Bending
So, I first learned bending using lip pursing, which came pretty easy for me,
I'm having a harder time bending using the Tounge Blocking, do you still use only tongue blocking
or is it kinda like a combination?
When you bend a note, you tune your oral cavity to a lower note, one that's withing the ability of the reed to bend to.
Your tongue does the work of tuning your oral cavity - baiscally the inside of the mouth where the teeth reside and some of the area behind that.
You create a tuned chamber using two actions:
- Defining and activating the chamber by raising the tongue to narrow airflow, making the air travel faster and at lower pressure. This converts whatever is in front of that narrowed area into a tuned chamber. I call this the K-spot as for many bends you raise the tongue in roughly the same spot you would to make the sound of "K."
- -- When you inhale through the K-spot, you'll feel suction trying to pull it closed.
- -- When you exhale through the K-spot, you'll feel pressure trying to push it open
- Sizing the tuned chamber to tune it to a specific note.
- -- You can move the K-spot forward to raise the pitch or back to lower it. This is like moving the back wall of a room to make it bigger or smaller, but with an open window in the wall.
- -- You can raise or lower the "floor" or the chamber by raising or lowering the tongue between the K-spot and the tip of your tongue.
When you use just your lips to bend a note, the K-spot can move freely backwards or forward for most if not all bends.
When the tip of your tongue is on the harp, you have less front-to-back range of motion for the K-spot (though you can move it very far forward for blow bends), but you still have the ability to raise or lower the floor.
Concentrate on floor motion along with activating the K-spot for one of the easier bends, like Draw 4, to start getting your tongue blocked bending action started.
Re Winslow's notes about that "K" sound, Jon Gindick teaches using the sounds "kee" and "koo." (It's a fun exercise to make these sounds as draws while, e.g., you're out with friends at a fancy restaurant. Someone in the group is bound to panic and try to do a Heimlich Maneuver on you.)
But ultimately, what your tongue and mouth cavity are actually doing may very different from what you think they are doing.
For myself, reviewing the MRI study that David participated in (as "victim") some years ago was a real eye opener. It may help others who are working on bending. Available at https://www.bluesharmonica.com/sites/bluesharmonica.com/files/mri_bendin...
I am having a difficulty fully bending the 1, 2, and 3 draws. I can get close - on the 2 draw the half step is easy and on the 3 draw I can get a full step, but I am still missing a half-quarter step for the full bend. I have watched the Bending 1 and 2 modules multiple times as well as many many youtube videos. I can get the 4 and 6 draws to the right pitch (though I can's overbend even if I try).
Anybody have similar problems in the past and may be able to give some tips?
You might be getting air in through your nose. If that happens because you're not closing your nose properly, bending will be harder. Try if closing your nose with your free hand makes your bends easier and you can achieve the problematic bends. If you do, you know something you need to work on. Also try yawning while inhaling and raising the back part of your tongue: lower bends require a wider cavity than higher pitched ones so the jaw must drop and the tongue must be raised further back than for other bends. It's common that lower pitched bends are more difficult, I can't bend 1 or 2 draw at all on lower pitched harps like a low C, it requires a lot of practice. A harp is easier, just keep trying these ideas and the bends should come soon.
I've been working on bending for the last few weeks using tongue blocking. I experimented a little with lip pursing to get the feel of what my tongue was doing and then tried to replicate it using tongue blocking. That seemed to work for me. I haven't had too much trouble getting the bends apart from one draw, mainly because my tongue feels like it's on the opposite side of where it wants to be, but a little perseverance and that's coming along fine now. I just need to work on control and tone, which seems to be a case of fine tuning the tongue movement.
One thing I found that was a huge help in cracking tongue block bends is relaxing the jaw as much as possible and letting the tongue do the work. When I first started working on the bends I used a jaw relaxing exercise before, between and after: put the tip of your tongue at the top your mouth just behind your front teeth and let your bottom jaw hang slack. After a couple of weeks relaxing the jaw becomes second nature and the need for the exercise fades away.
That's a couple of things that helped me, along with with more reps than a mad dog chasing its tail. Think I still got a good way to go with it though.