Bending Info
I have been practicing my bending as you explained in the instructions for Level 2. My bends were sounding like the bends on Hob Bosold's first bends. I moved my tongue through the various sounds as you explained, yet could never achieve a bend. Today I happened to be playing around with the "Bending it Better" tool from Harmonica.com with my C harmonica and was surprised that I was able to bend on the 1,2 draw easily, and the 3 draw with some practice and hit the 4 draw maybe once or twice. The problem is I accomplished this by darn near inhaling my tonsils I was drawing so hard (the further up the scale I went). Should bending be accomplished by drawing so hard? Or am I doing something right that is getting me in the ballpark that needs fine tuning?
Also thank you so much for teaching tongue blocking. I have several harmonicas that I have played around with by either hearing songs and playing them on the harmonica or reading some of my sheet music from the piano to play along with music. I decided to learn more about the harmonica and got a couple of books. Two of them said you can't bend notes by tongue blocking. So I thought I would never bend because I didn't want to learn puckering. I got Winslow Yerxa's Harmonica for Dummies and he stated you can bend as a tongue blocker. I then found your website and am excited I can continue to learn about the harmonica and keep my tongue blocking style.
The bend I achieved (although incorrect method), was with an old Hohner Marine Band key of C. The A key harmonica I am using for this course is a new Special 20. I am curious if harmonicas come "broken-in" ready to go or if there is a break-in period and that could affect the ability to bend on a new harmonica?
Hello Terry. No, harmonicas don't need to be broken in.
Hello Terry.
Yes, keep tongue blocking... you have more options while tongue blocking and for blues playing, much of what you hear the greats play cannot be done without it.
In regards to bending, you're correct, it's the wrong path to bend with excessive volume and pressure... there is no future in that. It's okay to have a little bit of pressure (tense muscles) and increased volume, but only a little (it's hard to say relax when you're trying to do something new, some some tension is to expected).
A key element for most new benders is that their tongue is not high enough in the mouth (not humped enough). The "main" key element is time and experimenting...I can teach you the physics of bending and get you in the ballpark to where your tongue needs to be and move, but it's up to you to do thousands of reps to achieve bending.
Also, if you want to speed up the process, private lessons can help...Winsow offers Skype lessons...something to think about.