David Waldman interview

Hey all ,

This is Bharath Rajakumar ... a harmonica player in Montreal

This may be so unimportant that I shouldn't mention it ... A friend of mine turned me onto the interview with David Waldman recently where David sort of mentions that I said that I could tell when Little Walter was puckering or tongue blocking , and I want to address this for a second ... First of all Ill say that David Waldman of all of them alive today still in my books my favorite harmonica player and someone I consider to be a good friend , ... and truly a master like any of the old pre and post war players

On the subject ... I don't actually believe Walter ever puckered , what I probably miscontrued to David when we spoke about it was that Walter would not always use a classic tongue blocking technique , and that in certain moments Walter would leave the classic tongue block position to use his tongue to do other things like D , inward K , or T sounds off the middle forward part of his palate . Did Walter pucker in my opinion , No , but he used alot of tongue techniques to get various phrases accomplished ... and then resume the classic tongue block ...

I think the general problem with people tongue blocking today is that they don't understand why they are doing it ... they only understand that they are beng told to do it ... the resonant harmonics and wide emboucher that tongue blocking gives you naturally, will increase the depth of tone and prevent you from over bending your notes while giving you greater control , and general dispense with the whiny tone of not doing it ... while also allowing you to add punctuation to any given note ( although most people use that too much just to prove they tongue block , which is the wrong reason to do it ) and inevitably end up looking like they are having a stroke ... and not allowing themselves to be as dynamic as they can be , and dynamics is everything ...

so to all watching , and the few who care about my opinion ... Always tongue block ... but don't handicap yourself if youre trying to figure out some amazing things that some of the masters achieved because the photo says place tongue this way pull this way etc etc etc ... tongue blocking has a purpose and understanding it will help you to do it naturally and skillfully ... use your ears , Walter and so many others saw this as an instrument that they would play and make as many beautiful and rich toned phrases with, as possible with any other instrument , with a wide variety of tongue techniques , they didnt restrict themselves to one thought process ...

Thanks
Bharath