Re: [Harp-L] Overblowing newbie

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

An unmodified Marine Band may not be the ideal vehicle for starting overblows. If you own some thing like a Golden Melody or Special 20, or something a little more upmarket like a  Seydel 1847 or Suzuki Firebreath, these are all harps that have the airtightness and reed setup to allow you an easier time of it getting a first overblow.

Embossing, lowering the root of the reed, and all the other overblow modifications help, but for out-of-the-box newbie experience, (and ease of dong those modifications if you choose to), a screwed-together harps will in general be a little more overblow-ready.

As to the technique itself, you're really just trying to get the draw reed to pop in at a pitch created by your mouth, while getting the blow reed to shut up. One way to do that is to try to bend to blow reed down. After you push through the microtonal bend that gives you, you get to the rushing air and no note stage, or maybe the out-of-control cacophony stage of two reeds fighting. You may be able to push through to a clean overblow, and the main thing that will get you there is aiming for (and mentally hearing) the note you're going for and focusing your mouth chamber to make that note powerful enough to dominate (notice that the dominance comes mostly from focus and only a little from strength of force).

One thing you could try on that unmodified MB is to pop off the top cover, put your finger over the Blow 6 slot, play Draw 6, then try to play a blow bend. If the note doesn't pop out (and there's no guarantee it will) you can "fish around" for the note, i.e. bend up and down until you find a bent-note mouth position that delivers.

Hope this helps.

Winslow

Glenn Weiser <celticguitar1@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: Hi there-

I'm trying to teach myself overblowing using an unmodified stock Marine 
Band, key of C, starting with the 6-hole.
OK, so I'm not a harmonica newbie, but I feel like one now, because it's 
hard as hell to get the reed to pop up to the OB note. And it sounds awful 
when I do.
Speaking as a supplicant with folded hands, my question to the OB gurus is: 
what am I doing wrong? Can it really be this hard?
Can you advise, Winslow? Anyone?

Glenn Weiser
http://www.celticguitarmusic.com/harppage.htm 

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