Re: [Harp-L] Re: advanced?

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

My own experience was that I bought a diatonic harmonica as a teenager and read the little sheet that came with the harmonica that described covering three holes with your mouth but then blocking out two of them with your tongue. My immediate reaction was WHY would I want to do THAT? I mean, what was the point? Why not just pucker?

So I taught myself to play by puckering until i noticed that you could play octaves with tongue blocking. So I added that. But it was years before I was really aware of slaps, hammers and lifts, and all the other tongue-based techniques that really add to the sounds you can get out of a harmonica. Now I tongue block a lot more than I pucker.

I suspect that a lot of players go through a similar process. Puckering is obvious and simple. Tongue blocking is non-obvious and more complex. And its advantages are also non-obvious.

Hey, "non-obvious" is a requirement for patenting something. Think I could get a patent on tongue blocking? Then I could sue all the great blues players to pay back royalties for using my technology without having licensed it. (Like how Nokia is now suing Apple over the iPhone).

Winslow

Winslow Yerxa

Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5

--- On Mon, 1/18/10, Jim Rossen <jimjimdr@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Date: Monday, January 18, 2010, 6:30 PM

I respectfully and inoffensively disagree that most players find
tongue blocking and pucker play to be comparable in difficulty-
particularly with bends.   If so, why are most intermediate players
far better with pucker than TB?