Vincent Rynik

When I was young, I made small video games for my friends, and I now work for a video games company. It is for me a complete activity as it involves art, music and of course computer engineering. I was late to harmonica and started playing when I was 18. I used to watch a lot of movies and when I saw Midnight Cowboy I was drawn to the haunting sound of the harmonica in the film. It was a sound that was at once familiar and was like a voice. I found I couldn’t replicate the sound from the film. My first harmonica was a diatonic - a Hohner Golden Melody - and I realised much later that the film used a chromatic harmonica. In the beginning I played mostly melodies and listened to Toots Thielemans, Stevie Wonder and JJ Milteau. I VINCENT RYNIK loved the film La La Land and played a lot of music from the film. City of Stars is a simple Steve Pardue Editorial Team tune but involves a lot of bends, and I was very unhappy, at first, with my results. But by using a chromatic tuner I was able to achieve more accurate bends, and I added vibrato techniques to shape my sound. I still use a tuner regularly Vincent Rynik is a to check my bends. software engineer You can make significant progress on your harmonica by polishing from France and shares his experience a song you really like. The songs I play are often not difficult by themselves, but I practise them and polish them until I get the sound I really like. It can take a lot of time to make even a simple playing harmonica tune sound right. Harmonica can be a tricky instrument. with Harmonica My studies involved a lot of maths and science and I found that World. harmonica helped me to relax and to sleep better. It is also a wonderful instrument to meet new people and can help to overcome social barriers. When I went to Japan for my studies, I discovered that blues was very popular there. There were a lot of bars where you can listen to live blues music and take part in open mic sessions. It was there, I started to play live and met others I could play harmonica with. We had a band for a while and I met lots of people who became good friends too. When I first started playing harmonica I didn’t know any music theory; it was only afterwards that I discovered it involved much more than just playing simple tunes. Blues opened the doors to improvisation, but after a while I felt limited because of my lack of musical background. I am now taking weekly music classes with Alexandre Thollon in Paris. He is teaching me about musical theory, jazz and how to practise efficiently.

I am currently focusing on playing in all 12 keys on one diatonic harmonica to build my musical vocabulary. I am practising one key per month until I am proficient in all 12 keys. I play mainly on a Hohner Golden Melody and Hohner Special 20 and have customised harmonicas for jazz. I have a custom harmonica comb and cover plate made by a French luthier (Brodur), who uses a wooden body which makes the sound much warmer. I just buy Golden Melody reeds when I need to change them. I also customise my reeds myself to make bends and overbends easier to achieve. The key is to bring the reed of the harmonica closer to the plate, by leaving just enough space to be able to reach the natural blow and draw notes. For this, I press gently on the extremity of the reed (the one near the rivet) with a small screwdriver (see the picture). I leave just enough space that a piece of paper can just fit between the reed and the plate. I do this for all the holes of the harmonica. I make sure I can reach the blow / draw / bends / overbends. I then play several days with this new adjusted harmonica, and if the reed position changes, I continue to adjust the gap between the reed and the plate for those holes. I keep going until I reach the point where the harmonica suits my needs. My current projects are to continue to upload videos on my YouTube channel. I will also make a game soundtrack on harmonica and piano with a friend, for a project we are currently working on in our free time.

See the tabs for City of Stars on page 20.