From: Steve Baker <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: April 7, 2009 3:02:49 AM PDT
To: Harp-L <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Harp-L] Harp on Cheek (was sealing front)
I suspect that most accomplished blues style tongue blockers on the
10-hole lay the upper channel openings against the cheek on the opposite
side of the face to the one they block on when playing the lower holes.
There is some great film material from the 1960s American Folk Blues
Festivals showing Walter Horton, Rice Miller and other players, all of
whom appear to do this. When playing this style I block left and seal
off the front of the harp against the right cheek, as I'm playing out of
the right hand side of my mouth. The right thumb works like a stopper
that closes the chamber when you hook it around the front right hand end
of the harp where it comes away from your cheek.
Total enclosure allows the player to create much more powerful hand
effects. It can't easily be done with a pucker, because the harp is then
in the middle of your mouth instead of at one side. This means you'd
have to seal off both sides, which is much more difficult. As mentioned
by other respondents on this theme, the technique also works brilliantly
when playing with a bullet mic and allows the player to drive the mic
element to produce a more dynamic distortion than can be achieved by
turning up the gain on the amp. It's the reason why most of the great
electric blues players use relatively clean amp settings and build the
distortion through how they hold, as this gives you much more control
over tonal variation than a distorted amp sound can do,
Steve
www.stevebaker.de
www.bluesculture.com