Re: [Harp-L] Tongue blocking and speed



fjm wrote:
<Process does equal product and I think
<that's some of the reason virtually all of the Hendrix imitators fall
<flat.  None of them are left handed.

Buddy Guy is right handed, and I've seen him do Hendrix as if he was Jimi wearing a Buddy Guy suit. What stops people from playing like Hendrix isn't their hands -- it's their minds. You have to think like Hendrix to play like Hendrix.

<There's nothing wrong with playing all pucker and I don't
<think that playing all tb makes you anything other than unique.

Well, if the first statement above is true, then playing either all tb or all pucker would in fact limit you, because "process does equal product." There are certainly some things that are easier to do with a block than a pucker, especially if corner-switching is added to the block -- for example, you can't corner switch with a pucker because there's only one corner; you can't play octaves or other intervals with a pucker. The reverse is also true -- you can't articulate tongued rhythms with a block, as you can with a pucker, because the tongue is otherwise occupied.

However, those are particular examples, and they don't apply to speed playing. I agree with Jonathan that there's no logical reason why a tongue block has to be slower than a pucker -- either way, you're moving the harp on the mouth, and you're breathing in and out. The player's ability to move the harp rapidly and precisely and breathe in and out quickly is what makes the difference. In other words, left hand technique and breathing technique are the key ingredients in speed playing, not embouchure.

By the way, to the list of very rapid tongue blockers we can certainly add Robert Bonfiglio and Cham-ber Huang. I suppose most blues players haven't listened to much of their work, but it's there, and it tends to demonstrate that the embouchure is no more inherently slow than any other.

Finally, I want to return to my first point: it's what's in the mind, first and foremost, that determines what comes out of the instrument. In August 2001 I heard Ricky Skaggs's awesome, powerhouse bluegrass band play at the Grand Targhee Bluegrass Festival. His fiddle player, an ordinary-looking, slightly portly guy apparently in his late 50s, played a solo that started out fast and ended faster, with a string of 32nd note triplets articulated with astounding power, precision, and velocity. My mouth didn't close for days.

I talked to that guy after the show, and told him how completely my mind was blown by that solo. "Well, y'know," he said in a sweet, mild Southern-accented voice, "if you can think it, you can play it."

Regards, Richard Hunter
hunterharp.com





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