Tongue blocking
Sat, 11/24/2018 - 10:25
Hi David! I’ve enjoyed watching ur interviews with all those great harmonica players.
I noticed you almost always ask the interviewee about tongue blocking, how often they use it,
do they pucker holes 1,2 and 3 and do they tongue block the rest? When u say that, are you referring
to playing holes above 3 out of right side of their mouths and blocking to the left? Have you found
that puckering the bottom 3 holes to be the norm for most players and that’s why you ask that question?
I was also wondering why or if it’s just implied, that if a player is tongue blocking, do you think he/she can
also bend notes using that embouchure? What are the attributes of a good tongue blocker?
Hello Dave, all great questions.
Before harmonica education (pre-1990's), players figured stuff out on their own. Sometimes we got a tip from a more experienced player, but it was commonly vague, and the player giving the tip usually didn't know all the ins-and-outs of what they were sharing. So, we had a piece-meal education, that was almost all self-taught, and surely trial-by-error.
A lot of players, including myself, didn't know about tongue blocking and just pursed their lips up (pucker embouchure) and started playing. As the years rolled allowing they would wonder why they didn't sound like the pro's they were copying. The missing technique was tongue blocking. Once a player was taught it (or stumbled across it), then they incorporated it into their playing. As you stated, commonly they use it on holes 4 and above (puckering holes 1 through 3). Players eventually learn how to tongue block the lower three holes as well, though some have the lowers three holes so engrained with the pucker embouchure, they play the lower three holes that way most the time.
Yes, you can pucker or tongue block bend. Simply put, there are more techniques available in a tongue block. Tongue blocking can do everything puckering can, minus some cool articulations that are pucker-exclusive (listen to Jr Well's "Messin' With The Kid" and you're hear it at :44).
I teach tongue blocking from the start, so there are no mysteries for you to figure out... just tongue block all the time. The three main techniques you want to learn (the attributes of a good tongue blocker) are slaps, pulls and octaves.