Re: [Harp-L] tongue roll/full-tone-bend

[Pierre <plavio@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Any
> tips how I could improve my full-tone bends?

The 2 hole was realy hard for me, in fact I found overblows to be easier. 
The 2 draw whole tone bend requires use of diaphram drawing. Bending at the 
mouth will not yield a good bend. As you go lower on the harp, more diaphram 
is required. You have to feel sqeezing at your abdominals around your belly 
button. The breath must be from the bellybutton. At first you should get a 
distorted honk. A lot of the required work on the 2 hole bend is to get rid 
of the distortion once you can bend the hole.

If I put my hand on my abdomen when I do a quick C major scale on the low 
register, I can feel the muscles working (contracting and releasing) as I 
go.

The other thing is, you need considerable power, by this I mean a sharp 
(heavy) attack, this is not the same as loudness. I practice the C scale all 
the time, I am getting extremely fast over the two lower octaves. This 
exercise is great for developing power.

You can search in google for bending tips on the 2 hole.

Does anybody has an idea, how one
> can play a draw 3-draw 4-trill without shaking his head or his hands, just
> with the aid of his tongue (and in pucker embrouchure)?

I just tried this and I don't think this is really possible, at least not 
for me, all I get is an "oy" sound. The thing you can do is move your lower 
jaw rather than your hands or head, but I find this a bit slow and hard on 
the jaw. I do long trills moving my hands and short trills (ex: 2d 3d 2d) by 
shaking my head.

Hope this help.

Pierre.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Klaus-Dieter Linsmeier" <KuKD.Linsmeier@xxxxxx>
To: <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2005 6:45 AM
Subject: [Harp-L] tongue roll/full-tone-bend


> Hi, I am something like an advanced beginner with the bluesharp. To
> improve what I learned intuitively years ago, I bought a book "Bluesharp
> from scratch". Now I have two questions:
>
>
>
> 1)       I have no problem with the half-tone bends and meanwhile, I get
> the full-tone bend on draw 2 at least sometimes. But it sounds very thin.
> On the web one can find comments on sound shaping playing the harp. Any
> tips how I could improve my full-tone bends?
>
> 2)       The authors describes the head roll as a technique for trills
> first, then something he calls the tongue roll. But unfortunately there is
> no advice how to play it. I thought, he might have changed from pucker- to
> tongue-block-technique and then moves his tongue from one side to the
> other and vice versa in high frequency. But doing so, there is always a
> moment, when both draws are open and that sounds absolutely different from
> the head roll (the author claims, that the tongue roll gives another
> sound, but it is not that different). Does anybody has an idea, how one
> can play a draw 3-draw 4-trill without shaking his head or his hands, just
> with the aid of his tongue (and in pucker embrouchure)?
>
> Best regards
>
>
>
> Klaus
>
>
>
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