[Harp-L] Do you move your mouth or your harp?

Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> · Thu, 14 Jul 2005 09:03:05 -0400

"Robert Gaustad" wrote:

<I think it was Sonny Boy Williamson who said something to the effect
<that if you move your harp when you're playing and not your mouth on
the <harp,
<you're not playing.  I can't find the exact quote but the essence is
<that
<the best way to play is to hold the harp in the same position and move
<your mouth over the holes...
<I'm curious if any of you play harp by moving it side to side with your
<head stationary or close to it at least.

Harmonica technique as taught by Robert Bonfiglio and myself, among
others, requires moving the harp, not the head.  There are a lot of
reasons for this: 
1)  It is tiring to the neck muscles to move the head, and tired neck
muscles translate sooner or later to poor tone.
2)  Moving the harp with the left hand is more precise, theoretically at
least more rapid, and less fatiguing than moving the head. This is
immediately obvious when you do a shake between two adjacent notes.
3)  Moving the head means constantly changing the angle of the mouth to
the harp, which means the sound changes as you traverse the harp from
end to end.  For an extreme example of how this sounds, check out any of
John Mayall's early records. He played on a rack, which means he HAD to
move his head, and when he plays above the 5th hole on a diatonic his
tone gets noticeably weaker.   
4)  If you use corner-switching -- i.e. playing out of both sides of the
mouth, a very powerful technique, admittedly one that a lot of players
don't use -- moving your head simply screws up your positioning on the
harp.  

That said, as I reported from the Buckeye Harmonica Festival in 1999, I
saw Howard Levy play there, and I was astounded at the speed and
precision with which he was able to play by moving his head.  Since then
I don't insist to my students that moving the harp is the only way to
go.  I do, however, think that it's the best way to go, as opposed to
moving the head.  Moving the harp is certainly less work than moving the
head, and all other things being equal, less work is better.

Thanks and regards,
Richard Hunter
hunterharp.com