Re: [Harp-L] Tongue blocking and speed

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

fjm wrote:
<Process does equal product and I think
<that's some of the reason virtually all of the Hendrix imitators fall
<flat.  None of them are left handed.

Buddy Guy is right handed, and I've seen him do Hendrix as if he was 
Jimi wearing a Buddy Guy suit.  What stops people from playing like 
Hendrix isn't their hands -- it's their minds. You have to think like 
Hendrix to play like Hendrix.

<There's nothing wrong with playing all pucker and I don't
<think that playing all tb makes you anything other than unique.

Well, if the first statement above is true, then playing either all tb 
or all pucker would in fact limit you, because "process does equal 
product."  There are certainly some things that are easier to do with a 
block than a pucker, especially if corner-switching is added to the 
block -- for example, you can't corner switch with a pucker because 
there's only one corner; you can't play octaves or other intervals with 
a pucker.  The reverse is also true -- you can't articulate tongued 
rhythms with a block, as you can with a pucker, because the tongue is 
otherwise occupied.

However, those are particular examples, and they don't apply to speed 
playing.  I agree with Jonathan that there's no logical reason why a 
tongue block has to be slower than a pucker -- either way, you're moving 
the harp on the mouth, and you're breathing in and out.  The player's 
ability to move the harp rapidly and precisely and breathe in and out 
quickly is what makes the difference.  In other words, left hand 
technique and breathing technique are the key ingredients in speed 
playing, not embouchure.

By the way, to the list of very rapid tongue blockers we can certainly 
add Robert Bonfiglio and Cham-ber Huang.  I suppose most blues players 
haven't listened to much of their work, but it's there, and it tends to 
demonstrate that the embouchure is no more inherently slow than any other.

Finally, I want to return to my first point: it's what's in the mind, 
first and foremost, that determines what comes out of the instrument. 
In August 2001 I heard Ricky Skaggs's awesome, powerhouse bluegrass band 
play at the Grand Targhee Bluegrass Festival.  His fiddle player, an 
ordinary-looking, slightly portly guy apparently in his late 50s, played 
a solo that started out fast and ended faster, with a string of 32nd 
note triplets articulated with astounding power, precision, and 
velocity. My mouth didn't close for days.

I talked to that guy after the show, and told him how completely my mind 
was blown by that solo.  "Well, y'know," he said in a sweet, mild 
Southern-accented voice, "if you can think it, you can play it."

Regards, Richard Hunter
hunterharp.com