Impossible to get tongue blocking overblows
I can get all bendings while tongue blocking but after several days trying I cannot get the overblows.
I really want to incorporate overblows 4,5 and 6 to my little arsenal (I don't care about overdraws) but it is being an impossible mission.
I know Joe Filisko and Dennis Gruenling can get them, but How? (I know they are harmonica aces and I am not one).
I will keep trying but,... Any advice on this?
Thank you in advance pals.
Thank you very much Mr. Yerxa.
I will keep working following your instructions.
You need to have a harp set up really well. Or, at least, that has been my experience. Just because you can slam the reeds while puckering on a harp, that doesn't mean it is optimal for overbends. However, if a harp is well set-up and gapped so OBs are possible, then it is easier.
Mike makes a good point, which I didn't get into.
Some stock out-of-the-box harps may overblow reasonably well on some notes, while others will not. They all can benefit from setup by a good customizer.
Generally, the stock Marine Band and other nailed-tgether wood-bodied harps will be less OB-ready than screwed together harps such as the Deluxe or Crossover, or mid-priced and higher priced plastic or metal bodied harps.
Some harps will definitely not be OB ready regardless of what they're made of, such as Lee Oskars.
Airtightness between body and reedplates is the first concern, followed by reed setup. Reed setup starts with efficient air direction through the reeds, followed by more subtle aspects of reed adjustment that make the reeds more sensitive to bending and overblowing actions. A lot of the adjustment has to do with getting some parts of the reed closer to the surface of the reedplate, narrowing tolerances between the edge of the reed and the edge of the slot, and reducing torsional vibration (the tendency of a reed to vibrate from side to side instead of from front to back).
You can learn to do a lot of this yourself, and it involves a lot of trial and error and fiddling about to get right. That's why you can pay guys like Mike to do it really well.
Half an hour ago I got my first ob while tongue blocking in the 6th hole. I was playing a c crossover only gapped (and not very narrow). The problem is that I don't know how I did it.
Some time ago I decide to only gap and straight the reeds of my harmonicas and not to lose time embossing; I need all my time for learning to play.
I think is cheaper to pay some expert to do it, my harmonica will be save and my time is very expensive.
Paying someone to set up your harps saves you the time to do it (and to learn to do it!). You pay for their expertise - and all the time they spent learning how to do it, and you benefit from the results.
Learning to work on your own harps is valuable as well. But there are not bad choices (except maybe doing nothing when something needs to happen!).
I think everyone should know some things in regards to working on their own harmonicas. Gapping and tuning should be in everyone's arsenal. Jason Ricci is an excellent harp tech but he lets Joe Spiers work on his harps. In Howard Levy's video on overblows he shows you how to set the gaps for optimum overblowing. However he let's Joe Filisko do his work. My point being not everyone can afford a $275.00 overblow harp. I know there are less expensive options but when you want a stage 3 harp from Joe Spiers you pay for it and get what you pay for. Same with Mike Fugazzi (Mike is very reasonable for the quality of work he does).
Hi sergiojl,
I TB all overblows and overdraws, so I imagine you can too! It's no big deal, it's just how I learned to do it from the beginning.....it just takes practice.
Awhile back, I made 3 videos demonstrating the simple adjustment of a Golden Melody and then getting the overbends. This doesn't take a long time.
Maybe this can help you out: http://youtu.be/Rh79GaDVmC8
Joe Spiers
www.spiersharmonicas.com
sergiojl.
If you can OB puckering then the harp is setup to OB TB'ing. I learned puckering and bending and OB'ing only puckering. Now I only TB everything. The OB's TBing took me a while to learn.
The way I learned to do is to to postion the tongue more to the right blocking or narrowing more of the hole and also focusing on the tongue...you need to drop the tongue just as you do with draw bending...it feel strange at first but once you get it it will be second nature... Start with the 6 OB and just keep with it until you get the OB to pop.
Go from 6 draw bend TB'ed and then try the 6 OB in almost the same tonngue postion but close off more of the hole bwith the tongue moving slightly to the right....
It is real hard to explain...
528hemi
I appreciate your suggestions.
I will keep trying.
One clarification.
Never obstruct the harmonica hole to bend.
When 528hemi says "close of more of the hole" I take it to mean close of more of the air passage inside your mouth, but not at the point where the air passes from your mouth to the harmonica itself.
Winslow
Yes...Thank you for clarifiying
I can hit now the 6 ob easily.
Thank you pals.
Probably OB5 is the easiest overblow (OB) to get with a tongue block (TB) - "easy" being a relative term.
If you look at what is involved inside your oral cavity, you do the same basic thing as bending - tune your mouth to the bent note you want. If you play tongue blocked draw bends in the same hole and neighboring holes, this will give you a clue as to the tongue placement and overall oral cavity shaping needed for that particular overblow.
However, there are two critical differences: precise tuning, and air resistance.
When you play blow bends, you always have air pressure pushing back on your tongue. You need to work that pressure to nudge the reed into the bending behavior. The same is true of overblows, but you need to figure out how to do this with notes tuned lower that the regular high bends (that is, in the middle part of the harp), and you need also to figure out how to do this with a tongue block if you've only done blow bends with a pucker.
The precision part means you have no room to be approximate. If Blow 5 is E, Draw 5 is F#, and OB 5 is F#, you can't tune your mouth to F or G - it has to be F#. How to learn this? See the blind harp exercise later in this post.
How to learn the air resistance part? Work high blow bends on a low-tuned harp first.
Let's say you have a regular C-harp and also a Low C harp (such as a Hohner 364 or Thunderbird, or one of the low-tuned Seydels).
Work your Hole 7-10 blow bends on the Low C, doing them all with a tongue block. This gives you the feel of bending exhaled notes in that range.
Now, work on doing the same thing in Holes 4-5-6 of the regular C-harp. Feeling the air resistance and working it will be a familiar experience. But you still might not find the overblows achievable. You may need to work on your precision as well. That's where the blind harp comes in.
A "blind" harp is a harmonica where some of the reeds are deliberately disabled. You can do this in a way that is totally harmless and reversible: Take off the top cover of the harmonica and use adhesive tape to seal the slots for the blow reeds on the holes where you want to learn the OB. This makes it a bit easier to get the OB from the isolated draw reed.
When you do this, first play the draw note, then switch to the overblow. Playing the draw note first gets the reed in motions and sort of "warms it up" for the opening-reed action when you overblow. Disabling the blow reed means you can concentrate solely on influencing the behavior of the draw reed.
Once you have good success playing overblows with the blind harp, remove the tape and use your finger to block the blow reed slot. Block the slot, play the draw note, switch to the overblow, and as you sustain it,quality release your finger from the blow reed slot and try to sustain the overblow. The tonal quietly will change, and you may have to adjust your oral cavity to keep the overblow from disintegrating, but with practice you can eventually get the overblow in normal playing conditions.