Newbie queries
Hi
I am a newbie to music learning and harmonica.
I am at Level 1 of the lessons and have a couple of queries i.e.
1) while practicing playing I am facing an issue where my mouth dries up and I am having trouble 'sliding' the harmonica across my mouth.
related to this, I am also facing a 'stickiness/friction' with the top-bottom metal plates.
any suggestions on how do 'smooth sliding'
2) while putting the harp in the mouth and practicing tongue bending etc, where are teeth supposed to be in the whole process ? i.e. how deep should the harp go in - should it touch the teeth ?
3) before buying , I did some research and almost all sites said a C harmonica is the first one a beginner should buy. However your lessons are based on a A harmonica.
Question is till how many lessions will my current Special 20 C will work/ be relevant...
4) lastly my jaw (the temporomandibular joint ) kind of gets 'tired' after some time of practicing .... understand its part of the body getting used to the harp .... but are there are any tricks or best practices.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Rgds
Tarun
Thx Winslow for the quick reverts ...appreciate.
will try your suggestions.
I have saliva but as I am practicing and breathing, it dries up and the sliding movement of lips across the plates is 'sticky'.
I have a new question ... while trying tongue bending, I am just totally at loss on how to position the tongue ! i start with presenting the harminica to just above the tip ....and very soon its the tip that starts getting used !! also the tongue just doesnt seem to be 'obeying' ....it seems to have a mind of its own.
Plus I am not sure how many holes etc I am blocking ....and the TBT sounds like a good tool but I am in india and its not availiable here .... any other alternatives or DIY suggestions you might have.
Rgds
Tarun
SALIVA
If air is drying your saliva, I wonder whether air may be leaking in places it would be better not to go.
If you're tongue blocking (and even if you're not), air should not be moving along the inside of the lips. It shoudl be entering through the right corner of your mouth and moving back along the tongue and through the oral cavity. If air is leaking in other locations along the lip-to-covers interface, you need to seal those places.
Getting a good seal is not a matter of pressure, Rather, it's a matter of letting the lips drape onto the harmonica covers in such a way that a seal forms gently. Getting the harmonica far into your moth, once again, helps with this.
TONGUE BLOCKING
At this point, it may not be important to determine how many holes you're blocking. Right now you need a good seal between lips and covers, and the ability to cleanly isolate a single hole without making the opening in your mouth etiehr too large (sounding more than one hole) or too small (which will make the sound suffer, as air cannot pass freely).
Later, the size of your spread (how many holes are in your mouth) and your block (how many holes the tongue is covering) will become important. But one thing at a time.
BENDING
Getting your tongue to block holes while you also bend is asking it to do two things at once, so, yes it can seem like a challenge.
Try this:
- Without a harmonica, hold your tongue gently between your lips with an opening at the ight corner of your mouth, as if tongue blocking.
- Whisper "kaaakaaakaaakaaa."
- Notice how a part of your tongue well back from the tip rises to the roof of your mouth to make the "K" sound. This is the same part that narrows the airflow when you bend.
- Try the same thing, but inhaling.
- Now try it, but instead of letting your tongue drop away from the roof of your mouth after making the K sound, pull it away slowly, as if it's stuck with glue or honey.
Remember, during the entire exercise, the tip of your tongue doesn't move; the "K" spot is the only thing that moves.
Once you can manage this, try refining it in two ways.
Create and maintain the narrow passage
Try to keep the tongue raised at the K-spot so that air has to travel through the narrow passage created by the raised tongue. This will make an audible air rushing sound and you may also notice the sensation of suction pulling the tongue upward toward the roof of the mouth.
Move the K-spot to tune the bend
Once you can create the narrowed passage, you need to be able to shape your oral cavity to tune it to the bent note. One way to do this is to slide the K-spot slightly forward and backward along the roof of the mouth. If you move it forward, you'll hear the air rushing noise change to an "eee" sound. If you slide it backward the sound will change to something like "ooo."
When you feel like tring it on a harmonica, I'd recomend start with Draw 4. This is one of the easier notes to bend, and often a player's natural location for the K-spot will also coincide with the optimal location for bending that note. (This isn't always true, and it will take some experimenting and effort in any case to get your first bend.)
Try to get the moist inner lip on the harmonica covers (that's what you mean by the top/bottom metal plates). If your mouth is moist, the inner lips usually will be moist as well.
You can see me demonstrate this in Video 0301 (select it from the sidebar to Chapter 3) for my book Harmonica For Dummies here:
I can bring my teeth down to touch the covers, but usually they don't actually make contact. The lips make primary contact on both the bottom and the top, with the tongue also extending over the lower lip to contact both the harmoncia and the lower lip.
In other words, the harp is well past the theeth into the mouth,whih means having your jaw lowered enough for this to happen, and lots of inner lip contact.
You may be tensing your jaw. It's normal to be a bit tense when you try something new, but try to put yourself in the jaw configuration (along with lips and tongue) to play, then just take a oment to experience that configuration without actually doing anything. Try to relax and feel this as normal. Then work that same feeling into your active playing.
I'm among the many authors who base my teaching around a C harmonica. However, blues teachers are increasingly entering their teaching around an A harmonica. Both are used in blues.
Anything you read on this site can be played on any key of harmonica. The same licks, riffs, melodies, etc., will come out in whatever keys and will still sound like those same riffs, licks, and melodies, but in that key. This is fine except that if you listen to or play along with the recorded examples or backing tracks, you'll be in the wrong key.
Get the A-harp. You'll definitely use both harps in your playing.