Re: [Harp-L] breathing from the throat

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

I notice that Joe Filisko used this term (or one seemingly identical) in his 
recent videos promoting the new Hohner Thunderbird harmonicas.

I was a little surprised, because the throat does not drive air motion, and Joe 
knows this. The job that the throat does is to either:

1) get out of the way so that the air coming to and from the lungs can have a 
"fat pipe" for easy delivery of a high volume of air moving gently (think of 
yawning and how it opens your throat);

and/or

2) massage the edges of the "fat pipe" to modulate the flow, creating pulsating 
vibrato and "oomphy" throat articulation to start notes with some emphasis.

Joe's point was that you shouldn't be pushing air from the mouth, as this is too 
shallow a driver to activate the Thunderbird's extremely low-pitched reeds, 
which carry a lot of mass for their size and therefore require a large mass of 
air to get the reeds moving. The mouth can't deliver that mass of air, but the 
diaphragm can, moving a large mass of air from deep in the lungs.

Using the throat for articulation and vibrato is definitely something you can 
learn. LIke anything that requires you to use something you've never tried to 
control before, it can seem awkward and even alien when you first try it, but 
you can get control and mastery with practice. 

The first thing to experiment with is coughing, gently, as if you're trying to 
clear your throat during a quiet scene in a crowded theatre. Each cough will 
start a new note in an emphatic way.

Each cough should be initiated individually sot hat you can control it 
deliberately. 

Later you can try to cough at a steady repeating rate and then try speeding it 
up, applying it to a long, steady breath, exhaled or inhaled. By lightening up 
on the cough you can transform it from a way of starting individual notes to a 
form of vibrato, with each cough only modulating a longer tone, instead of 
breaking it up into shorter notes.

Winslow
 
Winslow Yerxa
Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5
Harmonica instructor, The Jazzschool for Music Study and Performance
Resident expert, bluesharmonica.com
Columnist, harmonicasessions.com




________________________________
From: todd allen <soundguyaudition@xxxxxxxxx>
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tue, May 17, 2011 3:08:46 PM
Subject: [Harp-L] breathing from the throat

Where can I learn more about this âbreathing from the throatâ thing Iâve been 
hearing more about lately? is it something the that can be learned through 
regular training? Or is it more like you either got it or you donât.