[Harp-L] Embouchures and Overblows

[Elizabeth Hess <TinLizzie2010@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Jan 14, 2010, at 8:45 PM, Michelle LeFree wrote:

> Well, Vincent and Elizabeth, I'm going to give you an answer you may 
> not want to hear. That is, don't sweat the ~little~ stuff in your 
> initial forays into "harmonicology." There are too many vastly more 
> important things to learn than being able to play harps with different 
> hole spacings. Your insensitivity to hole spacing will come with time. 
> Before you realize it, it will soon be automatic. For example, I can 
> play harps with any spacing, from the little "necklace" toys to 
> varying brands and styles of "good" diatonics and tremolos within just 
> a moment or two of picking one up. If you are sensitive to hole 
> spacing now, put the ones that give you trouble aside and concentrate 
> on the far more important aspects of your harmonica technique, like 
> breathing properly from the diaphragm, bending accurately on different 
> key harps, learning different embouchures and as Elizabeth points out, 
> switching seamlessly back and forth between them.
>
> As you progress with your basic technique, you can add exercises to 
> become more precise in jumping over increasing numbers of holes around 
> a harmonica with the byproduct of becoming less sensitive to hole 
> spacing. I learned a great exercise from PT Gazell, one of the most 
> "precise" harpers out there. He teaches an exercise in which you start 
> at the bottom end and jump first one hole, then back to the bottom, 
> and then jump two holes and back to the bottom, then repeat with a 
> three-hole jump and so on, jumping farther and farther up the harp. 
> Then do the same exercise starting at the top end and jumping down 
> one, then two, then three holes and so on. Then start in the middle 
> and jump down, return to the middle and jump up, etc. Push yourself to 
> get faster and faster and more and more accurate. You'll soon be able 
> to identify where you need more work, and you can devise similar 
> exercises to overcome any particular difficulty. Soon you will find 
> yourself jumping freely around any harmonica with ease.


I am not so flummoxed by hole sizes, anymore, but thank you for 
relating the exercise from PT Gazell.  It sounds like a great one, and 
I will add it to my regimen.  Do  *you*  do this exercise 
tongue-blocked, pucker, alternating, or all of the above?

One of my current sticking points is embouchures and overblows:  Does 
anyone tongue-block overblows?  Did any of you use the tongue-block 
embouchure  *while learning*  to overblow?  Did any of you learn to 
overblow pucker and later learn to overblow tongue-blocked?  If you are 
generally prefer the tongue-block embouchure but need to pucker for 
overblows, do you just switch, are you still working towards 
tongue-blocked overblows with the same facility that you tongue-block 
everything else?  How's it going?  If you mostly tongue-block but want 
to play a fast passage that uses overblows, do you switch to the pucker 
embouchure for the entire passage that has the overblow in it, switch 
embouchures for just the overblow, for the overblow plus a few 
proximate notes?  Something else?  What works for you?

I play mostly tongue-block these days, and prefer it.  I am learning 
how to overblow, but when I can do it at all, I can only do it pucker.  
I have a few overblows on some of my harps, and some clue about 
adjusting my harps to make overblows easier (though I am a real klutz, 
and right now there's a 50-50 chance that my working on a harp will 
make it play worse instead of better).  I am nowhere near playing an 
overblow in public, yet.  But I'd like to someday.

For those who play overblows as easily and readily as you play any 
other note:  What embouchure technique works for you now, and what 
worked while you were learning?

Thanks in advance.
Elizabeth