breathing breathe breath harmonica harp

A comment I commonly give students after they play a passage for me is to play their blow notes softer... especially the lower three holes (they're more sensitive to higher pressures). We play so many draw notes in blues that when a blow note comes along, our bodies use that blow note as an air dump, and the tone quality of our blow notes suffer. So, if you listen back to yourself on recording (you record yourself for personal critique, right?) and notice a more airy, flat tone, make a point to play your blow notes 20% softer.

When someone suggests to you to "breathe from the diaphragm," what they're really suggesting you do is to open your airway... the throat, oral cavity, tongue (dropped) and mouth so that the air traveling through you and the harmonica is warm. This provides a large, resonant chamber for tone production... a lower probability that your tongue will be raised somewhere along its length (causing unintended side affects to reed vibration) and lowering the probability of you playing too loudly (causing premature reed failure).

Sounds like a good suggestion.

Exhale before you start to play.