David's Tip of the Day: "E" for Bending

I'm off to Stanford to give a talk, as part of their free-reed instrument mini-class, on how bending works and its application to the blues. This all started with a joint MRI study on how bending works on the harmonica. We've been working on this for six months and as soon as the paper is published in the ASA Journal (Acoustic Society of America) I'll start sharing our findings... most cool of all, images of the bending process within the mouth, in multiple plains.

What I can share with you right now is how strikingly similar the spoke "E" is to the position for the tongue in the bending process. If you're new to bending, work on that "E" position... tongue high to the roof of the mouth in, towards the middle-front... this is the general location for a 4 or 3' bend on your A Harmonica.