TB or not TB
Mon, 04/19/2010 - 14:25
Hi Winslow,
very impressive your performance with the West Coast boys on Youtube. Things like this are the gold standard for someone like me who is just a struggling beginner.
I wonder here are you tongue blocking here or pure puckering or combining the two?
Toots for instance is a devote puckerer.
Best wishes, izaak
Izaak -
Thanks. I combine tongue blocking and pucker. I started out playing mostly pucker, and over time have become a mostly tongue block player.
I use pucker when I need the rapid, crisp articulations that can only be played with pucker. While I bend fine with tongue blocking, I still use pucker to play overblows for the most part.
I use tongue blocking for a variety of reasons. I can rapidly alternate notes several holes apart and play complex leaping patterns, play split intervals, and play various tongue-movement textures.
Toots plays mostly single notes in a straight line, so he doesn't need most of what tongue blocking has to offer. And he does great things with what he chooses to use.