Harmonica placement at all times
Sun, 08/09/2020 - 19:18
David
With all these techniques(playing a scale, tongue blocking, bending, octaves,
etc.) you SHOULD have the harmonica deep in your mouth and actually feel the harmonica at the corners of your mouth. In turn, this will produce a clean warm tone, right? Sometimes I feel the harmonica is not quite far enough inside the mouth and not really touching corners of my mouth. I still get a rather decent sound but not the best tone. In retrospec, when you INITIALLY always put harp in mouth, place it deep and feel corners of mouth against harp with slight tilt, no matter what technique your trying to accomplish. Is this correct? Thx JT
Hello Jayatee72. Answers below...
"With all these techniques(playing a scale, tongue blocking, bending, octaves,etc.) you SHOULD have the harmonica deep in your mouth and actually feel the harmonica at the corners of your mouth. In turn, this will produce a clean warm tone, right?"
Yes... if your throat is also open and your tongue is in the correct position (Lowered. If your tongue is raised... commonly in the middle and/or back, you will have tone, and unintentional bending, issues).
"Sometimes I feel the harmonica is not quite far enough inside the mouth and not really touching corners of my mouth. I still get a rather decent sound but not the best tone." It sounds like you're probably okay, you'll want to focus on tongue position and opening the throat. Check that you tongue is lowered by playing the harmonica, then taking the harmonica out of your mouth and looking into a mirror to see if your tongue IS actually lowered.
"In retrospec, when you INITIALLY always put harp in mouth, place it deep and feel corners of mouth against harp with slight tilt, no matter what technique your trying to accomplish. Is this correct? Thx JT" Correct