Since there's been so much talk about lip pursing vs. tongue blocking, I thought that it might be instructive to post videos of lip pursers who MIGHT want to expand their horizons by adding in some TB. This video of "Dr. Harmonica" (as he calls himself) struck me as an excellent example of a player who is clearly limiting himself in this way.
There's somethings i can't do TB this is my Club Bro he is LP but he is starting to use split octaves and other tricks to enhance his playing style,
Dr Harmonica is very reminisent of my playing style when LP playing,spitting melon seeds real fast thinking i was impressing every one some persons where some not,I recently crossed over from Lip Purseing at the moment 100% TB i sort tuition to do so my Teacher tryed to help me out by saying ok start out LP Holes 123 and switch over from 4 up saying David Barrett and many others do this,
i was Happy with this aproach so i went home i started to TB as switching from one to the other then became frustrating so i said DANG IT!!in Australian Lingo i will learn to TB strait out no DANGING around,
it worked i got the hang of it in a short time practising quite a few hours of the day,so at the moment TB is for me but i will be reaching into my bag of LP Tricks to pull out some Old Favorits to add in my Rep..
Last Edited by on Mar 03, 2010 2:48 AM
Thanks for the Dr Harmonica video. It sounds similar to my style. I am a lip purser. I could hear what I am lacking. I need to but more chords and splits.
I would add Dr Harmonica is not very proficient as a LP player. People often want to jump all over the map with new techniques trying to get the holy grail and end up with a surface skill level with a bunch of stuff, but no depth in any of it. To sound good just takes plain time and more time, and then more time, and lots of time spent on each little nuance. I guess we all pick which road interests us. Personally I am a LP who TB's about >5% of the time. I may get to the TB more at some point, but I am still too intriqued by the LP to take time away from it. Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
i got a quick question that i hope will just receive quick answers. is there a way to tell if somebody is tb if he is just playing single note? could dr. harmonica be tb but not doing slaps and splits? i made an assumption that we all started tb by just playing single notes and getting comfortable keeping the tongue on the harp. or is that just me?
I think "Dr. Harmonica" is mainly just doing what I call "corn cobbing." He's just all over the place. Sucking and blowing. There's no foundation. Arm him with doing splits and whatever you like toungue blocked and unless he builds more than a tertiary understanding of the music he's trying to play, he'll always sound like this. Like Waltertore said, to a point this guy really needs to do some listening and understanding before he moves past corn cobbing. -Bob
i would agree that dr harmonica is limiting himself by not using tb. what i don't agree with is all the trash talking about his playing...i think that's missing the point.
I was not trash talking his playing. I observed when I saw the video, he is not a very accomplished player and to add more stuff to an already weak foundation will just give him more mediocre mish mash sounds. My point is that one has to have a strong foundation for a house to stand. I meant no disrespect on him personally. I know nothing of his backround, just what was coming out of his harp. Our culture is a quick, give it to me now, and then give me more, immediate, one. Rarely does our culture profess it will be a lifetime of dedication to get decent at something. Learning lots of stuff real quick results in quanity, and lack of quality. It can be seen in just about every segement of our culture. If that is ones goal then I respect that but I am compelled to voice a different way of doing life. I go on the assumption that people want to sound as deep and solid as they can because then they will be able to express direct from the soul without getting frustrated. A few notes that are done right, will give one a clearer path of expression than dozens that are ill formed. Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
It drives me nuts that my mouth sometimes falls off the treble end of the harp when you TB the first (and, often, second) hole. It seems odd that many players (including me, I guess) LP the first two holes, then often TB the remainder. Something ain't right (at least for me)!
Perhaps it just me, but an extra half-inch of so of comb on the left side could be great. Right? A few chroms have this and it makes a big difference to me, anyway.
i understand that walter and i appreciate your and Bb's posts and observations. i might have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning ... however it reminds me of this. i met two of my friends at a ballgame one afternoon. frank looked at me and said" we were going to see if you wanted to go eat with us after the game but i see you have your retarded cousin with you and not only is he goofy but drools too much to be around"......my cousin was standing right by my side. but frank was just making an observation....i guess
Hi Clyde: We all have our days for sure! I actually am a special education teacher at the high school level and teach mentally retarded and autistic students the skills necessary to be as independent as possible through a bunch of businesses I have created. I would love your cousin to come to eat with us! I learned my music from living/playing/touring with guys like Wilbert Harrison (had hits with Kansas city and lets work together), louisiana red, luther tucker, cool papa, sonny rhodes, and others. They taught a different way. It was totally void of words. When you played all over the place and made no sense, they gave you a death stare, the song was cut, and off the stage you go. Conversely when they cut you a spot to play, and you did it right, they would turn and give you a smile. That taught me subconciously (I realize it now but not then) that if I wanted to be their bands I knew I had to play with good energy as well as good techniques. Take care. Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
ok mr. gussow,yah got me and i gotta weigh in even though i'm resisting and typing like a cop. a good LPer, grounded in a good style;butterfield perhaps? can sound pretty awesome. for the record i combine both styles in question. i almost posted a youtube of myself playing little walters 'off the wall' completely in LP style to show just how bloody close an LPer can come to duplicating little walters style. i'm not going to do that because it just sounds a little better mostly TBed. it's super close but no cigar. TBing opens up a world of rhythm chops. TBing is good for you. i think one should open their mind and consider all aspects of harp playing, including overblows. it's worth it to completely re-learn your embouchure. TBers can also check out the incredible articulation one gets by LPing.
On the one hand, I agree with EV630 - hell, he's out there having fun and learning on the job. On the other hand, it doesn't do much for the image of the harp as anything more than a toy anyone can just pick up and play. It would be pretty unedifying to hear anyone on stage play a piano, say, in a similarly slapdash way. I listen to this and somehow I get depressed on behalf of the instrument. The audience are going to leave the gig thinking that that is what the harmonica sounds like in the hands of a pro.
Still, I don't know the context of this footage. He's an okay player (he's better than me - plus I'm not a doctor) and you have to start somewhere. Perhaps it was talent show or open mic setup or kids' party.
Hey, he wouldn't ever get booked at the clubs I play. But he's no worse than the guys I see at jams who never improve but are living a personal dream. Good luck to him.
I agree, these things need to be viewed in the proper context.
To put this in context, I went to a pro-am jam the other day and a guy about 20 asked to use my bassman. He was a very nervous, newbie guitarist who played a few box pattern pentatonics and a few barre chords. Basically his playing was very poor and incredibly hesitant. But I remember the first time I got up to play harp or guitar, in a flop sweat with my heart doing the jackhammer and my ass blinking faster than a strobe light...
So I cheered that guy's every solo. Really whooped it up. And so did all of the other sympathetic "old hands". I've seen it before. In five years that guy will be a solid guitarist if he gets the support and a little guidance.
What is considered pure Lip Pursing ? Does it mean not using the tongue at all ?
I use my tongue a lot when I play : to articulate notes, to play chords/single notes, slapping, and so on. Sometimes I play octaves, blocking two holes with the tongue. What I don't do is the thing where you block 3 holes and play in the 4th. So, am I TB'ing ?
One thing I don' understand : if you TB "on the side", does it mean you blow/draw with the side of your mouth ? And in this case, doesn't it make a lot more difficult to get a good clean tone ?
I'm trying to learn tongue blocking. I want to be able to add whatever it offers to my playing. That said I will offer my thoughts on advantages of lip pursing.
1. You can milk a single note for all its worth. A good lip purser can add inflections on any blow and draw note, bent or not, high or low, overblow or overdraw.
2.Easier to match the horn parts. I jam with bands that play funk, RnB, and soul with horn parts, but no horns. Much easier to copy what the horns do since they are basically single note instruments and do not play chords individually...trumpet,trombone,sax
3. Easier to learn blues riffs by guitarists. Buy the DVD of SRV live on Austin City Limits. Try copying the guitar licks on "Texas Flood". You will need all 10 holes with the overblows. Trying to duplicate what any instrument plays is a great training tool...If anyone matches all his guitar licks on harp I'll pay to hear it.
4.Easy to leak over to a hole in either or both directions. Tongue blockers can play a nice fat 4hole draw and slowly let the 5 in, but can they play a 5 hole draw and slowly let the 4 in? Leaking both ways quickly and alternatly from the 5 hole draw (to 4 and 6) offers some interesting effects in 3d position.
5. Most folk music played in first position is played with the melody on the right side with rythmic effects by tongue blocking on the left side. With lip pursing you can do the same thing..sort of...play the melody in the center and slightly open on both sides while tonguing the roof of your mouth. Same chord...just uses different notes.
I'm sure there are more and please note I am not taking sides....I want to learn all harp techniques that are out there and anything new thats discovered. Just passing along how it seems to me with my limited knowledge.
So is my lack of a harp related nick name a sign that I suck?
Back to the subject, though, I wish we would speak in more concise vocabulary about this topic. Have we even defined, it two threads now, what is meant by tbing? That would really focus the conversation. ---------- Mike Fugazzi vocals/harmonica MySpace YouTube Twitter Facebook Album Ordering
For me, tongue blocking is really tongue slaps (and pull-offs and flutters). So the key thing is you're sealing three notes with your tongue in a four note chord with a tongue slap, then doing the same quickly in moving to the next note. Not just holding the tongue to seal off three and sliding around.
For those who can tongue curl, you can also get a similar fat attack by breathing through the curled tongue as you slap it down onto a hole sometimes sounding the notes to either side or a note to one side as a partial chord prior to hitting the single note.
The tongue curl method is often known as a U-block because the tongue basically forms into a shape of the letter U. Tongue slaps, flutters, and tongue rolls are something totally different than a true tongue block, which is to get a single note be it tongue blocking from the right or left side of the mouth, and the slaps/flutters/rolls can be done quite easily by someone who Puckers/lip pursse/lip blocks.
To get a mastery of the TB technique if you started out with the lip block, first of all, more of the harp has to be in your mouth, and secondly it has to be more open and thirdly, you do need to make sublte adjustments.
There are many times I've fooled people into thinking I did something TB'd when I did it with the pucker and vice versa.
Some of the old school Americana type harp things where you do a lot more chording/double stops than what many modern players tend to do is easier TB'd, tho it can be done puckered sucessfully as well. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
See now going off of Drew's post, I would have thought TB'ing implied always using your tongue to block out the chord and not just creating the sonic effect (make sense?), but he seems to disagree (and there isn't a right answer here).
Sometimes we don't understand each other's semantics. If I were a full time TB by what I think Drew is saying, I would not be playing clean notes.
The point being, let's maybe try and be clear of what our definitions for different phrases.
To piggy back on what Bob jus shared, I LP a lot - especially for clean single notes - but I don't think my mouth position changes much...meaning my tongue moves between the various techniques and not my mouth.
When I LP, the harp is just as deep in my mouth. In fact, I probably cover 5ish holes with my mouth at all times. I wouldn't be surprised if most beginners, etc, who LP don't do this, but a good LP'er can get a ton of the harp in their mouth.
Thanks Bob, now, it's getting more clear : I can do the slap, flutter & roll (good title, that ;), but that's not TBing. I just tried TB while playing with the band this evening, it's hard to control but the sound is definitely different, richer i'd say...
"Some of the old school Americana type harp things where you do a lot more chording/double stops than what many modern players tend to do is easier TB'd, tho it can be done puckered sucessfully as well."
Could you give an exemple, I'm not sure of what kind of "harp thing" you mean ? Also, what's a "double stop" ?
A double stop, sometimes referred to as a chord partial, is basically playing two different notes of the chord played together (as long as it is NOT two of the very same notes, which is an octave). Big Walter does this a lot, like playing 4 & 5 draw together. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Mike, I think what your describing is the core technique. Even glissing around in TB position produces a better tone to my ears and probably because your whole throat is open and you (should) be breathing down to your diaphragm.
I guess what I'm saying is that choking off a chord to hit a fat TB'd note is, for me, the classic sound of good tongue-blocking. You get the greasy fat of the chord followed by the powerful gravy of the note. ;)
YMMV.
This is NOT TO SAY that I TB everything all the time. It's just a technique and horses for courses.
