As my students mature, I suggest to them to buy a High G harmonica and a Low G harmonica in order to practice all their techniques on these 2 far ranging diatonics.
Each will present problems that need to be overcome, but once your skills are such that you can do most of what you want on either of them, your overall abilities ratchet up 3 more notches.
The higher the harmonica, the smaller the "target area" for your bends becomes. ---------- The Iceman
Bending an high F...no problem! Keep the jaw dropped as much as possible, tilt the back of the harp up, and let the shaping of the big open throat (which does affect the arc of the tongue)do your bending for you. What this does is give you a bigger resonance chamber. With a a bigger resonance chamber you have much more control over bending/shaping a pitch. Keep the jaw dropped and mouth wide open. If you do not, you shrink the chamber, which thins the tone and gives you a smaller mass/volume of air to work with. Very important that you do not let the jaw hinge closed. I won't go into the physics of it but trust me...the larger mass/volume of air that you have at your disposal, the more control you have over pitch and tone. Is it easier to blow out your birthday candles with a straw in your mouth or using your gas leaf blower?..or vacuum the car with a 3" hose or a 1/2" hose? Those may be may be extreme examples but you get my point. This technique also makes the low harps much easier. Control of the pitch of overbends is another huge advantage. Below is a great example. This cat is playing 2nd position on a high F harmonica. He plays all 10 holes. Sure he plays draw bends, blow bends, overblows, and overdraws..but what is amazing to me is how quickly he moves between the various pitches. What is even more amazing is the little nuance shaping/coloring/bending of even the shortest notes. Listen closely. Great pitch control. Another very very important part of this is tone! Notice how fat his tone is, even when he goes up to 10 hole blow. Amazing stuff. It takes time and dedication, but is well worth the hard work.
i hear the low F is a peice of junk. i havent played in C with the band yet but if i do i think i will try an F chrome. i hear the 270 D E and F are like low tuned diatonics. id like to try a vintage 365 F. would an F chrome be easier than a high or low F diatonic? i mean i know F is shrill and hard to bend and the low F can only be heard by dogs and not humans on stage. i hear the seydel F chrome is high not low like the hohner. damn im dying to try this now.
F isn't difficult to bend, draw bends anyway. I think draw bends get easier as you go up the keys, I find tongue blocked blow bends trickier though. But that's not somewhere I go much anyway...yet. Working on it. But draw bends I remember finding difficult for a while. Someone posted a clip of their 3 draw on a D harp a few days ago. It's the same deal...it's actually so easy to bend that people used to bending on A or Bb, C etc, just grab too much and nothing happens. That's what I think anyway. I dunno what woke me up to it...maybe it was playing a particular song which required me to play a single descending line involving a bent 4 draw...I had a F blues harp I couldn't play. Convinced it was the harp (of course) I bought a solist pro, which was better, then an 1896; better again. But in the meantime I discovered I could do it on the blues harp if I did it a particular way...took me a while to realise that the 'special way' was just the way to play an F harp. Good practice songs...Adam has a lesson for $7 including movie and excellent tab on 'messing with the kid' which makes great use of an F harp, and it's totally addictive. Also the opening couple of choruses to Caldonia Boogie, play along with Louis Jordan to get the gist of the 3 hole half and whole step bends...lots of others, but they are the two that spring to mind... ----------
Oh also the pogues 'sick bed of cuchullain', the intro and the accordion lead...there's a great speed lick and also tongue blocked rhythm chording part. A real challenge to get up to speed but great fun trying ----------
@Iceman I got a high G for this reason, and boy did it do the trick. Now I like to trade off between the two G's, sometimes during the same song ---------- Duke Berryman - Chicago blues, harmonica, guitar
