[Harp-L] re: bending

[jim.alciere@xxxxxxxxx]

I've been playing for more than thirty years and hitting a third hole half
bend with vibrato right off the mark is difficult.

Get some friends together and jam. Try to play the riffs together. Play some
third and fifth position. Most people can hear if the note is off in
relation to other instruments.

If you don't have anyone to play along with, buy Junior Wells Hoo Doo Blues.
It's almost all in 3rd position. You'll get used to hitting those half step
3rd hole bends and those whole step second hole bends. Besides, the album
rocks. Also play along with that Woody Guthrie album with Sonny Terry, or
failing that, with Live Dead. That's mostly major pentatonic scales and
you'll get used to bending the third hole bends  down a whole step (and
hitting the 2nd hole clean--I have a bad habit of slightly bending that
note)

I do throat bending and found Iceman's TDK technique to work great.

Remeber blues notes aren't Western music theory notes. They're somewhere
between the white key and the black key. Every blues musician had his or her
particular eccentricities about pitch and rhtym. Swing is a very individual
feel. Pitch is individual.

The guitarist isn't going to hit every note right. Neither is the singer.
Work towwards perfection, but don't beat yourself up to the point where you
stop playing, or that playing becomes a chore.

-- 
Rainbow Jimmy
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1372404/dhoozh_chapter_1.html
http://www.myspace.com/theelectricstarlightspaceanimals