Re: [Harp-L] Bending intonation...the regular kind

["Chris Michalek" <chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

thinking about the mechanic of note generation is going to make you a stiff player.  Get your head out of the equation and just play.  Do you think about where your tongue is when you're talking, singing, humming or whistling? Nope...  do do it with the harmonica either. Focus on creating the tone/pitch etc in your body and then just play it on the harmonica.

I can count on one hand the number of harmonica players in the world, that I would classify has having great acoustic tone. You body already know how to generate any tone you want (within a range of course), learn to make music with your body before your put a harp to your mouth. Air trumpet anybody?  Your air trumpet is going to help you a lot more than listening to a bunch of people who can't really do it. Listen to yourself.

Play!

Chris Michalek

 



>-----Original Message-----
>From: Mike Fugazzi [mailto:mfugazzi67@xxxxxxxxx]
>Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 07:01 AM
>To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: RE: [Harp-L] Bending intonation...the regular kind
>
>I've never understood where my tongue should be when
>bending with a pucker embochure.  I do tongue to start
>a lot of notes, but my tonge us pretty flat on the 2,
>4, and 6 bends.  When I overblow, I use my tongue
>more.  When I hit the three bends, I definetly have to
>change the shape of my mouth...and my tongue.
>
>I know for sure, I am breathing deeply from the
>stomach on all my notes.  Is my tongue supposed to be
>totally flat and out of the equation?  I've always
>used deep breaths and vowel sounds to shape my notes. 
>So while my tongue isn't stressed or very contorted,
>it does change shape depending on what pitch I want to
>hit.
>
>>From watching the Howard Levy vid, this seems to be
>normal.  
>
>The only description of my tongue I can think of is it
>moves the same when I am using a straw on the regular
>bends.  It does not hit the roof of my mouth. 
>
>When I overblow, that is a little more tongue based
>(which would be a bad habit on normal bends).  
>
>My conclusion is I need to learn to finess them more
>then I do.  It would be great to have sound samples of
>a really awesome player playing the chromatic scale at
>a slow pace.  Somebody who is spot on with their tone,
>intonation, and timbre.
>
>When I was playing the third pos. scale with Dave
>Barrett via one of his cds, I was surprised on how
>much I sounded like him.  If he's playing them right,
>then I must be ok.  Like I said, the rest of my band
>can't tell the difference, so maybe it is a bigger
>deal in my head then it really is to the ears.
>
>Mike
>
>> --- In harp-l-archives@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "MLeFree"
>> <mlefree@...> wrote:
>> 
>> J Compton wrote:
>> > My guess is that he was referring to the "ton(e)"
>> part of
>> > intonation.  (Yes, I realize the words are
>> probably not derived
>> > from the other, but I can understand his
>> confusion.)  I bet you
>> > already suspected that's what he meant though.
>> 
>> I guess it's because I've been sensitized to the
>> very same issue with
>> respect to my own playing, but I knew immediately
>> what Mike meant.
>> Maybe we
>> should call it timbre?
>> 
>> > >From my personal experience, my early attempts at
>> hitting the 2
>> > and 3 draw bends sounded like a painful squawking
>> duck call.
>> 
>> Yeah and they are *critical*, too!
>> 
>> > Now, with months of diligent practice (okay,
>> that's a
>> > stretch...let's try that again)...now, after
>> months of working on
>> > them occasionally when no one else is around
>> usually while
>> > driving, I have reached a level where I am only
>> closely
>> > resembling a squawking duck call.  Hey, it's
>> progress.
>> 
>> Tenacity, Jonathan. Here's a little suggestion.
>> Don't get hung up too much
>> on practicing in one key. I learned that in my
>> efforts to learn how to TB
>> bend. I was using a C harp for months 'cuz it
>> happened to be my "practice"
>> harp. One time I picked up a G harp. Suddenly I was
>> able to TB bend like
>> nobody's business. I had been using the wrong size
>> oral cavity to work
>> well
>> with a C harp (too big). But my mouth was well-tuned
>> to the frequencies of
>> the G harp. That let me know that my technique was
>> basically OK (after
>> months, I was beginning to have severe doubts...).
>> It was that my oral
>> cavity was too large for higher pitched harps. One
>> of those priceless "ah
>> ha!" moments.
>> 
>> > (Here's the part where the newbie offers advice,
>> as if he has a
>> > clue what he's talking about...)  My biggest leap
>> in tone quality
>> > on the draw bends was when I stopped getting the
>> bend with my
>> > lips and front of my tongue and started getting
>> them further back
>> > on the tongue and more from the throat.  I think
>> my best progress
>> > with that transition was when I started working on
>> the bends
>> > while tongue blocking.
>> 
>> Precisely! Besides the tone, the depth of my bends
>> were also vastly
>> improved. My own "ah ha!" moment as to bending with
>> the back of my throat
>> came when I was brute forcing the U-block (curl
>> tongue) embouchure. The
>> thing is, with the U-block or the Tongue-block, you
>> ~can't~ use the tip of
>> your tongue to bend, so you must do it elsewhere.
>> And like you, I
>> experienced a quantum leap improvement in my bent
>> tonality.
>> 
>> >My guess is that further advancements in
>> > tone quality will come from increasing the
>> volume/size of the
>> > mouth cavity while relaxing as many parts of the
>> embouchure as
>> > possible...of course, while still hitting the
>> note...oh, and
>> > practice.  WARNING: not only is this advice worth
>> no more than
>> > you paid for it, but it's also from a total newbie
>> with no actual
>> > professional instruction who has only progressed
>> from "like a
>> > painful squawking duck call" to "closely
>> resembling a squawking
>> > duck call".  The "secret" to true high-quality
>> draw bend tone may
>> > be something entirely different.!
>> 
>> Don't sell yourself short, Jonathan. I think you are
>> on the right track,
>> except that I'd advise once again that you (anyone)
>> practice in a range of
>> keys.
>> 
>> I'd pass on another piece of advice given to me by
>> Grant Dermody.
>> Grant, who
>> possesses monstrous tone by any standard, will tell
>> you that improving
>> your
>> tone should be an ongoing, never-ending quest. His
>> immediate advice to me
>> upon listening to me play for 30 seconds was to "get
>> my tongue out of the
>> way." He was spot on! I had near immediate results
>> when I tried it.
>> After a
>> lifetime of whistling compounded by several years of
>> front-of-tongue
>> bending, in which cases the tip of my tongue played
>> a front and center
>> role,
>> I had to "untrain" my tongue to keep it flat, down,
>> and out of the way
>> when
>> puckering. Heck, I'm still working with that
>> stubborn tongue when I
>> use the
>> pucker embouchure, which I am doing less and less,
>> due to my concerted
>> offert to use TB almost exclusively. Thing is, when
>> you TB, the
>> tongue-in-the-way problem goes away, by definition.
>> Hmm. I once asked
>> Annie
>> Raines how such a tiny little lady like her gets
>> such awesome tone?
>> She said
>> quite simply yet resolutely, "tongue-block!" She
>> went on to share her
>> thoughts on why TB is often associated with killer
>> tone, some of which
>> we've
>> touched upon here.
>> 
>> One last word. You mentioned using your the tip of
>> your tongue to
>> articulate. Try using a "Ga" or "Ka" or the
>> equivalents on draw instead.
>> Those articulations will still allow you to bury
>> that tongue on the bottom
>> of your mouth. I learned to try that myself as, even
>> if I tried to keep my
>> tongue down, articulating with my tongue would
>> inevitably leave it out
>> wagging in the breeze.
>> 
>> Jonathan, I'd like to thank both you and Mike for
>> sharing your experiences
>> with us.
>> 
>> Michelle
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
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>> --- End forwarded message ---
>> 
>> 
>> 
>
>
>Mike Fugazzi
>http://www.myspace.com/mikefugazzi
>http://www.niterail.com
>
>"Music should be healing; music should uplift the soul; music should inspire. There is no better way of getting closer to God, of rising higher towards the spirit, of attaining spiritual perfection than music, if only it is rightly understood."
>-Hazrat Inayat Khan
>
>
> 
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