Tongue point of contact - tone vs bending
Hi David,
I'm working on tone and I have a question.
I'm working on getting the harmonica deeper in my mouth, or another way to put that is to get the harmonica to contact my tongue further back from the tip.
So that really helps with tone, but when I focussed on really maintaining this and not allowing it to come out again, I noticed that I could still bend the 2, but couldn't bend the 4 and 6. Is it necessary then to move the point where the harmonica contacts your tongue back and forth as you move up and down the harp?
If so, and I need it to be nearer the tip of my tongue to bend the 6, say, will that negatively affect the tone of the 6 once it straightens out? Or are we are still getting tone as long as we are holding our mouth at the right tuning for the very top of the bend?
It's a balance between your two comments Jeremy. You can keep your large embouchure the entire time and develop muscle memory for the higher bends (like you said, using more of the front of your tongue), but it's also common to see players make their mouths slightly smaller and focus on using a but more of the front of the tongue on the higher-keyed harmonicas or when going up to play blow bends on all harmonicas. The tongue change is slight, you'll see most the chance in the mouth size.
Rethinking this, and isn't my initial assumption just wrong?
I said "I'm working on getting the harmonica deeper in my mouth, or another way to put that is to get the harmonica to contact my tongue further back from the tip."
But that's not even necessarily true, since you can put the harmonica deep in your mouth, and still be nearer the tip of the tongue, for example when playing a split, such as an octave.
Otherwise, the point of tongue contact doesn't change the tone. We just need to make sure we're getting those 4 holes normally to get the full sound out of slaps and pulls. So I think that we need to find the right point of tongue contact for that, and then just move the whole thing as deep in the mouth as it allows.
Your first statement is generally correct... if you place the harmonica deeper in your mouth you will make use of the further back, wider part of the tongue. You can then of course bring your tongue further back to use more of the tip of the tongue on the harmonica, but that's a change from the natural relaxed position the tongue is in, so I don't see anyone having an issue with this as a general tip to use the wider part of the tongue for your regular tongue blocking.
Correct, the point tongue contact does not change the tone, it's the shape of the tongue behind the contact point... it should be lowered, to create as large of a resonant chamber as possible. Technically speaking the mouth size only needs to be that of the pitch you're playing, but most people are too small to begin with, so it's good to exaggerate the largess if embouchure.
Yes, using the wider part of the tongue for pulls is superior.
Yes, it's always a balance... the exact balance being found with personal experimentation.
I'm still having some trouble with following the advice of keeping the harmonica deep in my mouth, at the same time as following the advice you gave me elsewhere about needing a lighter touch on the face of the harmonica, and at the same time keeping my tongue and jaw low for tone, and being ready to start a bend.
(True, nobody said that just having the advice would make this easy!)
For example, currently when I play Temperature and I'm exagerrating the slaps, I'll get to a dip and find I'm not in the right position for a bend. Or if I'm using bending to go all over the place in Feelin' For The Blues, when I try to add some tongue techniques, I can't get my tongue on and off properly, or if I can, I can't go back to bending afterwards. I think I must not have one position I use all the time, which allows me both techniques.
Could you please recommend an existing exercize or something new that I can use to practice combining tongue blocking techniques with bending techniques? Something that will require using both alternately in the same passage, so that when I can play it, I'll know that I have a better position?
It sounds like you're too deep and large. This is a balance... big for tone, but no so big that the cavity of your mouth is tuned so far away from the note you're playing that you have to travel far to get setup for the bend. Try to find that happy medium.
Reminder... how the tongue is sharped behind your tongue block is more important than anything else. If your tongue is humped up in the middle or back, it will cause unwanted bending and poor tone. You may want to focus more on lowering the middle and back of your tongue (slight yawn) until you're happy with the tone (make sure to experiment with this in front of a mirror... mouth open... no harmonica... and confirm what your tongue is doing, most people are surprised that when they think they're lowering their tongue that they're not).
Lastly... it sounds like you're in a "paralysis by analysis" loop. You may want to review my videos with Hob Bosold and follow my instruction with him, as if you've never played harp... start over so to speak to erase maybe some of the blocks that are happening right now... maybe...
Hang on, I don't think I was right with this...
I can bend the 4 and 6 with the harmonica deep in my mouth, but I need to move a different part of my tongue than what I'm used to.
So now I assume the best thing to do is to keep it in the same deep position and just work on getting some new muscle memory for those higher notes?