Lip Pursing Oddity
Sat, 03/01/2014 - 20:17
I switch between TB and LP, and was playing around with LP the other day, when I noticed something. I was getting a single note, but the adjacent holes on harp weren't covered. Without moving the harp or my lips, I could move my tonge forward and feel holes 2 and 4 open next to the 3, but I wasn't getting any sound out of them. Anybody else notice this?
Phil
Players who isolate single notes without using the tongue on the harp can use very large mouth openings and still get a single note. Even if you take into account the comb teeth (dividers) on both sides of the hole, the mouth opening can seem far too large to isolate a single note.
In my books, Harmonica For Dummies and Blues Harmoncia For Dummies, I show photos of me with my mouth formed for a puckered single note (having just played one) and the front of a harmonica, so that the reader can see just how large the mouth opening really is - it looks like it should play two or three holes, not one.
So it's interesting to read your observation that the holes on either side of the one you're playing are actually exposed to air but not sounding. Maybe there's a fluid dynamics engineer out there who can explain the cause.