RE: [Harp-L] Tongue Trill

["Mike Snowden" <mike.snowden@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At the Bristol Festival, we had a section on this from the Blues player,
Johnny Mars (I think that is the right spelling, apologies if it is not, as
my browser won't connect to let me check). He explained he used a fairly
stiff tongue, and got us practicing by pretending to push hard against
something, then waggling once the tongue was more rigid. The more practice
you do, the faster you can get.  There would be no visible movement with
this.

Another technique for slower changes is to eg have a four hole embouchure,
then tongue-block the middle holes, then by rocking the harp back and
forward (pivoting across the blocking), the ends are alternately opened and
closed.

For adjacent hole shake, some people seem to go for a full slide (often with
head shake), others for softer lips, placing the gap over both holes and
allow some elasticity in the lips to alternately seal the holes when the
harp is moved back and forwards, more with a roll than a slide, and mostly
the harp moving - the other parts of the lips do not move on the harp.  The
latter can look quite subtle in terms of movement.


I can trill a blow bend with a "trrrr" with of my tongue, but I haven't
found this particularly useful or as musical as the above techniques:
Switching at a musical interval of the beat works well.

Finally, I've seen Donald Black do a full tremolo effect by purring - on the
Hohner Scotsman, it sounds like Mandolin "tremolo" - eg rapidly replucked
notes.  But it's not a conventional trill, in the usual sense of the word.

Mike