Re: [Harp-L] tongue/pucker: false dichotomy (and awful band name!)

[Larry Marks <larry.marks@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I totally agree with you, David, even though you called me a freak. Yes, 
I do a form of u-blocking - not curling the tongue but using the crease 
down the center. 'Course, I still do traditional tongue blocking to get 
splits and at the edges. While I do not do pucker at all, my tongue 
certainly leaves the mouthboard frequently to do chords.

I went on several occasions to see Sonny Terry, whom I consider the best 
acoustic player in history. I don't know if he ever tongue-blocked, but 
puckering was certainly his main technique. So the quality of the player 
should not be judged by this factor. Both puckering and tongue-blocking 
are important and valid techniques.

Although I don't use puckering at all, I know several a-list players who 
switch to puckering when they have to do rapid tonguing patterns. (Using 
my form of u-blocking, I find that I can double and triple tongue a 
single note rapidly without resorting to puckering.)

  -LM