1st Day on site - Pucker question
So I've been a pucker player for quite some time...although the bending technique is not mastered, I have fairly decent bending skills, not flawless by any means but decent. I feel like I'm having to relearn playing and it's frustrating. How can I best use your site? Can I just play the songs in the pucker embouchere and work on TB'ing as I go? Does this mean I have to abandon the levels of achievement process and work on other techniques? I definitely know that I need TB'ing for certain sounds and skills but I also feel like I'm not going to abandon the pucker embouchere as my primary embouchere. Does this mean I would best be served finding another teacher? I definitely like how your site is set up and how comprehensive it is but help me make best use of your site for someone committed to the pucker embouchere. I've been puckering too long to give it up. Thanks David. I appreciate your teaching style.
Hello Jebster, welcome to the site.
Continue puckering for your bending. Start work on Tongue Block Study 1, puckering holes 1 through 3 and switching to Tongue Blocking (TB) for holes 4 and above. The advantage of TB once you hit hole 4 is that there's generally less bending and you can take advantage of the slaps, pulls, flutters, octaves, etc. that are so common hole 4 and above. If it's a bend-focused passage stay in a pucker, but if it's not, switch to TB.
As you develop the skill to perform the three main TB techniques (slaps, pulls and octaves) then you can decide which embouchure you want to use and when. This is a very common way to play for those that started in pucker (I did)... it will be up to you how important the TB sound is and if you down road the decide to use it more than pucker for the more classic style of blues playing (Little Walter, Big Walter, Sonny Boy 1 and 2, George Smith and modern players like Clarke, Piazza, Wilson, Hummel, Estrin, Smih, etc.), then you'll start working on holes 2 and 3 in a TB and learning how to bend in a TB as well. If you don't decide to be a classic player, then a mixed embouchure works very well (Gary Primich and Paul deLay, two favorite players of mine, played this way).
So, in summary... add the TB embouchure to give you access to the TB-exclusive sounds and choose how much of the those sounds you like in your playing.
Best wishes on your studies.