[Harp-L] the TB Police should give it a rest

[Rick In Davis <rickindavis@xxxxxxxxx>]

I certainly am not the most gifted player around, but I have been 
  working on it for more than 30 years, during which time I have been 
  fortunate to meet and play with many excellent players ? and many 
  who were not so excellent.  But I learned something from all of them.
   
  One thing I learned is that good tone does not necessarily come 
  from tongue blocking.  Here and elsewhere, I?ve encountered harp 
  players who are adamant that you cannot get good blues tone through
  a harp unless you use the tongue block embouchure.  That, I have 
  found, is absurd.
   
  I can?t tell you how many times an intermediate level player has 
  exclaimed to me that good tone can only be had with tongue 
  blocking.  Indeed, when I mention that I rarely tongue block, 
  many players just rudely end the conversation, presumably because 
  they have made the snap judgment that I toot along like 
  Bob Dylan or Neil Young.   A pretty good player emailed me 
  just the other day: ?You CANNOT get THAT tone without tongue 
  blocking. TB is where most of the tone comes from.?  Nonsense.
   
  Tone in any wind instrument is generated by a resonant column of 
  air.  The most important element of good tone in harmonica playing 
  is breathing from your diaphragm and allowing the column of 
  air ? all the way from your gut and lungs through your throat, 
  mouth and even nasal cavity ? to vibrate and resonate.  
  If that column is pinched your tone will suffer.  But the physics 
  of good tone don?t change one iota if your tongue is 
  touching the harp or not.
   
  Tongue blocking affords a percussive quality, with slaps and 
  pull-offs and such, but that has nothing to do with tone, and it 
  can be emulated with other techniques.  To my mind the 
  elements of tone in a blues harp note are:
   
    
   That resonant column of air I wrote of earlier, to make the note full and rich  
   Intonation  
   The attack and decay of the note  
   The vibrato or other technique that varies either the volume or pitch of the note.    
  None of these four things has anything to do with whether or not 
  your tongue is touching the harp.
   
  Tom Ball, an outstanding harp player himself, wrote this in his 
  Sourcebook of Little Walter/Big Walter Licks for Blues 
  Harmonica:   ?With the exception of ?splits? and/or simultaneous 
  rhythm and melody playing, a player can use any embouchure 
  and still play the riffs of a player using a different embouchure, 
  if one has the skills to adapt and compensate.?   Ball points out 
  that Kim Wilson, Rod Piazza, and Norton Buffalo all use 
  somewhat different embouchures and all get great tone.  
  Howard Levy and Carlos del Junco almost never 
  tongue block, but they certainly get terrific tone.  
  Ronnie Shellist?s electrifying Funky Blues on 
  YouTube was all pucker embouchure (except for the splits) .
  Watch it here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs_OchfmBc8   
   
  The TB debate is similar to the hoary old tube amp 
  debate, ie: We all have to play and sound exactly like 
  Little Walter to be ?good.?  I know others here appreciate 
  the irony of slavishly following innovators, who themselves 
  would likely sneer at the herd instinct of so many players today.    
   
  Many old-school TB players sound great.  So do many other 
  players whose embouchures vary from occasional TB to 
  full-time pucker.  I think the TB Police should give it a rest?     
   

 		
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