Re: Tongue Blocking, Tone & Paul de Lay



So far my post has elicited the following responses:

1) There's no difference as far as tone is concerned between tongue
and lip blocking.
2) To command the full range of tone control you must master both
methods of blocking.
3) To hear the difference in tone between tongue and lip blocking
listen to Walter Horton when he switches. 
4) The ability to control tone does not depend on tongue blocking it
depends on the ability to control tone.

My hope in making my original post was to elicit a discussion of what
are the dominant factors that effect tone and I was hoping for
specifics.  

Lately I have been listening to a Carey Bell recording of "Last Night"
in which the harp is recorded with unusual clarity -- it might as well
be a capella, so complete is the separation between the instruments.
He plays in the key of E on an A harp.  The recording offers an
unusual chance to study a wide range of tone color as he plays slowly
with many long-held notes. At two points in particular, both bent
notes of D and C, while he is holding the note for two or more beats,
I can distinctly hear the sudden disappearance of virtually all the
higher overtones, while the volume of the primary frequency jumps up;
then, as the note is ending the high overtones reappear.  It's the
familiar oooooooooooooooooooooooahh change of color, but made much more
dramatic by the recording.  What made this one different from so many
other oooooahh's is the chance to observe, in slo-mo, as it were, this
sudden damping of the high overtones.

Can anyone explain what allows the player to banish these overtones,
normally so characteristic of the instrument, from the sound?  Please,
fellow harpists, don't tell me to practice.  We all know that tone
changes with practice.  Tell me *what* to practice.  Please, don't
tell me I need to develop my ability to control tone.  I want to know,
in technical terms, on what that ability depends.  Mic to harp
proximity? Air pressure?  Mouth position on the harp?  Mouth cavity
shape?




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