Re: breathing control

[GREENWAY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

A couple of other tips on breath control:

Work on getting a deep, efficient pucker that doesn't waste your wind.

Don't blow half your air reserve on the first note or two.

Think about how to place blow notes in there strategically so that you
can breathe while you're playing. This is the GREAT advantage of the
harmonica over all other wind instruments--saves us from things like
circular breathing techniques that the sax players have to master. You
might also spend more time thinking about the harmonica as a wind
instrument, taking to heart the other tips about using the diaphragm etc.
that have been coming your way, and thinking about it less as a riffing
tool until you get your wind basics down.

It's helped some of my students to think about singing when they work
on phrasing on the diatonic. Play songs that you know the lyrics to
and work on just playing the melody as if you were singing it. Doing
this sometimes helps people think about things like where in the phrase
could I sneak in a breath and to leave holeat the end of each lyric
line. Singers--and the good instrumentalists--leave a lot of holes.

--Kim Field