So I recorded myself playing the other day...ANDDDDD..NOT SO GREAT!! :(
So..6 months in..It sounds like I can "blow, suck, a tune together"....but the tune lacks expression..
So my question is ..i hear breathe from the diaphram...but how do you develop your breath control and muscles...so you can make the music sound expressive through your breathing?
AND...how exactly do you use breathing to make a piece sound more expressive as opposed to a sequence of blow and draws?
Hi Jay, good question. When I was starting out I used to spend time just drawing and blowing on the bottom 3 holes (long sustained notes) and experimenting with different embouchures in order to produce different tones. ooooooooooowwwwwww--------wwwwwwweeeeeee.
For me tone and dynamics are the biggest consideration when trying to add emotion and feeling to your playing.
Lee Sankey has a great video on exactly that tone exercise.
Dynamics – When to play softly opposed to when to play with a lot of attack, and playing quietly compared to playing louder. Junior Wells was a master at that.
Other useful things to think about are what Ronnie Shellist says about playing behind or ahead of the beat.
And articulation, do you hold a sustained note or play it short? Do you use a soft attack or a hard one? Adding small bends or scoops to a note can add something too.
Also Vibrato/Tremolo – There's lots of stuff out there on youtube but here's Adam:
Its really a question of experimenting as you are practising. This stuff will eventually work it's way into your playing as a matter of course.
Hope this makes sense and is some help.
Last Edited by Baker on Mar 11, 2013 5:22 AM
I've heard the correct mouth position described as acting like you are fogging up a window. When I remind myself to play like that coupled with a suggestion by Crystal Berthon (sp?) to close you nasal passage when playing (don't breath through your nose), I notice a drastic difference in tone.
Joe Filisko said something like relax and breath through the instrument as opposed to blowing and drawing. Like the Hohner t-shirt says, "just breath."
An exercise you could do is play a single note as softly as you possibly can. Then, in the same breath, increase in volume until it's as loud as you can. Then of course do it the opposite direction.
---------- Brad
Last Edited by Dog Face on Mar 11, 2013 7:59 AM
98% of beginning players and 50-75% of intermediate players tend to use far too much breath force in their playing, ESPECIALLY those who are teaching themselves how to play and a big part of the problem is that they're rarely around someone who knows better and the average player often can't tell the difference when teaching themselves, so obviously the vast majority of them NEVER think they're playing too hard.
With many beginners, their draw notes are often hit considerably harder than their blow notes, and on top of that, too often they're sucking their gut in when playing their draw notes, and just like for a vocalist, sucking the gut in when doing the draw breath is totally wrong headed and cuts down on your lung capacity, plus it automatically will make your tone sound horrible.
Most pros don't play anywhere near as hard as most people thin. Part of the problem is that they believe reviews they've read on players from music critics, who 98% of the time, are NOT musicians, and even so are NOT harp players, believe as gospel truth when they hear things written line "played so hard," "blew their brains out," etc., and the vast majority of the time, that is NOT the truth.
Breath control is a VERY important playing technique that is too often HIGHLY ignored. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
You can also Youtube Steve Baker who has recently posted several videos on this and related subjects. He does a great job of physically illustrating breathing from the diaphragm.
Getting the epiphany that you have the power and ability to "control" the breathe is half the battle - then comes the action of putting this light bulb moment into practice while intently listening to the significance of it's results.
Pros tend not to play hard most of the time, letting the equipment (amps, etc) do most of the work.
Playing somewhat softly allows more room for expression.
A bit of hard playing now and again is used for effect and is not the base line for all performance. ---------- The Iceman
Last Edited by The Iceman on Mar 12, 2013 5:41 AM
Jay. The key thing to remember is that blowing and sucking hard is not the only or best way to produce "volume".
Blowing and sucking hard will produce bad tone, will make it very hard to control bends, dynamics etc. and will cause you to blow out reeds.
You can produce volume and tone by concentrating on your embouchure. You need to think about your whole body as a system. Your body is the resonating chamber for the harmonica. You need to create space onside you mouth/throat cavity on the inside, and create a resonating chamber with your hands on the outside.
If you are doing this correctly, and breathing from your diaphragm it will take very little force to get the reed to sound, and only a little more to get a loud sound form the reed.
Chris M used to talk about "controlling the column of air".
It's about resonance not force.
To get at this it is very useful to practise very very quietly, and with very little breath force. This will force you to make other adjustments to improve tone and volume.
The Iceman, Frank, and Baker are giving you VERY important lessons right there that I totally concur with. Using too much force all the time NEVER makes you sound good. Besides what Baker says in his 2nd paragraph of his last post, if you're playing tunes that require very rapid breath shifts, meaning playing blow and draw notes very rapidly back and forth, too much breath force makes it physically IMPOSSIBLE to do so, and in country music, the classic fiddle tune, The Orange Blossom Special, which is a signature tune for the country harp great Charlie McCoy, at a certain point, has very rapid breath shifts that imitates what a fiddle player is doing and too much breath force makes it impossible to adjust to this at all. If you're a fan of NFL football, think of someone who's trying to play wide reciever who is 250 pounds overweight (that's what too much breath force is like) and he running a good 70 yards to catch a pass, but he has to dodge safeties and cornerbacks with tons of quick cut moves, but because of being 250 pounds overweight, he cannot make ANY adjustments without blowing out his knees and/or ankles, and can't make it not just by that, but the fact that he's running out of breath half way in the run, which means he will NEVER be able to catch that pass.
99% of players with poor breath control and who plays too hard will ALWAYS have not only horrible acoustic tone, but also horrible amplified tone as well, plus they'll never be able to do any tunes that require very controlled playing or use of dynamics and so by using too much force, you're constantly shooting yourself in the foot.
The best lesson about breath control I ever got was from one of the all time blues harmonica greats who I hung out with a lot and befriended in the 70's, Big Walter Horton.
A friend of mine from NYC came up to see him, and at the end of the night, he asked BW how he played the intro on his cover of Little Walter's Can't Hold On Much Longer that he cut on his Alligator LP.
Now most players usually play this tune EXTREMELY hard, often with too much vibrato. Well, BW's harps were all packed up for the night and so I let him use my key of A Marine Band that I had on me (BTW, this is 1978, and there were no such thing as expensive custom harps back then), and he proceeded to play it exactly like the recording, something he would almost never do for anyone, but since he knew me, he figured my friend was OK.
He played the entire thing VERY softly, kinda like he was whispering thru the harp. Later that night, I practiced it at home and there it was in all its glory. I wound up going back thru all of my harp recordings and wound up finding how that most of them seldom played very hard all time time, totaly opposite of what the average player so WRONGLY believes.
It was a lesson in breath control, tone controlas well as dynamics that took barely a minute at best, and a lesson that I NEVER forgot.
You may at some point, want to consider taking breathing and relaxation exercises from a vocal coach because harp is in many ways like vocals and having done this myself, it paid off quite handsomely. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
I started 45 yrs. ago and the first thing i actually worked on was train style harp.then Sonny Terry style,into Sonnyboy williamson2 than Little Walter style...the good thing i learned back then was if you want a in yo face honk tone,than you`ve got to play light in order to go from smooth to big honk ,like cracking a whip.also i looked at these harp masters as to have their own dilect of the blues language...
Please also look at one of Lee Sankey's most recent videos as he addresses the real issue. I am not trying to be a wise ass but just trying to help. It address your situation specificly . You mention that you are at 6 months in to this journey and he mentions the cold hard facts which relate to time in. A long story short is that it will come to you, especially with all the cool tips given here, in Time. (many many years) Good luck and have fun
Last Edited by harpletunnel on Mar 12, 2013 6:34 PM
David Barrett has a lot of good ideals on gettin expressive breath control in his old book..."Building Harmonica Technique" Here is a song I learned from that book which helps me a lot because it is written completely as an EXERCISE disguised as an instrumental :)
Another great way to begin learning to add dynamics to your playing is by taking the classic 1/4/5 boogie bass line and trying to spice it up with as many ways as you can think of.
wow!! again am astounded at the level of support here to help ppl like myself who can get dissullosioned...get back up with renewed excitement and motivation!!
I think it helps have multiple people emphasize the gentle breath and volume relationship (with analogies)...as it is somewhat difficult to believe at first..though I completly believe it and see the importance now... :)
thank you so much for selflessly passing me on the benefit of your hard earned experience....and as mentioned...i know that if i put your tips into practice...in time, years..I will get to where I want!!!
Some technical and non technical thoughts come to mind:
Your breath is an essential part of the instrument. Think of a passionate violin player working his bow accross the strings. Your breath is the bow.
The reed is your lover The breath is your touch Make her moan, make her scream, make her sing. Wake the neighbors. (I'll stop now - before I give myself a chubby)
Think long sustained 'singing' notes and lock your breath to the reed.
Try working on one long single hole bend . What subtle and not so subtle changes or variations can you 'masssage' out of it. Vary tone, pitch, vibrato, volume. Use your hand cup to affect it too.
For what it's worth, - after more than fourty years I am still working on and learning about the subtleties of this subject. I just starting getting dellicate control of the 10 hole blow bend (on a finely set up G harp). I've always thought I had to hit that bend like a hammer to make it 'pop'. I am now starting to tickle the bend with way less breath pressure than I'd ever thought I'd need. Same with overblows.
Someone in the PFOS movie said "harmonica - takes a minuite to play - a lifetime to master" ----------
Last Edited by bonedog569 on Mar 13, 2013 10:31 AM
