Question on Bending
Hi David,
I saw in one of the interviews someone (I forget who now) said that both tongue blocking and puckering were important skills to learn. That made a lot of sense to me (articulation and speed for puckering) and you seemed to like that idea (even though you focus on tongue blocking in your course). The tongue blocking is coming pretty easily for me and I totally understand why you focus on that technique as being the foundation for new learners. My tongue blocking technique is now much better than my puckering.
The thing is though that I find bending easy to start with puckering because then I can move my tongue into the positions that you describe in your first study on bending. If however I try to keep the tip of my tongue forward to where it would touch the harmonica for bending I find it totally impossible to move any note doward in pitch at all. I can't even make the sounds that you make except the "sh" sound without moving my tongue backwards in my mouth so that the tip no longer touches my finger or the harmonica. It actually even causes me pain in my jaw sometimes if I try too hard to move the back of my tongue upwards without moving the front of my tongue backwards to allow it to lift.
I'm wondering if my anatomy is just set so that I should be doing bends while puckering? Would there be any downside to just learning bending with puckering and not with tongue blocking? I will have to get my puckering skills caught up to my tongue blocking skills I think to start to use puckering for bending, but would that be a bad thing to do at the same time that I work on my tongue blocking?
I kinda think that it might be hard and a bit confusing to be going back and forth between puckering and tongue blocking as a beginner, but maybe learning both and the flexibility right from the start could be beneficial, even though it might take me longer?
I just think that bending might just not even be possible while tongue blocking for me even though I find tongue blocking to be easier than puckering otherwise. Have you ever met someone else with this problem? What do you suggest I do?
Thank you.
It will be limiting then. That's too bad, but exactly what I needed to know. I will keep on experimenting. It's ok if it takes a long time. I thought if there was no downside and I can already bend with puckering then I would just go for that, but since there is a downside - I'll keep working on it.
I quite literally though get pain on the right side in my temporomandibular joint when I try to lift the back of my tongue without moving the front of the tongue back. I don't have pain during any other activity or at any other time. Any ideas or suggestions regarding that?
The bending process does not take muscle tension, though it's hard to say relax when you're trying hard to do something for the first time.
Try placing the tip of your tongue behind the your lower set of teeth. While placing light pressure on the back of your teeth... very light (this is analogous to the face of the harmonic), speak "K." Everything should be relaxed and light. Do you feel this same tension in your jaw with this?
Thank you David.
I've been trying everything you suggest in the videos. I have put my tongue on my finger, I've put my tongue behind my teeth and used the harmonica and am finding it impossible to lift the back of my tongue without engaging the muscles at the back of my mouth and throat without moving my tongue backwards. Making the second sound (the "k") even causes tension. I can make a "kuh" sound quickly (as in articulation) but to hold that sound while keeping my tongue forward creates a lot of tension. The third sound ("ooh") creates extreme tension with my tongue forward if I even attempt it and creates pain.
I've had to stop trying today because I was told that if I keep it up if I get to the point where a clicking starts in that joint that I could create a permanent problem. I have to figure out some way of keeping my muscles and that joint relaxed while learning, but I'm honestly at a loss to figure out how to experiment without causing tightness. With the tongue forward I must engage brand new muscles I've never used in that way before to lift the tongue.
I'm able to make a half tone bend on all the holes (that can make bends) and a whole tone on the second draw easily enough by moving the middle of my tongue the way you instructed in the videos while puckering. If the tip of the tongue moves away from the finger/teeth/harmonica it all feels easy, with no tension, so my body understands where the middle and back of the tongue is supposed to moving to make the sounds, just can't figure out how to do it while the tongue is forward.
I've watched your video of the MRI - so cool! That made it super clear what my tongue has to do. It's just that when I do that, and I can feel it happen and it does create a bend, my tongue just naturally moves backwards away from the harmonica. It's a catch-22. I have to experiment with the muscles until I figure it out, but at the ame time I have to keep the muscles relaxed in order to not hurt myself while figuring it out.
Any suggestions you can offer would be wonderful.
if you're not already doing so, experiment with tilting the face of your harmonica downwards (as I teach in the lessons). By doing this, you can place the harmonica deeper into the mouth and match the angle of the tongue better (instead of sticking your tongue out to tongue block [TB]). I bring my harmonica to my tongue, not the tongue to the harmonica. Doing this, the tongue is relaxed, and not stretched out to play the harmonica in a TB. Raising the tongue is as simple as moving to the K position (no tension, becomes I'm just literally moving to the same place the K happens in speech... again without having to stretch my tongue). Experiment with this tilt for about a week and see where it goes. If this, and other experimenting doesn't yield results, then using a mixed-embouchure approach may be worth looking at. Check in with me in a week.
I've been playing with the harmonica tilted down from the beginning as you instructed. I think that's part of the reason I can be so relaxed with tongue blocking and it's coming so easily. I found that hint to be vital for tongue blocking.
I can make a K sound with a relaxed mouth in speech as an articulation but when I go to make it into a prolonged sound parts of my tongue I think goes into a U shape and it is not located where you have it in your MRI's and when I try to move it my tongue goes down, not up. I keep on experimenting with that K sound with no bending produced. I think I make that sound differently than you do during speech and with prolonged sound. When I pucker and bend, my tongue is not at all in what I would use as the K position. It's more of a "Guh" position - if that makes sense. These sounds I make with the tip of my tongue down behind my teeth or back. I think part of the trouble I'm having is having the tip of my tongue where it can meet the harmonica. If I push the harmonica in so far as to not have to lift the front of my tongue up or out, there's no place to even hold it the harmonica is so far into my mouth! It also takes away the flexibility of my tongue for other techniques.
I think you have given me the idea to play with "guh" instead of "kuh" and maybe other vowel shapes with the K.
I will keep on messing with it as much as I can without producing pain and get back to you in at least a week.
In the meantime I'm watching and practicing your chromatic lessons - just in case. There are worse things that could happen than to end up playing mostly the chromatic. ;)
I see. Experimenting is the key. Experiment, experiment, experiment... it's a blind technique.
Update:
Much later in the courses (forgot where already) you said that you suggest that your students don't even try bending for quite a long time until they have all their non-bending technique totally solid. You said that all your students that tried ended up not having the strong foundation and it messed them up in the long run.
As much as trying to bend is so tempting I decided that since you gave that time-tested and concise advice, I am going to follow it and I totally gave up on the idea of working on bending for now as soon as I heard you say that.
And that was AFTER I actually started to make a little progress. :)
I'm still going to watch all the videos on it to put the info deep into my unconscious mind to ferment though and to be able to look forward to when I'm ready.
I'm so glad I'm watching through so that I can catch those kind of golden nuggets!
I really so appreciate you adding them and being so thorough in your teaching.
Dorothy (and others),
So glad to find out that other people have exactly the same struggles as I do!
I too find a stark difference in ease of pucker bending versus tongue block bending and was going to post the same question as Dorothy, but decided to check the forums first. Side bar...is there a search function for the forum that I am just not noticing?
Anyway, I figured I would add my experiences to the pile, in hopes that, together, we can all eventually learn/perfect this signature harp trick. I'll try to convey my progress as chronologically as possible.
Fist, I could only get dips with pucker bending and nada with tongue block bending.
Dave, your videos helped a ton. I could get a better dip and occasionally hit the right note (I usually stand by our keyboard when I am doing my bending practice). The problem is, I really could only do it by making the tongue/mouth shape first, and then placeing my mouth onto the harmonica and drawing. This seemed wrong to me....and is/was still a struggle to get the bend consistently with tongue blocking and to sustain it. I got really hyper-focused on the tongue position thing, which actually caused me to slide backwards on my progress. Got pretty frustrated.
Took a break on bending for awhile.
Started working on pucker bending. Yay! It works pretty well. Worked on getting deeper bends and better quality notes. Started to worry about not being able to tongue block bend, and secretly hoped that only ever pucker bending was acceptable (but knowing that it probalby was not!).
Had a brain storm (or maybe brain fart) while practicing pucker bending at a stoplight. I know, I know, probably should not be practicing harmonica while driving, but, not a lot of free time these days.
The night before, I had been practicing pucker bending, closing my eyes and really focusing on what was going on in my mouth while sliding into the bend. It was like I was imagining what the space was, what the muscles were doing, what it felt/looked like. Hard to describe. I was able to hone in a bit better on the bend while doing that.
So, the next day in the car, it just clicked into my head, really not even a thought so much as like a gesture drawing, to try and focus on the shape of my tongue block embrouchure *rather* than trying to get my tongue to *do* anything. I know this does not really make sense when I write it out...basically, I was trying to recreate the same feeling of my tongue and mouth that I experienced with pucker bending but only on the side, It worked!
Welll...sort of. It works sometimes. I am still getting the hang of it, but I think this is the right direction. I realized how much I was fighting my tongue, trying to get it to assume that "humped up" shape.
The main problem I am dealing with now is I think called "stalling?" It's like the reeds get stuck. I do notice that, when I pucker bend, there is a sweet spot where the reeds are like just about to bend, and then they do, and the airflow gets smoother, and it takes effort and focus to stay in that sweet spot. It is a lot harder to do with the smaller space with tongue blocking. I also feel like I have to use a huge amount of force, which i know isn't right.
So...headed in the right direction, but still suffering. Hope all this blathering makes some sort of sense, or at least imparts a sense of camaraderie!
Best,
Matt
It makes perfect sense... at least to me Matt!
Your thought of the tongue shape having to be at the side is going into my long-term memory right now so that I think about that when I feel like all my other techniques are so solid that bending should be "faced up to" again. :) I'll see what that thought brings about.
When I started to be able to bend with tongue blocking at all Matt, what I did was stop thinking about anything that David said to do completely and let my unconscious mind have a go at it. haha! I'm not sure that will be at all consistent or repeatable, but SOMETHING actually happened. Nothing at all was happening when I tried to bend with tongue blocking thinking about what David instructed. What he instructed worked like a charm with puckering, just not with tongue blocking for me. What I learned in later videos is that David started bending by puckering and then transferred TO tongue blocking later. He says that it's just as easy to learn from the beginning one way or the other, but at least for me that's not true. I do believe however that going slower and learning it WITH tongue blocking right from the start is going to be worth the extra effort for me and I do trust David when he says in a later video that it's better to hold off with it until I get all my other techniques totally down. It's kind of a relief actually because I still have more than enough to concentrate on with hitting all those single notes up and down the instrument consistently even when jumping around and adding in slaps, octaves, tremolos and dynamics!
I know that to be a real blues harmonica player I'm going to need to know how to bend eventually, but until then, the lessons on the chromatic are awesome.
BTW, I think stopped at a red light is the PERFECT time to practice! Your eyes can still be on the light. No harm, no foul.
Oh, and the search engine is coming David has said elsewhere.
Thank you so much for your thoughts. I AM going to use them.
Dorothy... In regards to when to start bending... the course is designed where students start to bend in Level 3, so this gives students about six months of study before they dig into the technique. This is adequate time to get their foundation strong.
MattTheHall... right now there is not the feature to search the forum. We do have this in the redesign, of which we’re working on right now.
I’m glad to hear that the videos helped. The key things that you did is that you experimented (physically and mentally) and gave it time. Due to the blind nature of the technique, it require this. And lastly, patience!
You’re right, bending with a lot of force is not correct, but it’s hard to say to relax when one is trying hard to do something new. Focus on the wave-like action of the tongue I teach in the lesson. The idea is to sneak up (from small cavity to large) on the bend. Keep at it, you’ll get it. And… the advantage of being able to TB bend is that you don’t have to switch embouchures in mid-play.
So David, with my knowledge of music in general and the time I'm dedicating I'm starting to feel quite comfortable with the other techniques and I highly doubt it's going to take me six months to get to level 3. So, to use a car analogy, is it like bringing the car back to the dealership based on mileage or time, whichever you reach first?
I haven't figured out how to make a recording and THAT might take me half a year, but not getting through being able to play what's in the first two levels.
But, I'm thinking there's really no harm in just waiting until my unconscious just wants it bad enough that she just does it one day. That's my present strategy. :)
One day I imagine that I'll be driving the hubbie crazy playing the harmonica (like stopped at a red light) and I will just have to get more "bluesy" just so as to not keep boring him so much.
Yes, you can speed up that six month norm with more daily practice. I would say that it's best to play a couple of months, no matter how much you study.
That's great advice. I'll definitely wait a couple of months.
I'm already not terrible at Walk with Me and Temperature so it would be very tempting to go faster, but I am going to resist.
It's really not mostly how much I am studying, it's mostly how much I already knew of what you teach in your course... and teach very well I might add... but so much of it really is basic musical understanding. You've put it all in context for the harmonica so that I can perceive the trajectory and exactly what I need to do - and that's exciting and makes me want to just get on with it. :)
I know that it's more of a challenge and important to be able to play a simple piece masterfully than it is to play harder things without mastery. When basics are strong, so is the foundation. I will get the basics really strong for the next two months and then try bending again, and probably pester you more then. :)
Thank you for your time and teaching.
Hello Dorothy. The challenges you're speaking of are common for someone new to bending. I don't believe it's important to learn pucker bending... the goal is to have tongue blocking as your primary embouchure, which means to bend in a tongue block. If you have to switch to puckering for bending, then you'll be limiting the techniques you can do on the harmonica while playing. The key for tongue block bending is the wave-like motion I speak of in the lesson. Give this time, and a lot of experimenting... it takes a lot more (time and experimenting) then students think it should take. Keep it up, you will get it.