[Harp-L] Harmonica Hypnosis in Teaching

["jon Gindick" <jongindick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

MOST good harmonica players have played A LOT and when they play, there is a sense that the harp is part of their body. This makes their tone deep, and throaty and rich. They breathe completely,  throat open and hollowed out, way down in their bodies.  

But when you start as an adult, especially with all the info out there, you don't allow yourself the time to fuse the harp with your body...you are immediately going for single notes, bends, results...

When I was a kid I would lay in the bathtub for hours, my ears below water, my mouth  harp above and make belive I was the organ down at the Methodist Church. Today's new guys are denied that childike exploration of timbre and resonance, and the cavities inside your body that create your sound's individuality.

In short--

If you have grey lifeless tone, you are probably breathing only so far into your body, and then stopping the air.  At least that was the strong teaching impulse I received on Day 4 of the camp.

We changed the schedule so I could teach a beginners and intermediate class to address breathing, but I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I started with an exercise in which people clenched the harmonica in their teeth, so they naturally breathed 1234 in and out, and made them breathe through their harps  going in and out, sighing, swallowing, relaxing, making sure they were getting hole 1, and making sure their chord was pretty. 

 As they breathed in and out with the harp in their mouths I knew I had acccidentally put the class into a hypnotic trance, so as they breathed I took them deeper and deeper into relaxation with each new command. 

To make sure they were getting that Cross Harp feel, we made the inhale 1234 chord louder and longer the the 1234 exhale.  We took our volume as soft as possible, we slowly increased it. We fou8nd the vibratto on the soft exhale, and transferred it over to the inhale.

And down we went.

I suggested moods we could express in their breath, we made lonely sounds, we felt the blues of wanting to play the blues and we expressed it through our breathy wails. By clicking,
we made phrases from the sounds...

And yes, down we went getting even more relaxed, more at one with the harmonica in our open throats...

Eventually I reached for my guitar and started strumming the blues, telling them they would be MORE RELAXED when the guitar came in, taking them down as they felt the changing chords, 
just breathing through the harmonica and hearing how the natural ins and outs of the instrument harmonized with the guitar when you didn't try too hard. 

And deeper we went, making suggestions  that you could hear hitting home. When the class was over  (It last over an hours, withthe harp in their mouths the entire time)  and the campers went back to a more result oriented pursuit of knowledge and growth, their new whole-body-breathing and relaxed embouchure enabled them to get great tone especially holes 2 and 3 draw.

Harmonica hypnosis, whooda thought?
I studied it in college but never used it until then. 
And I did it by accident.
Only at Jam Camp.