[Harp-L] unusual embouchure

["samblancato" <samblancato@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi there y'all,

The other day I was tooling around town doing various things and noodling on
one of my car harps when I started fooling around with this unusual
embouchure (unusual for me anyway).  This embouchure is done by jutting the
chin forward slightly and bringing the tongue all the way forward so that
it's almost touching the holes of the harp. The tongue is filling up most of
the open space in the mouth.  With this embouchure (now that I can spell it
I'm using it all the time!) I get a couple of different tones. On the upper
holes it gives sort of toy trumpet sound.  On the lower holes it gives,
well, I don't know how to describe it other than saying it sounds like Sonny
Boy or Rick Estrin when he's acoustic. Holes 2,3 and 4 will bend beautifully
simply by closing off your sinuses by way of stopping up the flap of tissue
in the back of the throat (I think it's called the uvula).  By fluttering
this thing I get a really nice vibrato.  Overall it's a real "round",
tubular kind of tone and it sounds really nice.  Anybody ever use this
embouchure?  I know this isn't new -other than to me that is- and so I'm
wondering if maybe it has a name and all.

Sam Blancato, Pittsburgh