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Let's take a quick break from learning about the nose and breathing and read this interview released today at Blues Blast Magazine on Bob Corritore http://www.bluesblastmagazine.com/issue-9-22-may-28-2015/

For most students, the slippery slope of opening the nose while playing the harmonica begins unconsciously. Their body learns that if the nose is opened, the issues of unintentional bending of holes 1 and 2 are fixed. When opened, the tuned size of the mouth cavity that was causing issues with that hole/note is combined with the nasal cavity, creating a cavity that's lower in pitch than those reeds can be bent to, which results in better tone and no possibility of unintentional bending. continue reading...

New videos have been added to the popular Minor Playing lesson. In Sections 2 and 3 of the lesson I've teamed up with Richard Sleigh and asked him to write a study song using the Minor Pentatonic Scale (same as the Blues Scale, minus the flat-5) to write a head that uses the same notes in four positions... 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th so that you can see how a melody can be directly transposed to one of these minor-friendly positions. I also requested that he solo two choruses in each of these examples so that you can hear the cool things that are unique to each of these positions. continue reading...

Use a slight yawn… this drops your jaw slightly (opens your mouth cavity), drops the middle/back part of your tongue (most important... this the #1 cause of poor tone, even if everything else is in alignment), raises your soft palate (so that no air goes through your nasal cavity) and opens your throat (gives you a larger tone... noticeably more bass).