Hey yozzadlips! Basicly it's a quick switch between a fourhole chord and an octave using toungeblocking. Check this thread for more info http://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/board/board_topic/5560960/2033449.htm . Also listen to "Walter's Boogie" by big Walter to hear a really clear example of how it can sound, as I promoted in the thread above.
...and Winslow is one of the authorities on harmonica technique and teachings so his post hereunder is in all certainty more correct than mine :)
Last Edited by on Oct 12, 2011 1:29 PM
What it means for all other wind instruments is that you flutter the tip of your tongue against the roof of your mouth, which creates a rapid disturbance in the air flow that can be described as raucous, agitated, or growly. Harmonica players can do this easily on exhaled notes and chords, but on inhalation the tongue has a hard time cooperating.
Some harmonica instructional writers have used the term to described rapidly moving your tongue on and off the harmonica to alternately cover and uncover several holes to create a texture that could be described as "humming." When your tongue is on the harp, typically you produce either a single note (usually in the right corner of your mouth) or a split with single notes sounding in each corner. The split is often an octave but doesn't need to be.)
I prefer to call the second described action a "hammer" or a "piston" because it emulates the repeated approach-and-withdraw action of a piston, and to avoid confusion with the more established meaning in the wider community of musicians.
Last Edited by on Oct 12, 2011 1:02 PM
There are two types of tongue flutter-rapidly moving your tongue on and off the harp as described above,and also the side-to-side flutter. The second method demands a lot of practice and muscle memory,rapidly moving the tongue side to side-this is the method Kim Wilson,Little Walter and Dennis Gruenling prefer. It is harder to master,but that's what your hearing on Kim Wilson's and Little Walters recordings. Jerry Portnoy or Dennis can help you master this technique.
yeah, you can hear a tongue flutter on high notes in some of Jason Ricci's stuff. this is like a rolled R used in speaking spanish through blow notes.. and what they said
Moving your tongue from side to side is distinct from a flutter.
A wet side-to-side move is called a rake. A dry one is called a shimmer.
By wet, I mean that all the notes in your mouth get to sound at some point in the action. You're raking your tongue across the holes and different combinations of notes are happening as you do it.
A shimmer is "dry" because you're completely blocking out the hole(s) in the middle at all times and sounding ONLY the notes in the right and left corners of your mouth. You could view it as a series of fast alternating corner switches.
A flutter in the "rolling r" sense turns all the notes on and off at once. So does the "piston" type of flutter, but does it to one block of notes while leaving the other(s) to sound continuously.
Last Edited by on Oct 12, 2011 4:05 PM
@Winslow- Obviously I am speaking in terms of tongue blocking-if the OP is not tongue blocking,then he would have to incorporate the "roll"- in the meantime,here is a quote from David Barrett-
Instead of taking your tongue on and off the harmonica for the flutter, move it side to side for what's called the "Side Flutter," this is the way Little Walter played and Kim Wilson plays. Give it try. .
@tmf714 - David and I happen to disagree about this usage of the term flutter.
I'm always careful to use existing musical terms the way other musicians use them so that as a harmonica player I can't be accused of being ignorant - which some musicians are all too eager to do. David happens to be a very well educated musician but I think he leaves himself open on this one.
Also, I like to use terms that don't have a pre-existing musical meaning so as to avoid confusion wherever possible. Fluttertongue on every other wind instrument means the "rolled r" type of action.
I also like precision. Flutter means to flap, and only the "rolled r" type of flutter is a flapping action. Both side-to-side rakes and on-and-off pistons actions are not flapping actions.
And finally, all three types of action produce different sounds.
Last Edited by on Oct 12, 2011 5:08 PM
@Winslow-"Fluttertongue on every other wind instrument means the "rolled r" type of action." There are no other wind or reed instruments other than the harmonica that allow the use of the tongue in such close proximity to the reeds,and to shape and bend notes. I have heard this term used by my teacher,Dennis Gruenling,my freind Jerry Portnoy and many other blues harmonica players that play using the tongue block method. I would think RJ MIscho,Rod Piazza,Mark Hummel,Dennis Gruenling,James Harman,Magic Dick,Billy Branch and countless others would leave you in the minority. Sorry to stray away from the OP-Lee's tutorials are the best out there if you wish to learn this method.
Last Edited by on Oct 12, 2011 5:47 PM
Actually, other wind instruments bend notes and form vowel sounds in the same way that harmonica players do, and they can actually touch the reeds with their tongues. How's that for proximity?
But those facts have no bearing on what to call something. The harmonica can fluttertongue like other instruments, and it can do other tongue-related things. But those other things sound different and deserve their own unique names.
OK, so I'm in the minority among at least two of the players you name, all of them great players and highly respected. But I function in the wider world of musicians and to earn and keep respect in that world, I use standard musical terms in the standard way with their accepted meanings.
Also, I believe that by developing greater precision in describing what we do, we'll do a better job of communicating and advancing the art.
Last Edited by on Oct 12, 2011 5:46 PM
In sheet music, fluttering is often abbreviated as "flt." or "flz.", as it is also known as "Flatterzunge" (German), or "frull." for "frullato" (Italian). Flutter-tonguing is most often used on flutes, recorders, bassoons, trumpets, and trombones, but can be used on other brass and woodwind instruments as well.
i guess that puts me in the winslow camp on this one
Winslow, a candidate who is not afraid to take a stand on the tough issues! Just be careful of the third rail issues like tongue blocking vs. pucker! :)
I occasionally use a variation of the technique which falls into the first category of Winslow's explanation, namely 'flutter the tip of your tongue against the roof of your mouth', & 'Fluttertongue on every other wind instrument means the "rolled r" type of action.'
The difference here is that I do this technique on the draw notes rather than the blow notes. So can we claim an exclusive expression for the harmonica community alone ie Reverse Tongue Flutter or reverse fluttter tongue?.... umm, it doesn't exactly trip of the tongue does it? :) Grey Owl YouTube Grey Owl Abstract Photos
"I prefer to call the second described action a "hammer" or a "piston" because it emulates the repeated approach-and-withdraw action of a piston, and to avoid confusion with the more established meaning in the wider community of musicians."
If you are going to use hand tools or guitar techniques like "hammer" -i.e. hammer-on,invented by Eddie VanHalen,and automotive terms like "piston", you will never be taken seriously in the music world,when talking harmonica. Blues harmonica does not have boundaries,or complex descripitions for what we say and do. I happen to be a musician myself-I can play guitar-my first learned instrument-drums,trumpet,trombone and harmonica. My cousin Arthur is a world renowned cellist -Arthur Fiacco has maintained a career playing both modern and period cellos. He has toured Europe with Merideth Monk's opera, "Atlas," and with the New York City Opera National Company's production of "Carmen," performed with the New Jersey Symphony, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and the New York City Ballet Orchestra, and serves as principal cellist for the "Sacred Music in a Sacred Space" series at New York City's St. Ignatius Loyola. Period instrument performances have included Concert Royal, the Four Nations Ensemble, the Grande Bande, and the Connecticut Early Music Festival. He studied with Harvey Shapiro at The Julliard School, Evangeline Benedetti at the Manhattan School of Music, George Ricci at Sarah Lawrence College, and with the Associate Principal Cellist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Peter Stumpf. Arthur Fiacco has recorded for EMI, MGM, Columbia, Sony, and Newport Classics. The bottom line is -if you are tongue blocking,it's a flutter taking your tongue on and off the harp,or moving side to side-if you are a lip purser,you are using the "Roll" method.
Last Edited by on Oct 13, 2011 5:30 AM
This is a topic that's been discussed before. I've read what I could in the harp-l archives, but I still have questions.
I would dearly love to be able to produce the sound most harp players on this list call tongue flutter. The sound I'm referring to is prominent in many blues harp songs, but here are two I can call to mind as I type this at work without the benefit of my cds:
1. My Way or the Highway, by Little Charlie and the Nightcats 2. Oh Babe by Little Walter
Have a listen to the harp passages with flutter here-- sort of like a trill, but richer. I once asked Rod Piazza how to do it, and he said it was a rapid, regular, on again off again stabbing motion with one's tongue. (If I understood him correctly).
I have tried to do this. I can get the stabbing motion. I can get the regular rhythm. What I can't get is the speed. I start off slowly, try to speed up, and trip over my tongue. The speed I want is the same speed I apply to my trills-- a rapid regular alteration of two adjacent notes on the harmonica. I trill by shaking my head back and forth, and can control the speed almost infinitely-- from very slow to very fast.
Is the flutter tongue speed something one can acquire with practice? Or is it, as I suspect, genetic; some of us being able to do it with minimal effort, others never, no matter how much they practice? Perhaps it's akin to the ability to curl one's tongue, which I can do but others can't, no matter how hard they try.
Any thoughts or advice from players that can do it would be much appreciated. Especially if they struggled with it at first but then found a way to do it. Feel free to correct my terminology, or my belief that Rod Piazza's self-described technique is the way to do it. In the end, I just want to learn how to make the sound I hear in the two mentioned songs, and in many others (Sonny Terry songs, for instance).
What I have found, that is, what works for me, is to NOT concentrate on a "stabbing" motion or anything which requires a pointed, curled or otherwise contorted tongue. What works for ME is putting the harp a little further back in my mouth.
When Rod Piazza first started playing chromatic, George "Harmonica" Smith told him: "you gotta get that thing back in your mouth". Rod said that George's front teeth were almost even with the outer-edge of a 16-hole chromatic! I tried this approach and was amazed at the difference in tone. I started playing my diatonics "deep in the pocket" as well.
For me, when I play with the harp pushed back into my mouth a little, tongue-blocking and the tongue flutter techniques are much more natural feeling and seem to happen effortlessly. In fact, with the harp way back in my mouth, tongue-blocking is about the ONLY way I can play. (There is no way to play with a "pucker" if the harp is between your teeth.) I think of the flutter as more of a quick on-and-off tongue blocking rather than a direct effort to "pinpoint" specific notes.
So, just for kicks, try playing with the harp further back in your mouth. Then don't concentrate on the details so much. Just try to create a "Luh-Luh-Luh" sound when inhaling and exhaling. Trying to make a "La-La-La" sound curls my tongue more and seems to make it stiffer. The "Luh-Luh" technique leaves my tongue more relaxed.
Again, this is my experience. I LOVE the thick tongue-blocked notes and octaves on both chromatic and diatonic as well as the flutter. These things are what worked for me.
Flutter tonguing is a technique commonly used with many wind instruments. Essentially it is the same thing that a child will do to imitate the purring of a cat, blowing whilst rapidly flapping the tip of the tongue against the roof of the mouth. This can add an effective accent to both single notes and chords:
This technique has been used by players as diverse as Larry Adler and DeFord Bailey, but it is only really practical with blow notes and I have heard that, much like the ability to roll one's tongue, some people are genetically incapable of doing it.
Flutter Tongue Another sound unique to the harmonica is playing a chord while quickly placing the tongue on and off the harmonica. Try blocking three holes (1, 2 and 3 draw), leaving the 4 draw to sound. Then flutter the tongue on and off the harmonica. A variation of this is using a split embouchure. Try playing the 2 draw/5 draw together while blocking holes 3 and 4. This gives you the root and 7th in cross harp which works well over the I chord in the blues
Here is Dennis using the side-to-side technique on Little Walter's "Oh Baby"- you can hear it at the beginning and at 0:22 -then at different points throughout.
Allen Holmes is a friend and a good player but as with so many otherwise fine folks, uses the term flutter in a way I think confuses the issue. Terminology aside, his quoted statement is also spot-on.
By the way, on "Oh Baby," Walter is using a shimmer, which sounds different from a rake, hammer, or flutter. He has three holes in his mouth and always keeps the middle hole blocked while rapidly alternating between the right hole and the left hole. Gwen Foster also used this technique extensively.
My central point:
If things sound different and are produced by different techniques, then they should have distinct, descriptive names.
Calling them all flutter, especially when only one of them (rolled r) is produced by a fluttering motion, is a step towards vagueness and confusion.
And by the way, alternating two adjacent holes should be called a shake or a warble. Calling it a trill is a misuse of a musical term and will only make harmonica players sound ignorant to other musicians.
A trill is a dissonance created by alternating two adjacent notes in the scale. That is only possible between Draw 6 and Draw 7 on a diatonic harmonica. And, interestingly that is a warble that is rarely used, partly because it does sound dissonant.
Most of the shakes that harmonica players play involve harmonious combinations, so it's simply incorrect to call them trills.
Harmonica For Dummies does not use the term "flutter." I use Slap, Split, Hammer, Rake, Shimmer, and Corner Switch for the various tongue-on-the-harp techniques.
Last Edited by on Oct 13, 2011 9:55 AM
Wow, real academic debate here. Am I glad that I revised my initial post quickly :) ... Academic by the way is my genuine appriciatiting term here. No slight intended. I really dig this stuff when it emerges on the forum. Winslow's stance reminds me of my old professor in pathology, Per Alm. He said "Correct nomenclature is what separate us from laymen."
"This technique has been used by players as diverse as Larry Adler and DeFord Bailey, but it is only really practical with blow notes and I have heard that, much like the ability to roll one's tongue, some people are genetically incapable of doing it." I can use the tongue flutter on draw notes as well,so there are obvioulsy two distinct and seperate methods.
Winslow, just in case my joke missed it's mark, I was aiming to give you some recognition. :)
In the vein of this topic I seem to be able to use produce four similar sounds with various techniques; using Winslow's terms, a rake and a shimmer. It's harder to do on draws, but doable. The rolled r's of fluttertounge on blow notes and the pulsing piston action move. I'd suggest that a snoring action can work roughly the same as the rolled R's, only on draw notes, although I seem to be unable to do it without bending the notes.
But, I did notice on the piston actioned technique there were several ways to produce the sound. One is definitely described best as a piston action. You simply touch the holes in the middle with your tongue as quickly as you can, like a snake smelling the air. For the next variation it helps if the harp is farther back in your mouth. You sort of set the holes you want to block against the middle of your tongue and let your tongue beat like a heart. The last technique I'll call the Karate Kid method. I'd call it wax on-wax off, but I'm actually referring to the painting part of his training (and wax off? do we really need another dirty sounding harmonica term?) You take the tip of your tongue and swing it up and down, with pressure against the harp. You get the same sort of release (darn dirty sounding) that you get between your finger and your thumb when you snap. You snap your tongue against the harp on both the upward and the downward swing.
I've noticed that a lot of harp terminology and definitions are kind of fragmented. I suspect that happens in any specialty that has a long development history with sections cut off from each other. The internet is a great way to get everyone on the same page.
In that spirit, here is a link to a thread I started a while back. We sort of petered out after we came up with a list, but the idea was it was a thread to sort out the definitions of all the various harmonica words. If anyone has the inclination they are welcome to chip away at defining the words (or any other harp words you can think of). Just add a post to the thread. I'll deal with sorting it out into a presentable list if we get that far.
I'm interested to learn how others can get the rolled r flutter on an inhale.
Like Pat, I've heard the exhaled one from Larry Adler, John Sebastian the younger, and others, but never the inhaled one. I've never been able to do it, even though I seem to be genetically capable of other tongue stuff.
Always a willing student, even though I can get crotchety about terminology . . .
@nacoran - Yes, sorry, I did get the joke, and I do appreciate your highlighting Harmonica For Dummies. I just can't resist a call to clarity :) Sorry if I came off stiff in responding.
Last Edited by on Oct 13, 2011 1:36 PM
OK, so you're flapping your soft palate against your tongue.
Actually, that's also possible with a tongue block. Although it doesn't work well for me, but then I've never worked on it.
By the way I tried the rolled R going into an octave split (almost like doing a slap on the way into a single note) and it actually sounds good; reminds me of something Gary Primich once did.
yozzadlips, sometimes people ask easy questions, sometimes people ask questions that require some debate. It's all good. (In fact, a good journalist or a good teacher will always try to phrase questions so there is room for discussion. It's how we learn.)
Winslow, I like a good call to clarity too. Things don't always come across the way you intend in a short forum post so I just wanted to make sure my joke's harmless spirit had translated. :)
I'm a lip purser and I do the blow 'flutter' by keeping a relaxed tongue, then force air past it and my whole tongue vibrates hitting the roof of my mouth.
The draw flutter is similar except I keep one side of my tongue resting lightly against the roof of my mouth then draw air in letting the other side of my tongue relax and vibrate.
In both instances my tongue is loosely flapping as it were like a flag in the breeze and not a deliberate purposeful movement of the tongue.
I heard an old song again just recently by Rose Murphy called Busy Line and wanted to try it on harp and incorporate a 'busy line' tone. The blow flutter didn't seem to fit so I tried to reverse it and managed to get a reasonable approximation.
The video below is my take on 'Busy Line' I hadn't posted it on youtube because I wasn't completely happy with the staccato nature of the phrasing but it does include the draw tongue flutter at the beginning and end of the song.
I also used it briefly on this video where I tried a draw flutter followed by a blow flutter at around 1 min 48 secs.
I find this subject very interesting and am often looking at ways to produce different effects with the tongue as a lip purser.
Another technique I use on celtic pieces is a rapid purposeful movement of the tongue to give me an effect like the staccato sound on Uilleann pipes. In none of these does the tongue touch the harp.
The only time I use my tongue on the harp is for splits and octaves and that kind of Fairground tune sound where I touch the tongue on and off the harp.
Forgive me if I've prattled on too long about this but all these techniques fascinate me. I'd be interested to hear others views on their techniques. Grey Owl YouTube Grey Owl Abstract Photos
Last Edited by on Oct 13, 2011 3:41 PM
At one point we tried to start a blues harmonica portal on Wikipedia. We discovered Wikipedia is a bit cliquey and gave up (we were outvoted by regular Wikipedia members and archived), but one of the ideas we had was to get a clean, short recording of each effect and make a glossary of all the effects. Pat Missin's site has a little of this, and there are some other sites that have a bit here or there, but we wanted to make a comprehensive alphabetical list. I think the only one I ever actually recorded was a kiss-pop.
Wow, we'll need another thread on each of these distinct techniques & actual how tos including excerises to get you there! Reading this thread doesn't give one much to practice to get them.
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~Ryan
"I play the harmonica. The only way I can play is if I get my car going really fast, and stick it out the window." - Steven Wright
Pennsylvania - H.A.R.P. (Harmonica Association 'Round Philly)
It seems the interest may be waning in this thread (hope I haven't killed it off with my observations) but I would like to share this piece I wrote which includes the Celtic flutter I use (mentioned above).
