2nd and 3rd holes - Pucker or Tongue Blocking
Hi, David
First of all thank you for all your publications and this web site! Your schools are favorite for me. You do a great job for all harmonica community!
I have one question about changing from Pucker to Tongue Blocking during the play. We have some dispute with my friend. He told me you play with TB all holes including 2 and 3 and all bends.
In your book "Building Harmonica Technique" you play "Grand Junction Jump".
Could I ask you to describe how do you play phrases like 2 3 4 5+ 6+ and 6+ 5 4 4+ 3 2 2" 1. I see you marked only 4-10 holes with TB mark.
How do you play 2nd and 3rd holes after TB on 4th hole: P or TB?
How do you switch so quick from one technique to another on lower holes?
Do you play 3 hole, 2 hole bends with TB? In what cases do you play it with TB?
Thanks for the answer.
Early when I started to study the harmonica I didn't understand how people reproduce this sound (slap) because I used the tongue blocking only for octaves. I thought it's a mic or apm effect. Your lessons have opened my eyes (ears). Now I want to improve this technique and your web site is the best place to do this. Thank you and "Hello!" from all russian harmonica.ru community.
I'm very happy to help. Best wishes on your new journey.
Pleasure to have you on the site. I now tongue block all holes. I sometimes pucker hole 1 and my blow bends, but am trying to tongue block those as well these days. If you use a mixture of pucker and tongue blocking, generally follow my recommendations in Building Harmonica Technique... where you'll commonly tongue block holes 4 and above, and pucker holes 1-3 and your blow bends. When you bend use a pucker. Keep in mind that this is just a general rule of thumb... there will be times where you tongue block lower or pucker higher. Basically use tongue blocking where you want the "tongue block" sound, which is for slaps, flutters, octaves and pulls. You will get fast at switching. I now teach all tongue blocking for my beginning students... it just makes sense to use tongue blocking all of the time, so all of this is not an issue. Best wishes on your studies.