O’Carolan’s Harmonica

In 2003, I recorded my Black Mountain Harmonica CD, featuring bluegrass and Irish tunes. My brother owns a studio and put it all together. At the time, he figured I might burn a few to sell while busking. It did better than that: around 1,500 copies ended up in various hands. This was almost 20 years ago, so it was time for another. The 2021 lockdown was a perfect window. I live in Sydney, and my brother Quentin is in Adelaide. He has run his own commercial studio for more than 40 years, and is an outstanding player on multiple instruments. An ideal mentor. For my initial CD, I recorded the harmonica parts in Sydney, using ‘Band in a Box’ backings and a hand-held SM58 mic. O'CAROLAN'S I brought the results to Adelaide, on CDs, and sat in Quentin's studio while my friend John Bridgland HARMONICA played guitar and mandolin backings, with Quentin and his studio partner Darren adding the rest. Then Quentin sat me down for a chat. Tony Eyers My playing was more or less error free, but dull. My brother said that "every note has to tell a story". I listened to my efforts; he was right. I recorded all the harmonica parts again, with 50 or more takes for each chorus, as I slowly figured out how the notes should sound. The final result was way better. Many folk liked this first recording, so I was encouraged to do another. My partner (now my wife) was in the UK for six weeks in 2003, time enough to get Black Mountain Harmonica done. However, kids, work, few funds and fewer ideas kept my second CD at bay. Plus, I'm a little ashamed to say, I was waiting for my brother to donate another week of his professional time for my new project, as he had done for the first one. I decided this time to pay for his efforts. This got the ball rolling. Over the last decade, my group has done a series of YouTube videos, featuring traditional tunes arranged for harmonica trio. So I started with these. My first CD had two slow airs by O'Carolan, the famous 18th century Irish harp player and composer. These two O'Carolan tunes were popular, so I chose another six for the new CD, and called it O'Carolan's Harmonica. I then picked six bluegrass/old time tunes to fill out the project.

These new tracks, except for one, had been done previously by my trio, so I had arrangements and backings in place. I settled in for a few weeks, applied my brother's ‘every note tells a story’ principle, sweated mightily, and got my parts done. I sent them to Adelaide, by online file transfer this time, and hired Andrew Clermont, an old friend and fabulous player, to add his parts along with my brother. I also engaged Catherine Fraser, a well-known local Scottish-style fiddler, to add her magic. My hired companions, along with my brother, provided a mighty backup to my parts. A final mix then, and job done. Actually, no. I was back where I was in 2003; my parts were not good enough. This time, however, I didn't need my brother to point it out. So I took the new backings, and started over. My view is that a listener gives a CD (or a Spotify/iTunes equivalent) 30 seconds at the most to grab their attention, otherwise they move on. My opening track on Black Mountain harmonica was Billy in the Lowground, a bluegrass standard which PT Gazell set at 142 beats per minute on his seminal 1978 Pace Yourself album. I set my version at the same speed, so the album goes off with a bang. I applied the same principle to my new CD, and set the opening track, Katherine O'More by O'Carolan, to 138 beats per minute, just a touch under frantic. The trick to recording fast tunes is to make them sound slow. No one likes rushed playing. So I spent a fortnight with a metronome before my first Katherine O'More draft. It was ok, but sounded like I was afraid of it. For the final draft I ditched the low harmonica I had been using, chose a higher one which spoke more easily, and spent a couple of days getting it right. Hopefully I did. In recent years I've become a Seydel endorser; they've provided me with a full set of harmonicas in the Major Cross tuning that I use for my recordings. So, this time I had very low and very high pitched harmonicas to complement the regular ones. All got a look in. My close friend, Tokyo-based architect Riccardo Tossani, did a cover design for me in 2003, and repeated the favour this time. To see how it all went, visit music.harmonicatunes.com. See the reviews section for Neil Warren’s review of Tony’s CD.