RE: [Harp-L] Tongue Flutter

["John Balding" <John.Balding@xxxxxxxxx>]

What I have found, that is, what works for me, is to NOT concentrate on
a "stabbing" motion or anything which requires a pointed, curled or
otherwise contorted tongue. What works for ME is putting the harp a
little further back in my mouth.

When Rod Piazza first started playing chromatic, George "Harmonica"
Smith told him: "you gotta get that thing back in your mouth". Rod said
that George's front teeth were almost even with the outer-edge of a
16-hole chromatic! I tried this approach and was amazed at the
difference in tone. I started playing my diatonics "deep in the pocket"
as well.

For me, when I play with the harp pushed back into my mouth a little,
tongue-blocking and the tongue flutter techniques are much more natural
feeling and seem to happen effortlessly. In fact, with the harp way back
in my mouth, tongue-blocking is about the ONLY way I can play. (There is
no way to play with a "pucker" if the harp is between your teeth.) I
think of the flutter as more of a quick on-and-off tongue blocking
rather than a direct effort to "pinpoint" specific notes. 

So, just for kicks, try playing with the harp further back in your
mouth. Then don't concentrate on the details so much. Just try to create
a "Luh-Luh-Luh" sound when inhaling and exhaling. Trying to make a
"La-La-La" sound curls my tongue more and seems to make it stiffer. The
"Luh-Luh" technique leaves my tongue more relaxed.

Again, this is my experience. I LOVE the thick tongue-blocked notes and
octaves on both chromatic and diatonic as well as the flutter. These
things are what worked for me.

John Balding
Tallahassee, FL


-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Wolf Kristiansen
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 7:03 PM
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Harp-L] Tongue Flutter

This is a topic that's been discussed before.  I've
read what I could in the harp-l archives, but I still
have questions. 

I would dearly love to be able to produce the sound
most harp players on this list call tongue flutter. 
The sound I'm referring to is prominent in many blues
harp songs, but here are two I can call to mind as I
type this at work without the benefit of my cds:

1.	My Way or the Highway, by Little Charlie and the
Nightcats
2.	Oh Babe by Little Walter

Have a listen to the harp passages with flutter here--
sort of like a trill, but richer.  I once asked Rod
Piazza how to do it, and he said it was a rapid,
regular, on again off again stabbing motion with one's
tongue. (If I understood him correctly).

I have tried to do this. I can get the stabbing
motion.  I can get the regular rhythm.  What I can't
get is the speed. I start off slowly, try to speed up,
and trip over my tongue.  The speed I want is the same
speed I apply to my trills-- a rapid regular
alteration of two adjacent notes on the harmonica. I
trill by shaking my head back and forth, and can
control the speed almost infinitely-- from very slow
to very fast.

Is the flutter tongue speed something one can acquire
with practice?  Or is it, as I suspect, genetic; some
of us being able to do it with minimal effort, others
never, no matter how much they practice?  Perhaps it's
akin to the ability to curl one's tongue, which I can
do but others can't, no matter how hard they try.

Any thoughts or advice from players that can do it
would be much appreciated.  Especially if they
struggled with it at first but then found a way to do
it.  Feel free to correct my terminology, or my belief
that Rod Piazza's self-described technique is the way
to do it.  In the end, I just want to learn how to
make the sound I hear in the two mentioned songs, and
in many others (Sonny Terry songs, for instance).

Wolf Kristiansen


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