Body size of the player
Hello,
i want to ask how important is the body/mouth size (volume) of the player for good tone?
I'm rather a slim person and i wondered, if someone with more body size has a better tone from the beginning or can everybody who tunes the mouth and everything else to the pitch, archive a good/fat tone?
Thanks alot & best regards
Thanks for your clarification, it motivates me that there are no obvius physical limitations.
I played 2 years with lip pursing and since 5 months i tongue block.
My tone got better with tounge blocking and i think it enhances with more practice.
I feel that the mouth and body is much more relaxed with tongue block.
Alex Pacclin and Konstantin Reinfeld are good examples to, both have very beautiful tone.
Thanks i keep practicing. ;)
Body size?
Look at Little Annie Raines - about five feet tall and normal weight for her size, and tone for days.
Big Walter Horton was tall but very thin. Again, tone for days.
Howlin' Wolf was huge in every way - and huge tone, too.
So I don't think body size has much todo with it.
Internal volumes and respiratory condition may well have something to do with it, but without examining all the best players with sophisticated medical equipment, we don't have any data on that.
To cultivate tone, do all the usuall stuff - close your nose, open your throat, get a relaxed but airtight seal between lips and harmonica with as large an opening as possible in your lips/tongue, keep your tongue out of the airflow unless there's a good reason to involve it, and breath gently and deeply from your diaphragm.
And don't forget the influence of your hands cupped around the harmonica. Not only do they shape tone, they can also make a note louder if formed precisely.