Re: [Harp-L] Teaching to bend

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

I wouldn't make such a flat categorical statement as the Iceman makes below. 

Some bends are more easily controlled by the throat than by the tongue. Some of the deeper bends can benefit from this approach, as can can tongue blocked bends in the middle and lower ranges of the harp.

Two things are needed to make a note bend:

- Tuning the mouth (ee-ooo vowels are one way of doing this)

- Activating the bend by creating a narrow passage in the airflow. This defines the back "wall" of the tuned chamber in your mouth. Without this the whistling analogy and ee-oo vowels will have little or no effect on the pitch of a note.

There are two places (maybe more) that you can activate the bend. 

One is on the tongue, in about the place where you hump the tongue up to the roof of the mouth to say "K" (the K-spot).

The other is where you cough - the Cough-spot.

In both these places, you normally block off the airflow entirely for a brief moment to say "K" or to cough. When bending, you want to narrow them but not close them off. When inhaling a bend, you should feel suction trying to pull the tunnel shut. When exhaling a bend, you should feel pressure trying to push the tunnel open.

Winslow

----- Original Message ----
From: "IcemanLE@xxxxxxx" <IcemanLE@xxxxxxx>
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 9:08:56 AM
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Teaching to bend


Bending is initiated and controlled by the tongue - not the throat.
 
Hold the throat open in the pre-yawn attitude.
 
Raise areas of the tongue towards the back (the "guh" "kuh" areas as
 target  
points) for inhale bends. If you were to use your tongue to scratch the
 back 
of  your throat, it would be curved in a similar way. The challenge is
 to find 
that  sweet spot - the small area of the tongue towards the back - that
 
creates all  the bending, and move it.
 
Most people who bend indiscriminately are indeed moving the proper area
 of  
the tongue, but are bundling it will a lot of unneeded movement of the
 throat,  
jaw and tongue. Remove what you don't need and find the essence of the
 bend 
in  minimal tongue movement.
 
The Iceman



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