[Harp-L] whistling technique mimics two-reed bending

philharpn@xxxxx philharpn@xxxxx
Fri Mar 10 12:58:42 EST 2023


What with the occasional snow in suburban Detroit (not a real place, just indicates the suburbs-- bedroom towns of Detroit)-- I was reading the  Fall 2022 issue of Harmonica Happenings an the interview with Rachelle Plas. I've been aware of her for many years. She plays the Progressive Golden Melody. (I have a Progressive Golden Melody on order.)
Apparently, she now whistles along with her harmonica playing.   SPAH President Michael D'Eath  near the end of the interview asks Rachelle: Does your whistling influence your harmonica playing?To which she replies: "I was whistling since I was a little girl on a bicycle. The technique is similar to bending."
At which point I recalled making the connection between whistling and two-note bending on the harp list several years ago. But I didn't recall WHEN. So I looked in my saved mail file (which is where I save all the posts that I might want to refer to later.)
I recall making several posts at the time on Harp-List and as I recall NOBODY had made the connection between whistling and  bending. One guy even asked if he could reprint my connection between bending and whistling.
S0, I found a post from August 2014 where I discuss the whistling connection. As I recall, nobody said much about my connection between whistling --either because they didn't whistle or didn't see the connection with bending.
As I said at the time (2014) bending is not LIKE whistling, it is exactly the same. There is also some discussion about tongue blocking.

Sun, Aug 24, 2014 at 6:57 AMEmbouchure discussions are much like the history of bending.
When I started playing harp about 25 years ago (probably 1990?) I used what I considered a whistle shape for diatonic or chromatic playing. I never gave it much analysis. It produced a single note, and later, allowed me to finesse draw bends and blow bends.
I suspect a great part of this discussion on embouchures derives from the fact that most people don't really know exactly what technique they are using. Some analyze it and can explain it. But about 105 percent don't have a clue and call their technique by whatever term happens to be in vogue during a particular week.
For years there was very little explanation about how to execute a draw bend -- or a blow bend. Most of the so-called early harmonica books didn't even discuss the technique except (the Hohner warning) against choking the harp, because it voided the warranty. I remember one explanation of bent notes being caused by bending the air to hit the reeds at an angle to cause the note to change pitch. Later, people were explaining that the bend was caused by saying eeee--owww on the bendable draw notes and that changed the note. This is true but doesn't explain how it works. (Narrowing and widening the gap at the base of the tongue in the throat change the speed of the air passing and raises or lowers the pitch.) It was all mysterious and people who could bend couldn't explain how they were obtaining them. Bends just happened if the player played long enough.
Later on, and I can't remember exactly when, I discovered that the technique that changes the pitch in whistling is the same technique that changes the pitch on blow or draw bends. 
Much later, somebody took the cover plate off his harmonica and discovered that if a finger was pressed on a blow reed during a draw bend, the bend stopped! Up until this point, nobody had ever noticed that the blow reed was interactive (probably more active) with the draw reed in producing the draw bend. This came to be called the double reed bend to contrast with the overblow bend and the valved bend which use a single reed. The overblow raises the pitch unlike the other (all?) bends which lower the pitch. 
And then someone pointed out that the bend was caused by a faster airstream -- which made sense to me because that is what happened during whistling. Nowadays, lots of people talking about the whistling/bending connection. (Later, sonograms of Howard Levy confirmed this with the sonograms showing the tongue movement during bends.)
And even later on, I discovered/learned that the bent notes were easy to figure out on the piano keyboard. As a piano player -- five years of lessons as a kid -- I knew where the notes on the piano and harmonica were. So it just made logical sense that the bends were cause by the notes between the blow and draw notes. (Using a keyboard to match bent notes is the best and most efficient method of mastering bends!) If blow 1 is C AND draw 1 is D, the note between them is Db/C#.  The same is true for the first six holes. Blow 5 is is E and draw 5 is F; there is no note between them. Thus no bent note -- even tho some claim credit for producing a quarter tone bend. (Cf: blow bends)
I once had a student in my Harmonica 101 class who showed up playing his harmonica vertically. What embouchure is that?
Now, all the above is regarded as conventional wisdom regarding bending, much like today's kids who think phones always showed videos ever since they were invented (and never saw phonograph or typewriter).
It  was way after all the above that I figured out what is called tongue blocking, even though the little paper Hohner provided clearly showed it. Not to me I could never figure out where the tongue went. Then I figured out how to play octaves (put the tip of the tongue on the divider between holes 2 and 3  while covering holes 1 - 4  = octave. That was when I discovered it was really corner playing and the main role of the tongue was to get out of the way. Once I learned how to play in that right corner, I was off and running. Later on, I learned to lift the tongue off the harp to vamp chords as the Richter layout was designed for and Hohner tried to explain. And then learned how to slap the chord on sharply before playing the corner (like a hammer on note on the guitar). And that since bending involved the base of the tongue (where the tongue was  attached), it was entirely possible to bend while tongue blocking/corner playing. As someone was quoted as SPAH: playing harmonica without tongue blocking (corner playing) is like playing piano with one hand. 

The reason why corner playing (TB) works is that the target note is the highest pitch and it continues to ring out during the time when the chord is sounded. (All of this presumes playing the harp right side up.). Playing the note with the whistle shape and widening the mouth to take in a note on either side of the melody note can produce a similar sounding vamp. But because the center note is not the highest pitched note of the chord, it is less prominent than the corner playing vamp with its chord notes all lower in pitch.
Hope this clears everything up.Phil
PS I didn't have time to write a short note.


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