Re: Tongue blocking on chrom

["G." <gigs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<quote>
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 20:36:25 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Jason Paul Stolaruk" <stolaruk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Tongue blocking on chrom

Dear chrom players,
I'm interested in learning how many holes you block with your tongue to
accomplish the sounding of a single note... 2?... 3?
When you want to play a single note, does everybody generally block with
their
tongue on the left, opening a hole on the right?
Thanks,
- - -jason
</quote>

Hi there Jason.
The quick answer is: Whatever works for you.

I think it pays to learn how to Tongue Block comfortably out of either side
of your mouth from the very beginning - when you can play comfortably out of
both your left and right at any time you can then employ corner switching
(flicking over from left to right tongue block or vice versa during a
phrase) which makes intervalic leaps much easier to play quickly and fluidly
and opens up doors to musical phrasing otherwise difficult to play on
chromatic.  Start learning both now and save yourself a lot of pain and
fustration later on down the track.  :)

I've written an article on tongue blocking on this webpage:
http://www.angelfire.com/music/HarpOn/playing.html#tb

You may find some other articles useful
http://www.angelfire.com/music/HarpOn

Cheers
G.