Bending with throat
Hi, I'm new to the website. I really enjoy the lessons and info on here.
David, I have a question regarding bending. I tongueblock and when bending I don't move my tongue but I use only the muscles in my throat to create the bend. It;s kind of the same musclemovements of the throat that I'm using to create a throatvibrato. I'm getting the right pitches I want but, and this may sound kind of weird, the sound of the bended notes sound kind of to thick, or bassy in comparrison to the normal unbended notes. I don't get the, kind of, crisp sound other players are getting. It;s most noticeable on the two draw deep bend.
When reading my description of my problem, do you have any idea of what I mean or should I send in a soundfile so you can hear what I mean?
Thanks!
Thank you for your fast reply David. I'll send you a little soundfile of me going acoustically through the bends on hole 2 of an A harmonica. I will also go to your bending lessons and have a go on them from square 1.
Should I use the share recordings part of the website to send in my little audiofile of me playing bends on the 2 hole draw of an A harp?
Yes, through the share option. The key of harp doesn't matter.
Oh, now my audiofile is on the share recordings page. Ehm, can you please give me your opinion David and remove my file from that section? Thank you.
Other than playing a bit too loud, your bend sounds great. When the bend starts to creep up about and 1/8 of a tone it's because you're going a bit too far and the bend is starting to fail. So... play a little softer and don't try so hard... otherwise you have great sounding bends.
I am quite pleasently surprised to hear that David. I'd swear I hear to much of a bassy kind of sound in my deep 2 hole draw.
The thing is, in your description of bending, as in many others who try to describe what's going on in the mouth while bending notes on the harmonica, you talk about raising the tongue up. My tongue stays in the same place with bending the 2 hole draw as when I'm playing the normal 2 hole. Therefor I assumed I was doing something wrong while bending and therefor the more bassy sound on the second draw. ( On youtube there's a video by Lee Sankey that describes bending with only the throat. BTW Sankeys got great beautiful tone. For those that don't know him, check him out )
You're right about my playing being a little to loud. I started playing harmonica again after not having played for more then 10 years. ( I never was to serious about it back then and only played for a couple of months ) I used to play much louder when I first started out on harp. I've been having a go at it for a couple of weeks now again and need to loose some bad habits. Thanks again. Very encouraging to hear that my bends are not as bad sounding as I thought.
Glad you decided to come back to the harp, just hearing the quality of tone in your bends tells me there's most likely some good chops there.
In regards to pitch... because we ARE talking about pitch... check your bends with a tuner, this will tell you if you're achieving the correct pitch (reference the file found in Understanding Position Playing titled, "Harmonica Chart [All Keys].pdf" for a listing of all the pitches on each harmonica).
Lee is a great player, we've spent time together through the years. There's a lot of mystery in regards to the bending process, due to everything happening in the mouth. I've dedicated a lot of time in my teaching career to understand it well... most recently the MRI's I was speaking of. This is an ongoing project and the first round will be published in the Acoustic Society of America journal soon... I'll keep you guys informed. The image stills and videos showing the inside of the mouth look what I expected them to look like in the bending process... so not a hole bunch of new findings from what I expected through my years of experience of teaching, but the images are super-cool to see and I'll share them with you when I can.
In regards to playing loud... this is normal... a normal progression... you can now focus on playing softly... opening your resonant tone chamber (oral cavity) and have the tone radiate out of you... no need to force bends, your body has learned where it needs to go. Your tone will be at it's best and harmonicas will last you for years.
Hello Jack. You are controlling your bends with your tongue, you're just not cognizant of it (I've done a lot of research on this, including real-time MRI imaging). With that said, it all has to do with the resonant pitch of your mouth for each bend... and there are many ways in which to create the "shape," or what we call "volume," needed to produce a particular bend.
For example... you could have your jaw dropped and tongue raised up high to create volume X (remember, we're speaking about volume as the size of the chamber in the mouth, not volume as loudness) to create the bend... OR... you could have your jaw NOT dropped and tongue humped up much further back in the mouth to create the same volume X. I assume you're doing more of the latter... controlling the bend with the back/root of the tongue (near the gum line), with the rest of the tongue fairly high in the mouth.
I recommend you try controlling your bends slightly further forward in the mouth and dropping the jaw slightly as well, creating a chamber more like a sphere and less like an elongated oval.
I know this is very abstract, but that's what bending is. It all gets down to experimentation, and lots of it, though you most likely will have success with this if you give it a couple of months of work. If you want to send me a recording of you playing acoustic through all the bends I'll be happy to take a listen.