playing at speed with pucker and tongue blocking embouchures
Hi David,
I've read in a couple of places that players such as Paul Butterfield were able to play fast by using the pucker technique. It seems to be commonly understood that he played primarily using a pucker embouchure and only used tongue blocking for techniques such as octaves.
I play exclusively using tongue blocking and I can't see the logic in this assertion - whether applied to Paul Butterfield or to anyone else. Clearly, if you add slaps or other techniques to your tongue-blocked notes that could slow you down as you get into faster playing, but if you simply tongue block the notes then, for the most part at least, what you're relying on to produce fast licks are moving the harmonica, your breath and your tongue, which are what you'd use if you employed a pucker embouchure.
I wonder if you agree or disagree with what I've written and if you think there's any reason why it might be possible to play faster using a pucker embouchure? (I'm not saying playing fast is the holy grail of harmonica playing or anything of the sort, but it's certainly a facet of harmonica playing.)
As always, thanks for a fantastic resource.
Peter
Hi David, many thanks for the swift reply.
That's very interesting and helpful.
Just as a quick follow-up question, why the difference in this case?
Peter
Sure, I'm happy to help.
When puckering, your tongue is free from the face of the harmonica, allowing for articulations like UDL LA DL LA DL LA DL like in the case of "Messin' with the Kid" or double tonguing, where you can articulate on the forward (TA) and back stroke (KA) of the tongue, giving you a very fast TA KA TA KA TA KA or DI GI DI GI DI GI.
Again, very interesting and helpful. Thank you.
Hello Peter. There is no difference in speed between the two embouchures. What puckering can do faster is to articulate one note many times very fast (reference "Messin' with the Kid" by Junior Wells or "Whammer Jammer" by Magic Dick). This is just one technique though, and tongue blocking offers many, many techniques that pucker cannot do, so it's best to make tongue blocking your primary embouchure and switch for this one pucker technique.