Thanks. I just tried that. Seems like you have to curl your tonge down a bit and slap the harp with the part of your tongue just above the tip, rather than slapping with the tip of the tongue.
Can you do it on draws also? That is draw breath in but slap the tongue forward?
Yes, it is done with the top of the tongue, not the tip on a 1234 slap to 4. If you are playing the 1&2 only and slapping the 1 closed, you're probably going to use the tip. Yes it absolutely can be done on draw notes. It sounds just at the attack of the remaining note(s).
You can add a lot of rhythm and crunch to your playing with this method. ---------- ---------- /Greg
Yep, try stuff, man! Use your tongue in different ways to fatten up your sound. In a draw note/chord you can do a "pull-slap" that is start with tongue covering all holes of a chord, draw in (fairly hard) the split second before you release your tongue from the tines and then come back with a slap, covering all holes but one...
Not an easy concept to verbalise, you need to have that harp in your mouth instead of a keyboard in your hands :).
@Fat melon and @Pauly21- Yeah, you can read some stuff but you really need to use your mouth and ears and gut more than your mind, IMHO. ---------- Pistolkatt - Pistolkatts youtube
I reckon I'm with pistol cat on this. I started playing slaps and pulls before I read about how to do it. When I read David Barretts stuff I am sure he is describing how to do it properly but if I didn't already know how to do it I dunno how easy it would be to follow the instruction. People seem to find it difficult to pick up, which makes me think you probably just need to experiment a bit. I learnt slapping by playing first position melodies using the top half of the harp, as a way to help me articulate separate notes. Gradually it just crept into my playing and one day I forgot that its impossible to bend with tongue on harp, and accidentally bent a 3draw with my tongue blocking 1 and 2. Then I discovered david Barrett and learnt it was totally possible. It just takes a while for this stuff to feel natural. I think the very first exercise I did was trying to play oh susannah in waltz time, with slaps to define the time. Then Dixie with tongue articulation and especially the yellow rose of Texas. Justreally helped me get used to using my tongue that way.
I should add though that david Barrett taught me how to really use it, and I'm definitely still learning about it. ----------
Last Edited by SuperBee on Jun 08, 2013 6:08 PM
David Barrett's bluesharmonica.com website is a superb resource for players of all abilities. I can't recommend it highly enough. It's worth a months subscription just to see all the interviews and workshop videos.
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