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

[Rick Dempster]

Tongue blocking, bending and whistling? Can't imagine what you're talking
about!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/r9J79s1BfMo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF2JGJX36zY

On Sun, 12 Mar 2023 at 00:05, philharpn--- via Harp-L <harp-l at xxxxx>
wrote:

> 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.
>