Re: [Harp-L] bending notes

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

Closing your vocal cords completely cuts off breath flow, so inability to do so will not affect note bending.

However, you do need to cut off airflow to your nasal passages. While it is possible to bend notes without shutting off nasal air flow, bending notes is much easier if you isolate air flow in your mouth.

Bending notes requires two things: placement and activation.

Placement is a matter of tuning your mouth.

Try saying the sound "K." Notice how one place on your tongue raises to the roof of your mouth and momentarily stops tha airflow. When you lower your tongue, the built-up air pressure explodesoutward  , and the rushing air makes the "K" sound.

Now try raising your tongue but not enough to cut off the airflow, just enough to make a hissing sound as you exhale. You may notice air pressure as the air rushes through the narrow opening created by your tongue.

Now take that raised spot on your tongue (I call it the "K-spot") and try sliding it backwards in your mouth, keeping it raised close to the roof of your mouth. Notice how the rushing sound gets lower in pitch.

Now try sliding the K-spot forward in your mouth, and notice how the rushing air goes up in pitch.

That change in pitch is the "placement" part of note bending.

What you're doing is tuning your mouth to different notes by changing the size of the chamber in your mouth. Sliding the K-spot back makes the chamber bigger, tuning it to a lower note. Sliding it forward makes the chamber smaller, tuning it to a higher note.

Now try the same experiment, but inhaling instead of exhaling. As you draw air through the K-spot, notice that you feel suction instead of pressure. But you'll get the same result of the rushing sound going down in pitch when you move the K-spot back in your mouth, and going up in pitch when you move it forward.

When you bend a note, you tune your mouth to a note slightly lower than the pitch of the reed you're playing but within its bending range. But you need to also feel slight suction for draw notes and pressure for blow notes, at the K-spot. The suction and the pressure are not doing the bending work; they're just side effects. But they're useful, just like the idiot lights on the dashboard of your car that tell you if a door is open or you need oil. They tell you that the bending system is engaged. That's tha "activation" part of bending.

High squeals mean you're tuning your mouth to a note outside the bending range of the reed. It can't play the note so it dissipates the energy by squealing. Some brands are more prone to this behavior, but they're actually giving you useful feedback.

Winslow
 
Winslow Yerxa
Author, Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5
            Harmonica Basics For Dummies, ASIN B005KIYPFS
            Blues Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-1-1182-5269-7
Resident Harmonica Expert, bluesharmonica.com
Instructor, Jazzschool for Music Study and Performance


________________________________
 From: John <johnatjumpjiveandswing@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Undisclosed-Recipient@xxxxxxxxx 
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2012 12:30 PM
Subject: [Harp-L] bending notes
 
Hi.  

Is there anybody who can clarify my problem with bending notes on holes 2-3. If I do manage to get down to the full bend on hole 3 I always seem to get a high pitched whistling sound accompanying it. I also cannot seem to hit the 2nd 
bend by trying to lower the pitch from the 1st bend. I would also like to know if anyone in the community has enough 
medical knowledge to clarify whether the fact that my vocal chords which do not close effectively at the end of a word to give a clean crisp ending to the words could be making it difficult to get these bends without having to really draw the air 
quite strongly which results in hitting the pitch but with very little tone to it    

                     Regards ---------- John