[Harp-L] re: Tongue curl (was tongue blocking)

["Richard Bush" <rcush@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tom "Thumbs" McGovern mentioned the lack of discussion regarding the tongue curl (or what is popularly called the U-
Block).  Tom, harp-l is where I learned that there were actually folks other than myself that used this method. Some of those guys are still lurking out there.   Like you, this is how I first acheived a single note so I stuck with the method.  I pretty much thought that I was a weird duck until I found this list many moons ago and other harp player chimed in that they used the same method.

Also like you, I felt that I got around on the harp pretty good with the method and that my slaps and pulls sounded darned close to the TBers.  That is until list member Stephen Schneider to me to task to learn TBing and while I was at it to learn to pucker also (by the way Stephen is darned good at recognizing technique on recordings--even U-blocks).

I found very quickly that my U-Blocked slaps sorely lacked the percussion of those TB'd and the chordal sound was entirely different.  The U-Blocked slap is going to pick up the notes on either side of the slapped note, instead of just the chordal notes to the left of the hole slapped.  That ol' Chi-town blues tone came through much better than with what I was doing--especially noticeable when amplified.

I've got a long way to go with this technique and the U-Block will always be a part of my vocabulary, but I know now what the tonal fuss is about when it comes to Tongue Blocking.  Puckering--now that'll have be another story.

See ya--
Rick