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Griffin - Music |
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Griffin - Music |
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Welcome to my Griffin-Music web site. I have decided to do more than just being a studio sideman musician, which I have done for over 30 years in Nashville and elsewhere and I am acquiring and developing many web sites to reflect this. In addition to making my own music and recordings available, I'm going to use this and other web sites to make high quality recordings of others available, give recording information & advice, provide musician general information, free music lessons and recommended musical instruments available at affordable prices.
I am selecting some of the best musical instrument deals I have available. I have basses from Fender, Ibenez and Takamine, along with amps and other gear. For guitars, I have acoustic and electric from Fender, Gibson, Ibenez, Martin and Takemine, with gear from Boss, Fender, and Digitec, because these are what I use. My keyboard preferences are Korg and Yamaha pianos and workstations. For the other stringed instruments, such as violin, mandolin, dobro and steel guitar, I play Fenders, Gibsons, and Carter-Steels, with the gear is either Fender or Digitec.
For my harmonicas, I play Hohner harmonicas. Most of what I play is the standard diatonic harmonicas, (bought everywhere and through here), such as the Golden Melody, Marine Band, and Blues Harp. I do use some of the contra (one octave down harps - Hohner 365 harps in the keys of C-F) and I use the Marine Band tuned up one octave up with the keys of G & A. You can find every harmonica I use, in every key played, by visiting my harmonicas for sale page.
For all keys in the twelve harmonicas in the diatonic series, I file the 5th draw reed up 1/2 (to make the natural-7 note). I have one harp in each key tuned this way. This works for some songs, like the "National Anthem" and for certain harmonies. I do file/tune these harmonicas myself and where I use one one of these tuned harmonicas, I will use a (*) next to the harmonica key played, such as: C*, D*, G*, F#*, etc.
I do also play chromatic harmonica, mostly for the tone that may fit a particular song/part with the Koch harmonica (tuned closely to the Marine Band) and the Hohner 7584. I find myself doing a lot of 2nd. position cross-harp bends (5-4 & 3-1), even when I play a chromatic. I use the chromatics, when I'm looking for that little brighter timber nickel reed tone. When I use one of these, they will be identified as (chr), such as C-chr, D-chr, G-chr.
For the gear to perform and to record my harmonica parts and others I like the standard Shure SM-58 omni-directional microphone. In studios, I'll also use Neuman U87 and AKG, but I often still use the SM-58 or one of the others in the Shure series. Notably the SM-58, if I'm playing through a Fender amp and I'll put the SM-57 in front of the amp's speaker. Most of my recording is done with a Shure SM-58, notably when I'm using the diatonic harmonicas. SM-58 is my live performance mic preference and because it is so standard. For chromatic harps, which I play just for the timbre of the reed alloys from time to time, I'll use other mics like the Neuman and AKG, which prone/engineered to capture those frequencies for the very crisp/clean tone.
griffin: n. mythological half lion and half eagle, protector of hidden treasures
The Griffin Group is also a privately owned holding company of the fire/finance, music and aquarium/pet-shop companies, owned solely by Will Griffin.
See
Also
WillGriffin.net
Will-Griffin.com
Last modified: August 14, 2008
