Re: [Harp-L] Teaching to bend

["steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <swebb@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

The inward whistle sounds like a good way to teach a beginner to bend. I remember spending much of one cold winter in my basement, systematically destroying the 2 draw note on about 5 harps as I tried to learn bending. Now, as I suspect most players are after some time playing, I have no idea how I bend, but I just think "bend" and it happens. I'm not all that good at very many harp-related things, but I can bend the low notes on most any harp. Now, if I could just figure out how to translate that into something interesting . . .
Steve Webb in cold Minnesota

---- Special20 <special20harp@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: 
> The whistling inward analogy may be imperfect (all analogies are imperfect
> by definition) but nonetheless it is an effective exercise that is
> intuitively understood by almost all beginning harp students who want to
> bend notes.  It is WAY more easily applied than any arcane lecture about
> narrowed air flows, dropped jaws, or humped tongues.
> 
> Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  It works well with many
> students, who are delighted to find that bending notes was so easy...
> 
> -Spec20
> 
> On Dec 18, 2007 8:38 AM, Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > 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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