Re: [Harp-L] Tongue blocking

[Michelle LeFree <mlefree@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 Much has already been said so I'll only say this about tongue 
blocking: it's FUN!

After two years of dogged persistence (and several more of casual 
effort), my tongue blocking is finally coming together. There was 
painfully little progress for the first year and it was very tempting to 
just give up -- but I knew it ~could~ be done so I stuck with it. I was 
well into the 2nd year of my steep learning curve before I began to show 
consistent progress on "real tongue blocking." I say "real" TBing 
because I have been able to play octaves and seamlessly switch back and 
forth between TB and pucker forever. But there are so many other cool 
techniques you can do with TB'ing and playing octaves/splits is actually 
one of the easiest. If you aren't impressed with the Walters, take a 
listen to the venerable Sam Hinton sometime (may he Rest In Peace). You 
~will~ be humbled. That's what I call "real" TBing.

These days, things I struggled with for so long to get any sort of 
success now just seem to be magically "working." Bending with different 
keys, slaps, pulls, various styles of tremolo, bluesy vibrato, even 
switching are now coming with relative ease. And it is all a GAS! There 
are so many more interesting things you can do when you play more than a 
single note at a time, I'm now having a ball exploring and learning 
them. And it's added so much more texture and depth to my playing that I 
find it more enjoyable and so do people who have enough patience to 
listen to me.

So if you have been working hard with little in the way of results to 
show for it, stick with it! There is definitely "gold in them thar 
hills" and it ~is~ accessible by mere mortals. Heck, even an "Harmonica 
Dummy" like me can do it (now anyway).

Michelle