Tounge Block Bending
Posted Sun, 01/31/2010 - 14:10 by Bender
Hi Gary , thank you for sharing and taking the time to help new players. I have a problem trying to understand the mechanics of tounge block bends. When I bend when lip blocking I can feel all the mechanics at work. Can you explain how you were able to get this feeling and understand the mechanics when you started to tounge block the bends? Please be as graphic as possible so I can visualize what you do. Thank you.
Comments
TB Bending for a puckerer
It is probably not my place to answer, but I noticed you have this question all over the place for different players to answer, so I'll give it a shot anyway.
I puckered the first six months before I discovered Dave Barrett's Tongue Blocking Method Book and I have used it exclusively ever since. Yes, even on the 10 blow bends up to the C harmonica.
Re-learning tongue block bending was exasperating because I felt like I had to backwards for a little while in order to go forward. As boring as it sounds, I just started to incorporate tongue block bending about 20 to 30 minutes a day into my practice. That's about half the time I have available for practice on any given day.
What I did:
Knowing it could be done, I simply started to try. If moved my tongue all over the place and was convinced my tongue was too short to hold on the harmonica and still get a bend. This went on for a week or two with no progress......but I knew it could be done.
Then one day I involuntarily swallowed while in the draw mode on hole 4........and I heard it!
It really was possible and my tongue wasn't too short!
But now how do I repeat it. I could not get it until another 20 tries and then it happened again (about the time I wanted to give up). So I decided it was time to pay close attention to where my tongue was no matter how many times it took. Needless to say I started to be able to get it about every six or seventh try. Now I started to feel the back of my tongue hump down or up (depending if I was in higher or lower octave areas).
Over the next couple of weeks I started to gain more control with daily practice I started (almost naturally) incorporating them into instrumentals I already knew.
The take away is this -
It will take time (unless of course you are a natural)
The pay off is huge since there is no awkward embouchure switching
Do not move the front of your tongue right now, focus on holding it against the harmonica and either swallowing while drawing in air or trying to hump it toward the roof of your mouth.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Mind you this was over a year ago, thus before this website, but the only reason I had the perseverance to do this is because I e-mailed Dave about a different issue (pulls in particular) that I could not seem to get a handle on and he gave me some brief but important advice the ended with the comment to keep "digging in". At first that final comment irritated me because it did not seem to have substance. However I came to realize that the only reason I got better was because I kept trying - even though there would be days with no apparent progress and I wanted to throw the harmonica out the window and get on with other things in life.
So with that in mind - Keep digging in!
just keep practicing
i understand what you're going through. it took me a long time, and lot of practice (years) to get my tongue block bending down. for a long time i would have areas in a solo (like a deep bend on the 2 on a low harp) that I would switch to pucker because i wasn't confident in my bending skills in a tongue block. if i learned to tongue block everything from the beginning then i wouldn't of had that issue. dave's right to teach all of you guys in tongue block from the get-go, it will save you a lot of aggravation down the road. in regards to what my tongue is doing, i feel it humping up more for the bend, less moving back, like in a pucker.