Won't bend more that half step
Hi there,
I've been playing harmonica for about 2 weeks now and I have a big issue. Nobody was able to help me so far, so I thought about writing here. Right now I am practicing bending, particulary draw bends on the first six holes, and I managed to get half steps on hevery single hole (even a whole step on hole 3), but I just can't seem to get past that. I can't get F on second hole (I'm playing C major harmonica) and notjing on hole 3 (i thing it's A flat, pardon my horrible music theory knowledge). Is there something I'm doing wrond? I tried everything, moving root of my tongue to soft pallete, curving my tongue downwards, but witn no luck. Can you please help me? I'm starting to get really frustrated.
Hello Davíd,
thank you for your answer, i really appreciate it. I will be practicing more as you told me. Unfortunately, I am going for tooth extraction tommorow, so I guess I won't be allowed to play harmonica until the stitches are removed, which should be next week. Geez that will be a long week :D Anyway, once I'm free to play I will give it a go and see what comes out of it after some time. My hopes are that it will not stay this way for me, because that would be just another frustration in my miserable short life :) No seriously, perhaps I'm gonna move on.
Thank you again!
Ivo
Hello UnityCZ. My recommendation is to keep doing what you're doing... you're doing excellent.
It's common to wait four to six months to show a student how to bend... the goal is to have a basic ability to play single notes without unintentionally bending (especially hole 2).
Once a student has developed good movement and reasonable tone I then show them the basics of bending and it commonly takes a month or two for them to get as far as you have. Follow my bending lessons, watching them many times to continually adjust what you're doing and have patience with yourself, it takes years to develop good bending control.
P.S., a tip for you, don't practice 3''' (Ab), you won't need it until you study 3rd Position down the road and students who practice it now tend to lose control of the very important 3' (Bb) and 3" (A). Lastly, relaxation is now the key, when your tongue and auxiliary muscles tense up they'll prevent the tongue from moving where it needs to go for the deeper bends. Best wishes on your journey.