Re: Tongue Blocking, Tone & Paul de Lay

[David Witzany <witzany@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is a subject I've had to deal with in recent days.

When I first bought a harp, all of two years ago, I picked up _Everything you
wanted to know about the Marine Band harp_ (or words to that effect), wherein 
Blackie Schackner (sp?) suggested using tongue blocking, so that's what I
learned.  When I was in New Orleans (and heard a klezmer jazz group, you will
recall), there was a harmonica stand in the French Market, and the guy
running it was a fount of information.  He and I, while having blues harp in
common, differed in that he was crazy about Sonny Boy Williamson and used
lip blocking, whereas I was a tongue blocker into Junior Wells.  I was
amazed how much he could bend a note--he played most of "Mary had a little
lamb" on one draw reed-- and he was amazed that I could bend notes at all.
	I can't say that I could hear a big difference between his tone and
mine, but then again neither of us were tops at our respective techniques.
I do wish that I could bend notes the way he could; it may be a matter of
learning how better to change the shape of my mouth, but maybe it's a built-in
limitation of tongue blocking.  One other problem I've encountered is that
if I've practically swallowed the harp (which happens after a few hours of
playing along with certain favorite recordings), I can't play, for example, 
blow 1 and 4 simultaneously (this is a very folk-sounding effect; there must be
a name for it).  Again, this may be one of those things that will improve as
I gain experience, but it's annoying in the meantime.

dave.