was it in Trossingen and he tried out one of your customized harps and he sort of gave you his seal of approval and that and you went on to become a Horner affiliated from that

SPEAKER_02:

yeah I mean after some some years I think two years doing like a harmonica work servicing and some custom harmonicas I managed to go to Trossingen for the Horner course because they have like a course for authorized technique for their harmonicas and I went there to take that course but in the meantime I talked to Steve Baker and I sent him an harmonica and he was very happy with the with the response of the instrument and then he commented that with Joe Felisco so it was everything got together like at the same time because I went there to take the course and then I met Steve Baker I met Joe Felisco at the same time and he had a harmonica of mine that i sent him to to try then we started talking a bit more about harmonicas and he gave me some pointers of things that i should improve uh on that particular harmonica and was really nice because after i did like some more work to it and i sent him again he was happy with that and he recommended that i joined the honer affiliated customizer so it was everything happened like really fast you know

SPEAKER_04:

yeah great stuff and now you do loads of customizing I see your post on Facebook. You're always forever sending out harmonicas all over the world. So yeah, you're doing great with the customization. Another thing you do, I've seen as well, is you're also interested in electronics and you released various, well, I think a microphone and a pedal, a Yump pedal. So you've got these pedals and microphones you make as well, yeah?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, the microphones, I did quite a few of those like in the past years. It's a simple, like a small microphone, the size of a bulletini. but it has a different element. It has some electronics inside and you can, you know, like get like some interesting distorted sounds with it. It has a switch built into the microphone. Electronics was always fascinating to me. Like even before I worked on the harmonicas, I used to make guitar pedals and, you know, like because it was hard for me to buy one and it was sort of easy for me to get the parts and try to make one. And then I felt like harmonicas harmonica players don't have that many options I just decided to try to build something that would work well and specifically for our instruments I do those but you know like it's always five at a time and there's a long waiting list because I cannot just focus on that my main work is with the harmonicas

SPEAKER_04:

great but let me just finish off on the pedal so what does your pedal bring to the harmonica is it one pedal you do

SPEAKER_02:

yeah I did like as small pedal before which was a passive unit and it had like some tone shaping abilities like give like more compression and treble cut and from that design I made the pedal that I currently make which is called the Yump and this pedal is interesting like it has some very unique features the first one is that you can select between the type of microphone that you use if whether you use like a kind of a vocal microphone or a CR microphone or a crystal microphone you can choose between those to have like the dedicated inputs to each type and then it has like some EQ controls and it has some output controls but the interesting thing is that it has like three outputs the first one can feed like a passive speaker so you can use that like as a mini head for example to practice at home it's going to only give you about one watt but one watt with a very bluesy So you can use like as a mini amp. Then it has like the regular output, which goes to the amplifier if you want to use like as a preamp. And then it has an XLR output to use straight to the PA sound system. So this is how I use like most of the time. I haven't used amplifiers for, you know, like years now. I just use the pedal connected to the PA and I can sound good wherever I play without having to worry about feedback or anything.

SPEAKER_04:

So who's that knocking? Oh, it's Brendan Power. Hello, Brendan Power. Welcome to the podcast again. Hey, guys. Hi, Neil. Hi, Andre. Hey, Brendan. So it's x-reed.com. I'll put the link on the podcast page. So tell us about this. I think you originally started this with a Hungarian guy, and then Andre's sort of taken over from that, yeah?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

About 10

SPEAKER_01:

years ago, I think I did it with Zombo Kovacs from Hungary, a brilliant engineer, designer. He came over to Canterbury, and we did some work with the Suzuki Sub-30 replates and made quite a few innovative harmonica, diatonic harmonicas with them. Zombo had to go back to Hungary and so X-Read sort of went into abeyance I suppose you could say but I kept the website going then Andre and I got to know each other well I heard of him through Facebook and we started corresponding and he sounded like a really nice guy so anyway I invited him over to Canterbury and he's been over probably four times now from Portugal just flown over yeah maybe more and helped me basically do small limited releases of some of my harps a slip slider mark three I think overblow booster mark two and basically sort of work intensively in the workshop together then modular reed harmonica and then basically the end of it and put out these harps

SPEAKER_04:

so i've seen the description of your different roles in your in your partnership so obviously you're busy with your inventing many different things brendan as we all know so so you're the product concepts design and prototyping guy and andre's the product concepts uh testing a hand customizing an assembly so um yeah a good good partnership there and you're able to um you know you think up the the wonderful ideas and Andre helps you put those into practice

SPEAKER_01:

yeah it's not strictly black and white like our very little first little thing that we put out which we whimsically named the Obi-Wan Canobi it's basically a little overblow booster part for hole number one that was Andre's concept so he came up with the idea for something like that because so many people can overblow but hole number one is tricky so he said oh you know it'd be great if we could find a way and he suggested a few things but then I came up with a really simple and easy way to do it using a kind of foam stick on foam part and but that was andre's original concept and i sort of came up with how to make it work so that's a real collaboration so yeah it's kind of a mixture

SPEAKER_04:

there's an example of andre playing that on the thunderbird which of course is a low tune harmonica and particularly difficult to get overblows on so

SPEAKER_03:

There's

SPEAKER_04:

also a nice recording of you guys playing together, Rumba Blues. Obviously you did a little recording when you're playing together over there in Canterbury. How are you liking Canterbury, Andre? You obviously like it if you keep going back. You like visiting the big cathedral there.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, no, it was really nice. That recording was from the first time that I visited Brandon. We had a wonderful time for the first time. Imagine for me that heard Brandon ever since I started playing the harmonica. I saw his website and I thought, wow, this guy really can make anything. It was almost like a dream come true to get to meet him and actually play with him and know like and just spend time like talking about harmonicas it was such a positive experience that uh months after we said okay like let's try to release like another model because i think because x reads x read website was out like for such a long time and brandon had so many ideas like in the oven i just wanted to be part of all of them you know like to help as much as i could

SPEAKER_04:

yeah fantastic yeah and he definitely needs to help with all the wonderful ideas he comes up with to uh to get them out there so so let's talk about your latest creation, which is called the More Bends. So this is the blues harp with a soul button. So I'll let you guys explain what it is.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, well, I came up with the idea probably 2017 was when I first started designing it. And the concept is actually, you know, the broad concept of it is similar to the slip slider, which is essentially getting more bends out of the diatonic harmonica by using the existing reeds, but finding a way to create new pairings. So So for instance, like say if we take hole number six on a C diatonic harmonica, you know, you've got the blow G reed and the draw A reed. Through interactive reed bending, you can bend the A down to the G sharp. You know, you get a nice little bend on the sixth draw. But the sixth blow can't be bent anywhere. You know, you can do an overblow on it, but you can't bend it down. So with the slip slider, Zombo Kovosh's concept really, the entire draw reed moved along to the right so that the five draw moved over into the same space as where the sixth blow was. And suddenly you've got a reed pairing where you've got a blow reed, the sixth blow, the G, which is higher than the draw reed, which was originally in another hole to the left, but now they're in the same hole. So that means, of course, you can bend the G, you know, with interactive reed bending down to the F sharp. So anyway, that's how the slip slider did it. The moor bends uses a different approach. If you think of the blow reed and the draw reed on diatonic harmonica, normally the blow reed and the draw reed are lined up, you know, vertically, you know, perfectly in line. With the more bends, I basically displace the draw reed plate by half a hole, if you like, and the cone has actually got 20 partitions instead of 10. So each reed, each blow reed is in, there's 10 slots, and then there's 10 slots for the draw reeds, but they're isolated from each other. And then there's a slider on the front, and that actually unites the two reeds. So in the default position, you know, the G in hole 6 and the draw A are in the same airstream. So you just bend the 6th draw as an But when you move the front slider, it basically closes off the 6th draw and brings in the 5th draw, the F note, to be in the same airstream via your mouth with the G read. And that means you can suddenly bend that G read. And the cool thing about it is that nothing changes on the harmonica, so it's very airtight. There's only this moving mouthpiece, but that sits very tightly on the front of the harmonica. So basically, it's like pressing a button and then suddenly a read like 6th blow or 5th blow or seven blow that you normally can't bend you just press a button bang suddenly they bend you know you can put vibrato on them they bend down a semitone and the same principle happens for two blow and then in the top octave with that very same single movement you can suddenly bend your eight draw your ten draw so it's basically you press a button and all these previously unbendable reeds now become juicy sweet interactive reed bends with just using the existing reeds on the harp so that's how it it

SPEAKER_04:

so great yeah so I hope people were following that I was but getting your head around it can be although it's actually quite a simple idea as you say isn't it just move along and be able to draw the you know the reed next to it it's a great idea and so I understand it gives you 14 reed bends instead of the usual 8 without doing overblows

SPEAKER_01:

yes and I have to thank a guy from Sweden called Edvin Vedin he came up with the idea for the extra on the top there's actually 11 blow reeds and you know there's normal 10 on the bottom so it's got 21 reeds and it was that extra reed that you know made the 14th bend and thought oh well this is great now well let's put find a way to put it out and that's where i asked help me

SPEAKER_04:

so the extra six bends that we're getting so is it the sort of missing ones as in the two blow the five blow specifically that we're getting or so you can't bend everything it's it's the kind of ones where you can't get them without doing overblows

SPEAKER_01:

is it yeah it's the two blow um you can bend now a semi-tone so you can get that missing note down there um the five You can bend it so like you can get the missing the E flat on a C harp. You can bend that E down to an E flat. Then the sixth blow, you can bend that down to the G to the F sharp. So that's the, you know, that's that major. And then on the seven blow, you can bend that down to a, you know, a B flat. And then on the top end, you can bend your, you know, your D note. Like four draw in, you know, on a normal harp, you've got C and D, you can bend the D. Now on the top end, you can bend that D up there, just like you can bend four draw. So your eight draw bends a semitone down to the C sharp. And then finally in hole number 10, you've got, you know, your A note, which bends like hole six from A down to G sharp. So it basically gives you all the missing bends that are, that are, Does

SPEAKER_04:

this allow you to play the diatonic completely chromatically?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, definitely.

SPEAKER_02:

For me, that's the really interesting part of the more bands. Some people are going to be happy with the added expression they can get on a 6th, for example, if they want to blow the 6th hole and have a very expressive scoop to get to the G note from F sharp. It works well. But I was always interested in the chromatic aspect of that, because since I use the overbands, it's not so hard for me to figure out like what's going on and try to get those notes via normal blow bands you know like on the first two octaves and draw bands on the last octave it does just that because whatever space you have like between you know like imagine the fourth hole the draw note you have the D and the E on the fifth hole whenever you have like that difference missing like a semitone now with the more bands when you press the slide you can immediately get that note via a normal bending yeah you have like the complete scale and and also it works similarly to do over bends to myself because the embouchure that I get to do the over bend four five and six are similar to a blow bend in the middle octave as well so for me it just worked right away for for that type of playing

SPEAKER_00:

Hey everybody, you're listening to Neil Warren's Harmonica Happy Hour podcast, proudly sponsored by Tom Halcheck and Blue Moon Harmonicas. This is Jason Ritchie here telling you I love Blue Moon Harmonicas. I love the combs, the covers, the custom harps, the refurbished pre-war marine bands, and nobody's easier to work with than Tom Halcheck. www.bluemoonharmonicas.com

SPEAKER_04:

Could this be the death of overblows? For people who do overblow, could they use this and think, actually, yeah, this gives me everything may be do you think this could potentially replace people who play diatonics as overblows

SPEAKER_01:

people who already use overblows will probably find it confusing because they're so used to the reed popping up for instance to get that f sharp you know they'd overblow hole five now um to get it um you bend hole six which is for most people you know beginners starting that's more natural you bend the note but people who've been spending a lot of time overblowing for years and years they would find it harder to adjust to so they'll probably just continue you their overblows, I should imagine. For people coming in to the harp as a beginner, they're going to find the bends a lot easier to get. And also, in my opinion, as most of people's opinion, normal bends sound better. They're more expressive and juicy and sweet and soulful than most overblows, unless, you know, the harp has to be tweaked to the max. You know, overblows can sound good in the mouth of someone like Jason Ritchie or Howard Levy, but for many people, it's not so easy to get a sweet sound out of an overblow, whereas a bend is easy. So in that sense, yes, theoretically it's good but it has to come out in the form of a you know in a cheap mass-produced harmonica so until it does that nothing's going to change really

SPEAKER_04:

yeah so so what about someone like myself you know who plays diatonic and chromatic you know but like you say you can get those sweet juicy bends on the diatonic which which aren't quite there on the chromatic so could it be you know something you could use if you used to play on the chromatic that actually you can apply that to the diatonic more

SPEAKER_01:

well on the chromatic you can half valve the chromatic so you can get bends out of it yeah but yes certainly you can play the diatonic chromatically with bends. I mean, I think a chromatic harmonica that's half-valved has got huge amounts of potential in terms of, you know, expression. So it's kind of like another approach to getting chromaticism when you're using bends on a chromatic or a half-valved chromatic. So yeah, but in terms of a small format that looks like a blues harp and behaves like a blues harp, sounds like a blues harp, the more bends is more accessible to most people who just play the harp, you know, and just want more bends.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, and that point is really critical as well, isn't it? The fact that nothing changes on the harmonica. You can play it completely normally like a Richter-tuned harmonica, diatonic, and then you can throw in these extra bends. So that's the real beauty of it, isn't it? You don't have to change anything to be able to play this. Yeah, that's right. You've started putting videos out, explaining in more detail, so we don't have the time to go into great detail, but you guys are going to continue putting videos out and explaining how it works and what you can do with it. And Andre, you've already put out some recordings of you playing, so there's you playing Amor Benz, playing some blues. There's also you playing Mystic. You've got that more jazz melody that you can play using it. Brendan, you've got an example of you playing a turnaround. They've also got Todd Parra, who's recorded a song on there for you. others people can go and check it out and listen to it and obviously get a bit of a better idea in more detail about how it actually works and what they need to do with it yeah

SPEAKER_01:

yeah it's really early days we've only just started shipping out the first one so we'll have to see in six months or a year you know how you know what the reaction is but we hope it's good

SPEAKER_04:

yeah well it sounds sounds great but i think one thing that people might hesitate is um you know when there's these different sorts of harmonicas you know you've already got your set of diatonics right so you think oh if i like this thing i might have to go and buy whatever six more diatonics to get all the keys that i want so so there's always that challenge isn't it and obviously the other things that you brought out as well right brendan there's always this kind of yeah they're great but for them to become mass popular i guess that's quite a hard nut to crack for you definitely

SPEAKER_02:

oh we've been talking about that and we we said okay maybe more people wouldn't have like a second or a third more bands but to have one you know like especially imagine like in the key of C can be very interesting to explore the possibilities because for example some people that have played for more time like they can comfortably play maybe like in three positions like three main positions and then they avoid like some positions in which they could play but they are missing that very important note you know like that would be an over band and so they just avoid it all together with the more bands they have the opportunity to use like a C harmonica and play maybe five or six different keys with more ease could be something you know like interesting to get they started and if they feel okay this is the instrument for me they could get like a different key and we can only hope that this becomes popular and in the future like more harmonicas can feature that

SPEAKER_04:

so you're building them I think aren't you Andre yes you're on sort of holiday over the summer but your next batch should be going out I know Yes,

SPEAKER_02:

I'm working on the first orders. I think it's about 15 harps that I'm working on here that I want to get delivered before I go to my vacations and then I'll return and keep on going. But I have all the parts here to make them. So whenever a new request, a new order comes, I can start right away to work on them.

UNKNOWN:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's our kind of working method or business model, I suppose, is, you know, I mostly come up with the designs and everything and then get the parts made here. I spend huge amounts of time perfecting everything and testing. That means sending things back and forth to Andre. And then when he says, yes, this is good and gives us thumbs up for, you know, so I can make this thing and it works well and it's bulletproof and reliable, then I get a whole batch made here and, you know, 3D printed or whatever. And all the other parts, springs, screws, you know, whatever, and then put them all to Andre, and then we start taking the new orders, and he does the wonderful, you know, hands-on love and care into each harp. So when they go out, you know, they've been made by a top customizer. You know, that's the way we're doing it.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, great stuff. And you mentioned earlier on about, you know, for these things to become really mainstream, they've got to be kind of mass produced, right? So is that something that, you know, it's kind of cottage industry, you're kind of building everyone by hand, which is great. I'm sure they're very well put together. But, you know, you can only make so many of those, right, doing it in that way. So is your hope that one day you might be able to sort of sell it to, you know, one of the manufacturers or, you know, what do you think?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, definitely. I mean, we're just basically putting them out, seeing what the reaction is. And if people like it, it just It gives a little bit more, I suppose, of a boost if I go to a harmonica manufacturer and say, look, you know, this is working and people like it.

SPEAKER_04:

And so obviously one barrier to all these things is how much they cost. So I think there's two price ranges, isn't there, Andre?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, they have the standard version doing like some basic gap adjustments on the stock, you know, like on the stock parts to make sure everything is playing well. And then we have the custom version in which I definitely am going to do like more reward i'm going to change for the reeds i'm going to do some more embossing i'm going to reshape the reeds and make like everything to make sure like the harmonica plays to its fullest potential the price for the standard version is a 215 pounds and the custom version is 300 pounds

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, so the customization is the usual customization you would do to a diatonic. It's not specifically for the more bends.

SPEAKER_02:

There are some things that are a bit specific to that model because now you are going to do like blow bends on the lower octaves. You need like a slightly different type of adjustment between the reeds to make sure that both, you know, like the draw bends will work well and also the blow bends will work well without any rattling or squeals or anything. So it requires a bit of a... But the core work of embossing and chamfering the reeds and fine-tuning is the same.

SPEAKER_04:

You'd think it's worth paying that bit extra to get it customised just to make sure it's nice, given the fact it's a more expensive diatonic, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Most customers so far went for that, so I'm quite excited to hear the feedback.

SPEAKER_04:

Is there any concept that you might take them to any of the festivals and at least demonstrate them? I guess you can't let people try them because of hygiene reasons.

SPEAKER_02:

yeah we were thinking but this is too much of a short notice this year like maybe to go to spa you know like and to be like the proper place to to show that but yeah that's definitely something that we've been discussing and for the the next event you know like try to be present and take the harmonica with us like several harmonica some to try and we have like a ultrasonic cleaner or something to to clean like in the way for people just to experiment that

SPEAKER_04:

so what about any future plans to make anything else in the pipeline?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah we do we've got as Andre said there's things in the oven but he's going on holiday soon and to finalise these other things would require another visit to Canterbury so they'll be quite a few months down the line but yeah we've definitely got some plans for some cool new stuff but we're focusing now on the Moorbands and then that'll be towards the end of the year or maybe even next year that we come out with something new.

SPEAKER_04:

So thanks so much for joining Brendan Power. I'll just quickly finish off with Andre. So thanks so much for joining.

SPEAKER_01:

My pleasure. Thanks. Great talking to both of you. Bye for now.

SPEAKER_04:

great so yeah that's great collaboration andre that goes well with brendan so yeah just quickly finish off with yourself so yeah a question i ask each time is a is the 10 minute question if you had 10 minutes to practice what you spend up 10 minutes doing so maybe you could do this from a customization point of view to sort of if people were starting out customizing what's the key things you'd recommend they uh they start doing

SPEAKER_02:

well i think with customizing it's a bit like i'll do an analogy with uh with amplifiers some people just desperately get an amplifier and try to modify like everything about it change the circuit to get that particular sound and the sound is not the amplifier itself but there are a few things that are definitely going to make a big difference imagine like I say like with amplifiers if you change the speaker you are going to get like the biggest possible change you can never hear like from the amplifier just by changing the speaker all other things are just details you know and I think with customizing and with reed work, it's a bit like that. The most basic things, just getting the reed plates straight and correcting the gaps, you know, like adjusting and get like a more balanced height of the reeds already is going to make like the harmonica play much better. Then after that, if you start working on embossing the slots, if it's needed, you know, like most current harmonicas or honor harmonicas, I can say like they barely need in bossing because the tolerances are already very tight so if you just adjust you know like those things that can go maybe flat send the comb and get like everything flat and well adjusted like in the gaps you already have like a harmonica that is going to perform much better everything else that you do is going to you know like it's going to do a difference but not as big as the core work there

SPEAKER_04:

so obviously you mentioned your own affiliated customizer so I I take it you're playing home as what harmonicas do you like to play?

SPEAKER_02:

I have a set of special 20s that I have for over 20 years that I had only to change reeds, you know, like once or twice and retune every now and then. But more recently, for the last few years, I've been using marine bands almost exclusively. And it's the model that I enjoy the most. And for chromatics, the 270 is my favorite chromatic. It has its quirks, but it's a great chromatic

SPEAKER_04:

yeah nice yeah and of course you set them up well too so and we've obviously talked about the more bends and it's great capability to get those missing notes but do you play overblows yourself

SPEAKER_02:

yeah for the last years I really got more into the over bends and I use them like quite a lot to give like a bit more you know like a special taste to the turnarounds and not sound like you know like the traditional blues all the time just to have like some you know like something to show.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, and what about your embouchure? What do you like to do? Tongue block or pucker?

SPEAKER_02:

I started puckering and I still play puckering but I think nowadays I'm maybe 80 percent of the time doing tongue blocking and playing everything tongue blocking and especially on the the bends on the third octave and for the over bends i normally switch to to puckering because i have a better control but i'm working on that too for the full transition sometime

SPEAKER_04:

and you've mentioned obviously your when you talked about your young pedal which you've created that you're playing through the pa a lot so is that your usual approach

SPEAKER_02:

yeah and mostly it's because you know like I don't like to carry big amps on my hand I did that a lot in my life and now I just want a compact solution that sounds good you know I'm not going to say it's it sounds exactly like an amplifier but it does sound you know like an amplifier and I can make it sound good so and my customers that got one are very happy with that so I think that's the way to go you know like if you want to go more compact

SPEAKER_04:

yeah definitely there's times maybe if you're in like a jam assuming that you're only playing a couple of songs right you don't want to be lugging a big amp in so that it's definitely time to take a pedal isn't it instead of an amp

SPEAKER_02:

exactly you just need like one channel on the mixer and it can be set flat because you can control all the other parameters on the pedal so you you are your sound engineer

SPEAKER_04:

yeah i'm talking about effects then effect so i definitely heard you playing effects as a i think you're using some effects on the song cantaloupe island that you've recorded so So what sort of effects do you like to use?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, some of the effects for the harmonica that I think work really well, first of all, like is delay. Delay always works well for harmonica. Then I really enjoy using the envelope filters to get like that kind of a trumpety sound. And I also use like a lot of octave and kind of chorus sound. There's a pedal called Sub and Up by TC Electronics that allows me to do all of that. I can get like that sort of keyboard sound, you know, like a Hammond sound and just with octaves and some modulation on the top of that. So basically that's what I use live.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I have that sub and up pedal. Yeah, it's nice. Yeah, it definitely gives you some good sounds. Yeah. So thanks so much for joining me today, Andre Godoy Coelho, and it's been great speaking to you. Best of luck with the Moorbands and your collaboration with Brendan.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you very much, Neil. That was really nice.

SPEAKER_04:

Once again, thanks to Zydle for sponsoring the podcast. Be sure to check out their great range of harmonicas and products at www.zydle1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zydle Harmonicas. Thanks to Andre and Brendan for joining me today. Excited to hear about the continued innovations of X-Read harmonicas. Check them out if you're interested. The link is on the podcast page. And thanks all again for listening and please check out the website and Spotify page as normal. I'm off now to order my More Bends diatonic harmonica. I'll leave you with Andre playing us out with a bluesy demonstration of this most innovative new harp.

SPEAKER_03:

Wow.