[Harp-L] What harmonica to start, TB or pucker?

[Robert Bonfiglio <bon@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> Dave wrote,


> I've got "active" saliva glands. The act of poking my tongue froward 
> to play
> a tongue block style generates a river. Before I can finish a song, 
> reeds
> are choking (drowning to be exact). How does one deal with that?
>
> Peace and music,
> Dave

Dave- learn to swallow between phrases; does two things, get's you off 
the harp to leave space in phrases and get's rid of the spit.  After 
playing TB for a while the saliva thing goes away, until then use 
plastic bodies.

For those just starting harmonica, if you like blues or country, pick 
up the diatonic first.  If you want to play ballads, pick up the 
chromatic first, that way you won't get frustrated.

After a couple of years of blues learn to play a ballad, i.e., not a D 
minor blues, on the chromatic; then come to my seminar in August (plug, 
plug) and the dreaded chromatic will become a real tool to use.

If you play chromatic, after a couple of years, pick up a diatonic, 
learn to bend, shake, chord vamp and seek out on of the great players 
on the list to work with.  Be sure to do all of the above before the 
age of 12!!

Learn to TB and pucker, you will need both for all kinds of effects, 
techniques and tones.  The rule I use is trust your own body.  What 
ever is easier to do to achieve the result you want is the most 
important.  There are no right ways and wrong ways - no one in the 
audience cares how you got the notes out if you can get them out.

Right now for example on the Benjamin Harmonica Concerto I am playing 
at Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires in late June and early July, I am 
playing some double and triple tongue passages in TB, i.e., with the 
tongue on the harmonica I am tonguing out of the sides of my mouth, 
both left and right.  This keeps the pitch dead on because pucker 
tonguing tends to bend the pitch down.  That said, in the last 
movement, I go back and forth between TB and pucker while tonguing to 
keep from tongue fatigue

On blues harp you may find it necessary to go back and forth between TB 
and pucker to keep away from tongue fatigue in rhythm passages.  Corner 
switching on diatonic is a great technique that I never hear.

Harmonically yours,

Robert Bonfiglio
http://www.robertbonfiglio.com