Tongue blocking bending history
It took me months of stubborn unsuccessful tries before succeeding in bending. Just as David had warned in his lessons... so I must not be the only one to take that long.
I started with this site, so "natively" tongue-blocking. Once, out of desperation, I tried to pucker and bend, and I immediately got some response. It seems far easier to find bending with puckering rather than tongue-blocking. (I did not go on in that way, maybe mastering pucker-bends is also hard, but at least it seems easier to start.)
Am I right in supposing that the first bending techniques were developed by puckering?
David mentioned that knowing how to pucker-bend does not help to learn tongue-blocking bending.
Are there people that naturally and easily find tongue-blocking bending? Or is it always a long process?
If so, who first thought it should be possible to bend while tongue-blocking? Does the history of tongue-blocking bends start from someone in particular, that showed it was possible?
Lesson taken: never underestimate the ingeniosity and ability of musicians!
Thanks.
Hey Eric, Make note that I cover some of the Henry Whitter songs Winslow mentioned. Check out the Old Time Fox Chase breakdown. Best, Joe Filisko
The first known bends were recorded in 1904 by vaudeville entertainer Pete Hampton, who was definitely a tongue blocker: Check out his recordings if "Mouth Organ Coon." He only bends Draw 1, so it's possible that he puckered that note.
The first known recording of second position, by Henry Whitter in 1923 or '24, was definitely tongue blocked, with bends integrated.
The one big difference between tongue blocked bending and non-TB is that the tongue has less front-to-back range of motion with tongue blocking and must also use the ability of the tongue to raise or lower the "floor" of the resonant chamber you create to tune your mouth to the bend. Maybe you've already read what I wrote a few days ago about this in the general discussion forum. If not, I suggest you give that a read.
Personally, I started out as a mainly pucker player. I didn't need tongue blocking for single notes. I used it only for splits and would switch back to pucker to bend. I even remember reading books that stated that it was impossible to bend with a tongue block. Eventually I decided to knuckle down and figure it out. For me personally, it probably helped that I was already an accomplished bender when I set out to adapt it to tongue blocking.