[Harp-L] Corner switching



Since I studied with Chamber, who taught me corner switching, I happen to know that neither Adler, Reilly or Sebastian used corner switching in their playing to any extent. They all jumped. I will corner switch hundreds of times in a single Harmonica Concerto movement.

The only new part of this is I have developed a technique to tongue out of both sides of my mouth while using corner switching. This technique keeps the notes in tune even in the high register where tonguing tends to bend the pitch.

The big question is - Do I believe that one should corner switch in jazz? Absolutely! I play blues harp going back and forth between tonguing and spit position all the time. I even sometimes use switch corners on blues harp. What's the big deal. When you need to leap, go out of spit and into switch corners and back to spit. You can learn to do leaps over the corners like D-G-D-G-D-G by going left to right then up left to right then up left to right. You can also play A-D-A legato by going left to center to right. Don't get caught in dogmas. If you learn both spit and tonguing, you can play back and forth for different passages and you expand what you can do on the harmonica.

Toots uses whistle or spit position only, but in the 70's when I was at his apartment, he noticed that I used switching on some passage and commented how legato it was.

Our job is to pick up where these guys leave off and go the next step.

Harmonically yours,

robert bonfiglio



<Unless Robert has come up with a radical new variant of this (which <he may have, he has certainly become a master of the technique) then <I don't know why you would label tongue-switching or corner-switching <as "Robert Bonfiglio's corner switching technique". Larry Adler, <amongst others, was known to have used tongue switching and it has <been a regular feature of the classical tradition for decades, since <before Robert was born.






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