Draw Bent Down -- Help?

[Winslow Yerxa <76450.3230@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

TO: internet:harp-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Mark Futato asks about bending Draw 3 down.

Mark, you're not alone. Draw 3 is the most difficult to control
of the regular draw bends. While several members advised you to
work on getting each separate bent note available in that hole,
there's another potentially useful exercise you can try.

On a C harp, Draw 3 will be B, and the Blow 3 will be G. As you
know, the bottom bent pitch is always about a semitone above the
lower note in the hole. So the Draw 3 will bend all the way down
to Ab, a semitone above Blow G.

This pedal-to-the-metal full bend is in some ways the easiest to
control. It's the bends ABOVE it that are harder. For instance,
many players in the heat of a fast passage will go for an A bend,
and end up zooming past it to Ab. And the Bb (bent only a
semitone) can be hard to control - it wants to rise to B, and
both pitch and tone are a struggle.

Why not start with the full Ab bend? Work that one so that you
can go directly to it, either from the draw B, the Blow G, or
from nowhere at all, just picking up the harp and hitting it.
Pracice all three approaches repeatedly. Then work on holding the
note steady for several seconds at a time.

Once you can get and sustain the Ab bend reliably, try letting
the pitch rise slowly. Keep control of how fast the pitch rises;
don't let it spring right back up to B. As the pitch rises, work
on letting the note sound smoothly and clearly.

Work on just letting the note rise like this until you feel in
control of the pitch, and feel you're getting a good tone and a
clear note. Then try going in the other direction, smoothly
downwards.

Once you can bend smoothly on both directions. try stopping along
the way at definite notes. At first try just sliding from note to
note. Then try actually articulating them by starting each one
with a "T" sound from the tongue.


Winslow Yerxa
Harmonica Information Press
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