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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
Breath Control and Playing Softly
Breath Control and Playing Softly
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mr_so&so
236 posts
Nov 17, 2009
10:41 AM
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The Buddha Harp Commentary topic started to diverge into this discussion, and it's cropped up in other topics too. It would be nice to have a searchable location for it.
Perhaps I'm guilty of playing too hard, as often I'm playing unamplified. I take Barbeque Bob's suggestions seriously though, and am exploring playing softer. I think that beginners learn to bend and overblow, etc. by applying brute force. But over time, if a player pays attention to his process, he can discover technique variations that require much less force. And souped up harps facilitate the use of subtler air flow. I agree that this is all good. More air is available for music, and subtlety of expression.
I'd like to know about practice/training techniques that help develop breath control.
Also, I have a particular question. I often play while I'm walking. At first this was difficult, but with practice, I somehow manage to breathe, even while walking quickly, and still am able to play. This seems to be a helpful exercise, but I'm not sure. In the context of breath control and breath force, do Barbeque Bob or Buddha have any comments on the benefits or drawbacks of playing while walking?
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ElkRiverHarmonicas
329 posts
Nov 17, 2009
10:50 AM
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Playing louder doesn't necessarily equal playing harder. Better resonance will increase volume without your increasing playing pressure. That happens both in your innards and in your hands.
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www.elkriverharmonicas.com
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mr_so&so
238 posts
Nov 17, 2009
11:04 AM
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Thanks Dave, that's a good point too.
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nacoran
408 posts
Nov 17, 2009
11:18 AM
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I've been having breath control issues. I've just been practicing recording and I've noticed that I use a lot of full stops between notes. I can't even really tell where it is I'm making the stop, somewhere between my throat and chest sometimes, and sometimes it's with my tongue and lips, and it's making what I play sound choppy. The problem is, when I don't do it I can't seem to keep my breath at all. How do you taper a note off so that the note doesn't sound choppy but that you can still breath?
As for playing while walking, I'm fine going downhill, but not uphill.
Dave, I haven't seen you on in a few days, did you get my order?
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barbequebob
86 posts
Nov 17, 2009
11:19 AM
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Here's where getting breathing and relaxation lessons from a reputable vocal coach comes in handy because to play resonantly, two things absolutely MUST happen:
a.) the ENTIRE body HAS to be completely relaxed, so that:
b.) it allows for clear, unrestricted, focused air flow.
Both of those combined will allow you to play more resonantly and actually get much more volume with 1/50th of the breath force necessary, which then places considerably LESS stress on the reeds, which also fattens the tone up considerably and with seriously reduced stress on the reeds, you get the additonal economic pay off of not blowing out harps anywhere near as fast.
Even while walking, you'd be surprised at how bad some people's every day breathing technique is that has absolutely nothing to do with the harmonica and a book that's been out of print for about 20 years called "Total Breathing" had about 100+ exercises for just that and were often quite useful for harmonica as well.
Another thing is to get the diaphragm into motion along with all this and by getting breathing lessons from a vocal coach, that's one of the veery first things that they will be teaching you. for the first couple of months, your diaphragm will be sore as hell because it's a muscle that few people ever really use and any muscle that has gone unused for any period of time will be sore, and I can attest to that from my own personal experience.
Whatever you do, when you do the draw breaths, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER do the military style of breathing where on the inhale breath you suck your gut in. Why? Although this may look cooly macho (like a guy who's 200 lbs. overweight and sees a hot looking girl, sucks the gut in to look more "hunky" even though he's making a total fool out of himself), what it does is constrict the diaphragm and all of the air passages, and this is someting as either a vocalist or a harmonica player you NEVER want to be doing at all because this does far more harm than good.
Dave's totally right about playing louder doesn't equal harder because most players who play too hard usually get winded quickly and their tone 99% of the time is extremely thin and they make everything they do sound rally harsh.
Learning better breath control and resonance is what really allows players like James Cotton and Howlin' Wolf sound awesome just playing thru the PA without the need of any effects at all, and learning these things will make you far less dependant on gear. Even when I saw Big Walter sometimes play amplified harp thru a PA, he got the same tone like it was thru an amp because of those very reasons.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Last Edited by on Nov 17, 2009 11:40 AM
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barbequebob
88 posts
Nov 17, 2009
11:30 AM
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Nacoran, it sounds like you use far too much breath force if you get winded quickly.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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nacoran
412 posts
Nov 17, 2009
12:21 PM
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bbqbob- I don't really think I'm playing it that hard. It may be my asthma isn't under as good control as I thought, but actually, experimenting with the riff a little bit more and I've discovered that if I take a big breath before I start I don't have enough room in my lungs when I hit the draws a couple notes in, and empty my lungs before I start I don't have enough for the blow notes at the beginning. I got most of my formal music training when I played the baritone as a kid. Basically breathing was, 'Take a deep breath and sneak more breath any time you can.' I learned a little more of the same in choir (although at least I learned to breath expanding my chest instead of the 'army breathing' you described.
Playing around with the riff a little more I seem to do a little better if at the start of the song at about 3/4 full breath. I'm also having to sneak some breath in and out through my nose as I'm playing.
I think I need to record myself earlier in the process of a riff. I didn't realize how hard my stops where sounding. The notes were still ringing in my head. And by the time I realized I had to change my breathing patterns for it I already had muscle memory of where I was breathing before, which wasn't working without the harder pauses between the notes.
I think the fundamental flaw with my harmonica playing is I try to think this through as I'm playing, and I'm usually to lightheaded at that point to be of much use to myself.
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barbequebob
90 posts
Nov 17, 2009
12:43 PM
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Most people never think they play too hard until someone who is highly skilled and knows better tells them, and still a number of players are going to be in denial.
Many harp players who started out as horn players may often be using a lot harder breath force to begin with and unlearning hard breath force is something that isn't about to happen overnight and takes a ton of woodshedding to get rid of that.
I myself also have asthma and many asthma patients are often told to learn to play harmonica to learn better breathing technique for their every day lives. I know of more than a few great harp players who have asthma, one being blues great Paul Oscher and Jazz chromatic giant Toots Thielemans.
Recording yourself is a very good idea because you will actually hear for the first time what an audience really hears rather than what you think you're hearing.
I know of someone on another forum that was forced to use a softer breath after being involved in a bad car accident and he suddenly found out about the stuff about softer breath and how it really works and he was prviously getting just as winded as you were getting and NOT having asthma, and tho he learned, unfortunately it was the hard way.
Rather than doing it at 3/4 breath, do it no more than 1/2 breath, or even 1/4 breath for that matter, which is really what you should be doing in the first place and you'll find out just how difficult you'd unknowingly been making things for yourself. It's basically from what I gather, far too muc breath from start to finish.
It also still sounds like you unknowingly tend to do the military style breathing in, which is completely counterproductive when it comes to playing harmonica.
Many players tend to really use an especially hard breath on the draw breath and I think this is where much of your problems may be stemming from. It's not uncommon to see many players having a much harder draw breath than their blow breath is and if you record yourself and listen carefully, this may also be happening here.
Some breathing exercises from vocals can actually be done in reverse for the draw breaths.
Also remember this: Play just loud enough that you won't be waking up a baby sleeping in the next room.
BTW, Mr. So&SI is absolutely dead on correct about beginners, by sheer frustration of being unable to get how to play certain things, will usually resort to using brute force to make it happen also will tend to let that become heavily ingrained and make things harder for themselves and won't recognize what's happening to them and when it becomes heavily ingrained, it becomes very difficult a habit to break.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Last Edited by on Nov 17, 2009 12:56 PM
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nacoran
414 posts
Nov 17, 2009
1:10 PM
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bbqbob, thanks for the feedback. When I said 3/4 breath I didn't mean I was blowing 3/4 as hard as I could. I'm blowing much softer than that. I meant at the start of the song, before I took my first breath, I was trying to make sure my lungs were about 3/4 full, so I had enough for some blow notes, followed by a lot of draws.
I was going to post the two clips- one choppy but with breath support and the second with smoother play between the notes but running out of air early on, but I'm having a hard time getting the clips hosted. Mickel gave me a link to host but it seems to require a Twitter account. There isn't much on the internet I'm afraid of, but Twitter makes me scared, not just for me, but for our whole culture.
Listening and playing it a few more times I noticed that if I don't do the hard stops I keep leaking air. One of Adam's lessons explained how to vent extra air on blow notes if you had a tune with a lot of draws. I learned that pretty well, only it seems if I don't do a hard stop I keep leaking.
(And your right about the harp and asthma, that's one of the reasons I took it up, that and I kept getting tendinitis problems when I tried keyboard or guitar and a lack of tuba gigs. It helps a lot, but it also works like an asthma tester. It lets me when I am not breathing well.) :)
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barbequebob
92 posts
Nov 17, 2009
2:08 PM
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The deal with 3/4 of your lungs full may work for vocals or for 1st position, but in 2nd position, you're actually gonna be working against yourself because with draw notes, you are already inhaling and your lungs will get too filled up with air far too quickly. If you're playing old timey, Americana, or 1st position blues, this would be OK, but where there are a lot draw notes involved, it's like inhaling a boat anchor, and thus making things much more difficult than it actually needs to be.
Takingin so much breath first unless you're playing first positon, where there's tons of blow notes for the majority of the notes being used in the scale winds up being counterproductive.
By taking in so much air before the draw note, it actually is making you winded. The 3/4 breath for first positon and even more so, for vocals works correctly, but many times with harmonicas using positions other than 1st position, it can work against you. Try it for yourself and see what happens.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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mickil
629 posts
Nov 17, 2009
3:04 PM
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nacoran,
I don't attach my mobile number to that fileshare / twitter thing. I've no desire to tweet. It's just as harmless as an e-mail account.
The reason I used it was because I couldn't find another file sharing site without file expiry dates, unless I came up with some readies. Still, it's your choice, dude.
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YouTube SlimHarpMick
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nacoran
419 posts
Nov 17, 2009
3:22 PM
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Lol. I know, I'm just stalling.
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HarpNinja
24 posts
Nov 17, 2009
4:47 PM
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Don't thrash around like a fish out of water. Posture is really important to breath control. Really it comes down to breathing mindfully. One "cheat" would be to lower the gap of some of your harps so that you choke reeds if you start playing hard.
I also think what you're playing can make a difference. Guys think to wail the blues you have to wail on the reeds. Try playing like that when you're trying to phrase melodically or playing something funky. It becomes way harder.
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Mike Fugazzi
http://www.myspace.com/niterailband
http://www.youtube.com/user/NiteRail
http://www.twitter.com/NiteRail
http://www.facebook.com/mike.fugazzi
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rabbit
55 posts
Nov 17, 2009
5:26 PM
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nacoran mentioned his asthma.
I don't know about asthma but I discovered
it recently and I offer it for what it is worth
(possibly nothing):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buteyko_method
This may be of particular interest to harp playing
asthmatics because it addresses "overbreathing."
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barbequebob
93 posts
Nov 17, 2009
5:35 PM
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Excellent point about posture!
From reading the way Narconon descibes his ritual before starting a phrase, it appears to be like he`s doing the right thing if he was still playing a tuba, 1st position, or a 2-tiered bass harp, & with a bass harp, there are NO draw notes at all, and so his breathing technique makes perfect sense, but once he plays 2nd or other positions, that technique is working AGAINST himself and what he needs to do is NOT fill his lungs up with air first because this may well in fact not so much of an actual breath force issue but in fact, more like he`s filled his too close to capacity before the phrase starts and no wonder he feels light headed and he prevents the amount of lung capacity needed to properly support his draw notes. ----------
Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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nacoran
420 posts
Nov 17, 2009
10:20 PM
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That's an interesting article rabbit. Actually, one of the weird things I've noticed about playing harp is that when you are holding the harp properly with both hands sometimes you end up putting yourself in a bad position to breath properly because your shoulders come foreword. Actually, when I'm 3/4 full that seems to work for the particular riff that's been giving me trouble. It's when I try starting full or empty I get in trouble.
Harp really is great for breath control, even if I run into problems occasionally. If I'm feeling stressed out or anxious I tend to start breathing irregularly. If I'm somewhere where I can whip out my harp I can force myself to breath in some other pattern. It might be the cure for road rage and panic attacks.
Mr. So&So, I'm not sure if anyone else addressed walking and playing specifically, but I don't see a big down side except it's one more thing to think about when you are figuring out how much air you have. Don't do it in the crosswalks.
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jonsparrow
1332 posts
Nov 17, 2009
10:25 PM
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iv allways played softly. except when in public i tend to play with more force even though i dont mean too. i can hit over blows with the smallest amount of air. its all about back pressure.
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Kingley
508 posts
Nov 17, 2009
10:45 PM
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BBQ Bob is absolutely right about the breath control and how using softer breath vastly improves your harp playing and singing too.
I regularly attend a jam where all the vocal mics are set to the same level by the same guy. Yet when I get up to sing (I don't class myself as a singer though really) I am markedly louder than other singers. Yet they all strain and shout, I am just relaxed and using my diaphragm.
The same applies to my harp playing. Other guys get up using my rig and constantly complain that they can't hear themselves and their wives/girlfriends moan at me about how they can't hear them through the PA.
When I ask them if they could hear me playing harp. They always say "yes you were really loud and clear over the band".
Now all I ever do is hand these guys my mic (which has no volume control on it). I also point out to them which amp they are in and which PA channel it's going into in case they need to alter it to their taste.
So for me the proof is in the pudding.
I would advise people to listen the the sage like advice from BBQ Bob when it comes to breath control. Because the man knows exactly what he's talking about.
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isaacullah
455 posts
Nov 18, 2009
9:03 AM
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I once heard somewhere (an Adam lesson?) that a good breath control exercise is to lie down on your back and play. If you put one hand on your abdomen, you can feel how you are breathing and use that to help you make sure you are working your abdomen correctly. Well, I never had done it before, but I just tried this out last night, paying close attention to my breath force and how I use my diaphragm, and man, it made a lot of things clear to me...
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The magnificent YouTube channel of the internet user known as "isaacullah"
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barbequebob
94 posts
Nov 18, 2009
9:38 AM
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Nacoran, that phrase that kept giving you problems and needing to keep your lungs 3/4 full, did that phrase contain mostly blow notes?
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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nacoran
424 posts
Nov 18, 2009
11:58 AM
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BBQ-
3d 3b 3d 3b 3b 3b 2b 3b 3b 3b 2b 3b 3b 3b x2
Oh skip it. I got myself a twitter: (actually tabbing it out is helping. I start the draws right after that)
http://filesocial.com/sxzgv6
http://filesocial.com/sydced
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barbequebob
95 posts
Nov 18, 2009
11:59 AM
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That's a perfect description of one of the very first lessons I had from a vocal coach. I also agree that the softer breath makes the effects from the hands owrk so much better, even to the point of using just a single finger for effect.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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nacoran
425 posts
Nov 18, 2009
12:01 PM
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Careful, I think the volume on those links may be a bit off. It's not a great take on either one, just something to show the two problems I was having. How do I embed them?
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barbequebob
96 posts
Nov 18, 2009
12:07 PM
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Nacoran, it sounds exactly what I thought it was, and that's a long series of mainly blow notes, and the method you use would be OK for this except that I think you have a tendency to make your draw notes just way too hard. You really don't need to fill your lungs up with so much air because when the draw notes happen, there's no place for the air to go and so it's not surprising that you find yourself getting light headed, much like as if you've been forced to hold your breath continuously for an hour, meaning you're actually making things a lot harder on yourself than you realize.
It also sounds like you cut off your notes, regardless of it being a blow note or draw note just by breath alone and make little or no use of your tongue to do so as well, which can actually come in handy using the tongue for this purpose, almost like punctuation. By not cutting the note off with the tongue as opposed to just using the breath alone, the momentum from stopping air flow the way you're doing it is actually wasting a lot of breath. Think of it more like as almost talking thru the instrument with the tongue being used as punctuation marks.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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blogward
5 posts
Nov 18, 2009
12:13 PM
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@nacoran: from what I can tell, it sounds like all your breath is coming from the chest - I can't hear any of the depth you would get from the diaphragm. Try pushing your belly out when you inhale - (undignified, I know) - you should get the feeling of 'supporting' your breath, having plenty in reserve in the belly area, like bagpipes(!)
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nacoran
427 posts
Nov 18, 2009
12:45 PM
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BBQBob, Blogward, thanks for the advice. BBQ, I think I used my tongue in the one clip, didn't in the other. When I used my tongue I had enough breath, but the stops sounded to harsh. I couldn't find the balance. I actually have the same problem singing. I over enunciate the ends of my syllables. The take without the blocks was where I got into trouble with running out of air. How do I get a stop with my tongue without over doing it?
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barbequebob
98 posts
Nov 18, 2009
2:23 PM
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It's most likely that you're trying to force it to happen, which is something you NEVER want to do and when you force things, you start getting very physically uptight, and then breath force almost automatically increases without you being aware of it, and so it comes down to being very gentle with it and physically relax. Just strying to stop it with breath force alone is killing you and you're doing it with the force of a sledgehammer on some very serious drugs.
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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nacoran
430 posts
Nov 18, 2009
4:54 PM
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"and you're doing it with the force of a sledgehammer on some very serious drugs."
How did you know about the serious drugs? lol. I swear they are all prescription.
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