Breathing

[Winslow Yerxa <76450.3230@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

TO: internet:harp-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The other day Mike Curtis wrote

      Also, when you're doing a passage with a lot of draws, open
      your nose and take in air. Ditto for blows. Use this to
      allow more air exchange than you'd normally get just from
      the harp.

I can't diagree too strongly with this. I consider it bad advice for the
following reasons.

- It hurts your sound and your control over the instrument.

- It makes the breath imbalance worse, not better.

If you're playing a passage with a lot of draws, you're in danger
of taking in too much air. By opening your nose, you'l only take
in more, and having too much. Same goes for letting out too much
air when blowing. The problem is getting RID of it, not getting
more. I generally look for a place in the phrase where I can take
a short rest and either get rid of excess air or acquire some if
I don't have enough.

As to sound, opening your nose is almost as bad as letting air
escape around your lips. From the bottom of your lungs to the
reed slot of the note you are playing should be one continuous
airtight seal. Letting it leak out anywhere - nose, lips, leaky
harp, diverts air away from the note, thereby weakening its
strength and tone. It also makes bending and obverblowing much
harder. These depend on a closed chamber with a particular
resonant frequency. Opening up the chamber to the outside air is
to destroy it. I have heard people bend with an open nose, but
it's usually a matter of brute force and poorly controlled.

I have sinus problems, but I find the state of my nasal passages
to be completely irrelavent to my harmonica playing, unless I'm
gagging on mucus (which almost killed me on two occasions as an
adolescent).

Pete Pedersen is known to claim that all the air that passes
through his body when he plays goes through the harp.

The rest of Mike's advice is good, but he misses one thing.

Play it easily and gently. All this talk about FORCING air in and
out of the lungs may be OK as a pure exercise, but it just
doesn;t cut it when playing harmonica. You don't need a lot of
wind to get a good sound out of the harmonica. Light normal
breathing suffices. Relax your tongue, relax your mouth (as much
as possible while still keeping a tight seal) and breathe easily
and deeply, with long breaths, with and without the harp. This,
as much as anything, will go a long way to giving you good
breath control

Winslow Yerxa
Harmonica Information Press
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