Serious Debate
Hi David, Firstly I want to say that I really like your teaching style. You explain and show teqniques in such a way that as a student I sit and go " ah I finally got it", I also like the material you give us and the whole format of the LOA. But, and yes there is always a but.....I always used to pucker and TB was a mystery to me and an unachievable one at that, although I have tried in the past to delve in to it failing every time. With your lessons and teaching technique I am getting there and I am enjoying the experience. However I think I am at a crossroads and the signs are a bit obscured to me right now....I have one or two friends to whom I will play a bit to, I will TB and pucker just to get feed back from them.
To them and myself my tone as a pucker player is much better than it is Tongue blocking but my accuracy now is far better Tongue Blocking. My bending as a pucker player is 100% better than trying to bend TB and I kind of feel that right now I do not do a good job puckering nor tongue blocking.
I have read countless articles and watched many interviews about the pucker v TB techniques and all the pros and cons, your lessons as I have said are brilliant but there is no room in them for pucker players. So I guess I have 2 questions, first are some people just naturally pucker or TB players? and secondly is the place I am in just now a normal and anticipated situation, where neither technique is good?
This of course opens up a whole bundle of new questions. For now though 2 is enough.
Regards Alan
Thanks David,
I guess i am letting a bit of frustration creep in, which i know is counter-productive. When the tongue blocking is just not quite working and I decide to go back to some of my staple practice songs using puckering only to find that that's not quite working either it is a wee bit disheartening. It's like I have forgotten how to pucker.
Maybe when things are not working, that is the time to stop and work on some theory instead. Thank you for reminding me that there are options and it doesn't have to be one or the other when it comes to playing techniques.
Your advice is always very welcome and much appreciated.
I understand your dilemma, I had the same dilemma in my journey as well. I recommend you use the mixed-embouchure approach like I mentioned, it's the most common solution for where you're at in your studies.
Hello Alan. Something that you can keep in mind is to use a split embouchure method. This is where you commonly pucker holes 1, 2 and 3 and tongue block everything from holes 4 and above. When you bend, you pucker. When you want tongue block sounds below hole 4, then tongue block, but not bend. I played this way for many years... Gary Primich, Paul deLay and Gary Smith, to name but a few players, also did.
To answer your other questions more directly... your tone and bending skills will improve over time... to the point that no one will be able to to tell the difference between your embouchures. With this said, this is not something you need to tackle now, use a split embouchure method.
When studying harmonica music to copy you'll need to make a decision where you will use which embouchure. This is not uncommon for instruments by the way... there are multiple ways in which players can finger (wind instruments and string instruments for example) the same passage of music, so they too plan out how they'll play a passage while learning. The good thing is that whichever way you decide to play a passage, and thus memorize it that way, when you improvise, the embouchure(s) you ended up choosing will be ready for you... they live in that lick.