[Harp-L] Blow Bending and Embouchures

[Eric Nielsen <ericbarnak@xxxxxxxxx>]

I have noticed a certain phenomenon and would welcome any opinions or
explanations. Sometimes I experiment with bending the same
reed using different embouchures. For instance, I will see how easy is it to
overblow hole 4 on a C harp with pucker as opposed to tongue block. I know a
lot of the difference is due to practice and technique. Almost always I can
get better results with pucker, my primary embouchure. Now, surprisingly, I
can actually get a pretty smooth blow bend on hole 10 with a high F harp
using tongue block. This bend has always been troublesome for me using
pucker--in fact I never can get the semitone blow bend reliably. But, when I
use tongue block, it works fine.

I haven't done any exhaustive survey of this, but, in general: the 10 hole
blow bends are easier for me with pucker on lower pitched harps (from D on
down), but tongue block works better for these same bends on the highest
pitched harps like E through F. I haven't tried a high G or A. I'm really
just starting to explore this, but I hoped someone on the list has some
experience or thoughts on the matter. There also seems to be an unexpected
difference between pucker and tongue block on hole 1 overblows. I haven't
really explored this much, so I'll leave it at that.

Maybe it's just my own peculiar mouth, but I suspect it may have something
to do with resonance chamber frequencies or buccal muscle sensitivity.

Always curious,
Eric