Re: Help with bending...

[Richard Owen <richardo@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I used David Harp's "Bending The Blues" (book and cassette) published by Muscial
Idiot Press to learn bending.  I
only used about 10% of the material but it was well worth it.  He covers all
the bends (and even talks briefly about over-blowing 4,5 & 6).  He demonstrates
all of these bends on A, C & High F harmonicas.  This is great because you can
hear the note you are trying to play.  I kept trying to persuade myself that
there was something wrong with my Harp or that the bends were not possible for
some other reason, but since he keeps playing them one note at a time, it's
hard to resist.  Eventually I started to believe that the bends were there and
then they came.  The whole process took several days and within a couple of
months bending was no longer hard work.  My first bend was 8 blow on a C
Harmonica.  David is a good tape teacher for me
because he explains everything in several ways (he has four or five analogies
for bending).  Also, he uses a playing style that is appropriate for the
level of difficulty he is teaching.  I wish he had explained how the harp was
producing the bends, when I found out, it helped me even more (see HIP #4 for
a great article about bending and overblowing).

The most useful thing for me was hearing the notes I was trying to reach and
hearing someone tell me it was possible and that I could do it.  I'm sure there
are other tapes that could do this for you.

+Richard Owen