David's Tip of the Day: Good Tone - Part 4 (Subcontious Mouth Cavity Tuning)

From yesterday... "Grab an A Harmonica... play a 1 draw... then a 4 draw... and then a 6 draw. What do you observe your tongue and jaw, i.e., the mouth cavity, doing?"

If you have years of experience bending on the harmonica, you'll find that your jaw slightly drops and the back of your tongue moves slightly back for the 1 draw. Even though you're not bending, your mouth cavity (which includes the position of the tongue) is poised to do the bend if you desire to.

The same phenomenon happens for the 4 draw... the jaw doesn't move and the middle of your tongue slightly raises. And the same for the 6 draw... the jaw slightly raises and the middle-front of the tongue slightly raises. Keep in mind that jaw movement is not necessary for bending, though many players commonly do move the jaw slightly.

Even though you're not cognizant of this pre-positioning for the possibility of a bend... your body has learned to be efficient and is ready. If you do find your mouth cavity doing this, that means that when playing a draw note that the smallest movement of the bending process will lead to a bend. It also means that a vibration can happen. What's really going on?... the mouth has learned how to tune itself to each reed you're playing. Amazing, isn't it!

Experiment with this. If your mouth cavity is not making these changes, you don't have enough experience bending and your body hasn't intuitively learned this as of yet... be patient... it will learn it with time and practice.

Tomorrow I'll help players that haven't developed this muscle memory as of yet so that they too can have a chance of efficient bends.