Bending
So, I first learned bending using lip pursing, which came pretty easy for me,
I'm having a harder time bending using the Tounge Blocking, do you still use only tongue blocking
or is it kinda like a combination?
When you bend a note, you tune your oral cavity to a lower note, one that's withing the ability of the reed to bend to.
Your tongue does the work of tuning your oral cavity - baiscally the inside of the mouth where the teeth reside and some of the area behind that.
You create a tuned chamber using two actions:
- Defining and activating the chamber by raising the tongue to narrow airflow, making the air travel faster and at lower pressure. This converts whatever is in front of that narrowed area into a tuned chamber. I call this the K-spot as for many bends you raise the tongue in roughly the same spot you would to make the sound of "K."
- -- When you inhale through the K-spot, you'll feel suction trying to pull it closed.
- -- When you exhale through the K-spot, you'll feel pressure trying to push it open
- Sizing the tuned chamber to tune it to a specific note.
- -- You can move the K-spot forward to raise the pitch or back to lower it. This is like moving the back wall of a room to make it bigger or smaller, but with an open window in the wall.
- -- You can raise or lower the "floor" or the chamber by raising or lowering the tongue between the K-spot and the tip of your tongue.
When you use just your lips to bend a note, the K-spot can move freely backwards or forward for most if not all bends.
When the tip of your tongue is on the harp, you have less front-to-back range of motion for the K-spot (though you can move it very far forward for blow bends), but you still have the ability to raise or lower the floor.
Concentrate on floor motion along with activating the K-spot for one of the easier bends, like Draw 4, to start getting your tongue blocked bending action started.
Re Winslow's notes about that "K" sound, Jon Gindick teaches using the sounds "kee" and "koo." (It's a fun exercise to make these sounds as draws while, e.g., you're out with friends at a fancy restaurant. Someone in the group is bound to panic and try to do a Heimlich Maneuver on you.)
But ultimately, what your tongue and mouth cavity are actually doing may very different from what you think they are doing.
For myself, reviewing the MRI study that David participated in (as "victim") some years ago was a real eye opener. It may help others who are working on bending. Available at https://www.bluesharmonica.com/sites/bluesharmonica.com/files/mri_bendin...
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I am having a difficulty fully bending the 1, 2, and 3 draws. I can get close - on the 2 draw the half step is easy and on the 3 draw I can get a full step, but I am still missing a half-quarter step for the full bend. I have watched the Bending 1 and 2 modules multiple times as well as many many youtube videos. I can get the 4 and 6 draws to the right pitch (though I can's overbend even if I try).
Anybody have similar problems in the past and may be able to give some tips?
You might be getting air in through your nose. If that happens because you're not closing your nose properly, bending will be harder. Try if closing your nose with your free hand makes your bends easier and you can achieve the problematic bends. If you do, you know something you need to work on. Also try yawning while inhaling and raising the back part of your tongue: lower bends require a wider cavity than higher pitched ones so the jaw must drop and the tongue must be raised further back than for other bends. It's common that lower pitched bends are more difficult, I can't bend 1 or 2 draw at all on lower pitched harps like a low C, it requires a lot of practice. A harp is easier, just keep trying these ideas and the bends should come soon.
So useful for people who just started studying bending technique, like me! Thank you!
I don't know puckering at all.. I have started learning harmonica using TB.
1 draw bend ( A harmonica) seems impossible to me but I 'll keep trying!
Elsa,
Keep in mind that the lower the key of the harp, the more you engage the throat, and literally the whole body, in making a large enough air chamber to get a good sounding bend on the 1 and 2 draws.
Now whether or not you'll ever get to the point where you can bend on low-tuned harps, that's another matter. I've worked my way down on Low F, Low E and Low Eb harps, but drawing the 1 or 2 on harps lower than that is beyond me. But once I learned how to bend those low holes on the Low F, all of a sudden the G and A sure felt a lot easier!
It'll come.
I think bending is like any other physical skill (e.g. shooting a basketball. olympic weightlifting, juggling) - it's a mix of neural and muscles. It takes time to learn. The tongue is a muscle and in bending you are asking it to do things that it doesn't normally do. That muscle gets tired quickly at first but over time as you keep practicing it gets stronger. Your neural system also is trying to control the tongue muscle in a finer way than it has needed to for any of your other daily tasks (speaking and swallowing). Those neural pathways take time to strengthen and develop as well.
Tips that I have found to work for me when working on a new bend:
1) do it in small blocks of time - the tongue muscle gets tired at first
2) practice it frequently - frequent repetition trains the neural system
3) for the deeper bends (whole step or b3) walking down from the bends above can help get you in the vicinity and then try moving the tongue shape to get the bend you want - once you get it by walking down then try and remember the shape and reproduce it without walking down
4) keep blown out reed plates to use for bending practice (most of mine have gone out on the 5 so still good for bending on holes 1-4 or I suppose overblows if I go there)
Edit:
5) go back and refresh old bending technique on keys of harmonica that you had practiced before - I'm working on deep bends on Bb for my current level and when working my repertoire practice I found that I was pulling my bends too deep on other keys
As someone who recently converted to TBing only (after 40 years of lipping!) for single notes, bends, etc. I've definitely found that, as daunting as bending with the tongue on the harp seemed at first, it really only took about 2 months of playing roughly 4 hours a day to drill the new embrasure into my muscle memory. Obviously it's still in process, but it feels pretty natural now.
It's one of the gifts of age: I'm seldom intimidated anymore by things I can't do because I've learned that I can learn pretty much anything - even stuff I don't have instant or obvious aptitude for. It's simply a matter of patience and intense repetition.
Boy do I wish I'd just learned TBing from the start tho, the way it's taught here. Woulda saved myself a lotta work.:)
Hi all,
I realise that there have probably been an infinite number of posts on the forum about bending but this one is mainly about tone. I started learning to bend about 2 months ago and for some reason, I seem to have got the more difficult bends first (holes 2, 1 and 3 in chronological order). The issue I have is that the tone is awful. For example my easiest bends are on holes 2 and 3 but the sound coming out is like a 'fog horn'. If that's a term not used outside the UK, imagine the sound that is used to warn ships of the presence of land when fog is dense.
Does anyone have tips on how to improve tone?
Thanks,
Mark.
First off, "fog horn" isn't just a British term. And here on the West Coast of the USA, we have plenty of genuine fog horns. Especially if you are in berthed overnight in a harbor (or "harbour" where you are) trying to get some sleep .. and the fog rolls in.
Of course, perhaps all over the world the most famous fog horn is Foghorn Leghorn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foghorn_Leghorn
But back to tone: It's all a matter of practice. Interesting that you've found 1, 2 and 3 to be the toughest bends. For me, it's still the 6', for which both my intonation and tone are problematic. Oh well.
Two thoughts re the 2 and 3:
Are you prone to "over-bending," e.g., going a tad low? That can affect tone as well as intonation, and just takes practice, listening, and even using a piano, guitar, chromatic harp or tuning app to check.
And, are you by any chance playing a Lee Oskar harp? I play both Hohners and Lee Oskars, and on the latter every time I tried a 3''' I'd get something like a cross between a fog horn and a jar full of ball bearings. I learned from David that one of the attributes of the Lee Oskar harps is that the reeds are a thinner dimension than Hohner's, which can lead to all sorts of tone issues if one isn't careful, especially on the 2'' and 3'''.
You might ask this quesiton of David in his "Ask Instructor ..." thread to see what ideas he has.
And come back here and let us know what you find out!
Thanks for your advice Rob.
It's good to know that 'fog horn' is a term used on both sides of the Atlantic. I know that there are some terms which are different depending on whether you are in the USA or UK. For instance:
sidewalk = pavement
bangs = fringe
aluminum = aluminium.
Anway, enough of language differences. In my last post I may have miscommunicated. The easiest bends for me are on holes 1-3, which are I believe, the most difficult for some beginner harp players. I am finding bending on holes 4 & 6 really difficult. The tone on holes 1-3 resembles a 'fog horn' and I am playing a Hohner Crossover in key of A.
Don't have an A Crossover, but just pulled out my A MB Deluxe and tried to get that foghorn sound on the 2 and 3. Is it possible you're using too much air pressure? E.g., does the tone improve as you play softer?
And have you checked out David's report about his MRI testing of bending? https://www.bluesharmonica.com/mri_bending_study ? Tone on a bent note is never going to be as good as on an unbent note, for a very simple reason: Harmonica reeds were never designed to be bent. The process of bending involves a very counterintuitive situation in which it's actually the blow reed that's contorting itself into a different pitch, aided by the player's airstream being used as a soundbox. That contortion is the reason that it's so hard to get really good tone from a bend.
Re language differences, let's not even start with car components. Decades ago we owned an MG, and used a British mechanic who had no idea what we were talking about when we referred to the car's "hood," "trunk," "parking brake" or "generator."
Cheers.
I have tried decreasing the airflow Rob and maybe it improves slightly but is still 'foghorn like' in tone. I guess it will come with time. I'm also planning to see a harmonica teacher face-to-face...something I haven't done before. I'm sure he can help with bending.
Yes, I have seen the MRI scanner videos and read the research paper so I guess I know what should be happeniing and why.
Not hearing what's happening for you, it's hard to judge, but one thing you might try is:
- Play a sustained draw note and listen to your tone. Ideally, it will be full and resonant.
- As you bend down from that nice, full-tomed note, take the fulles of your tone down with you into the bend. The tone *color* will change and so will the vowel sound (from something like "eee" to "oooh"), but try to keep the fulness of the sound. It may be easier to work on this at first on something like Draw 4 which doesn't bend as far as 2 or 3.
Thanks for the advice Winslow. I tried your suggestions and have concluded that I haven't yet got the right embouchure. It's coming slowly and I can now bend holes 1-4 and 6 to some degree.
What I have noticed is that when I try to bend there seems to be an increased airflow and I get out of breath more quickly. Maybe I haven't fully learned how to close my nose yet?
Mark.
I've been working on bending for the last few weeks using tongue blocking. I experimented a little with lip pursing to get the feel of what my tongue was doing and then tried to replicate it using tongue blocking. That seemed to work for me. I haven't had too much trouble getting the bends apart from one draw, mainly because my tongue feels like it's on the opposite side of where it wants to be, but a little perseverance and that's coming along fine now. I just need to work on control and tone, which seems to be a case of fine tuning the tongue movement.
One thing I found that was a huge help in cracking tongue block bends is relaxing the jaw as much as possible and letting the tongue do the work. When I first started working on the bends I used a jaw relaxing exercise before, between and after: put the tip of your tongue at the top your mouth just behind your front teeth and let your bottom jaw hang slack. After a couple of weeks relaxing the jaw becomes second nature and the need for the exercise fades away.
That's a couple of things that helped me, along with with more reps than a mad dog chasing its tail. Think I still got a good way to go with it though.