agingbuffoon
7 posts
Dec 01, 2014
12:43 AM
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I find that when I am practicing draw bending when I start to get the bend I get a strange sensation in my head that I can only describe as sinus-pressure like and my ears feel like they are popping. Is this normal? Curiously enough I get the sinus pressure feeling when playing notes on a tremolo harmonica too when the notes waver.
Thanks
Last Edited by agingbuffoon on Dec 01, 2014 12:43 AM
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jbone
1814 posts
Dec 01, 2014
4:19 AM
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I will guess. This is either you feeling actual resonance in your sinus cavities, or it's a result of drawing very hard. If the harmonica is touching your teeth it may well reverberate through your jaw and skull bones.
Thinking about this, I believe that a lot of time as I am drawing, I close the passage to my sinuses at the back of my mouth. It's early in the morning here so I can't experiment on this.
I don't think you are doing harm.
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A440
261 posts
Dec 01, 2014
5:11 AM
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try practicing "soft bends" - bending with the lowest volume level possible.
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nacoran
8141 posts
Dec 01, 2014
1:54 PM
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Closest thing I notice (and only because I was testing after your post) is that my eyebrows/forehead move around a bit because I'm moving my jaw. If I was already having sinus problems it might feel like pressure.
I suspect it's more likely you are just putting too much air into it. Bends are more about mouth shape than airflow.
The only other theory I can think of is maybe a touch of tinnitus. (And that's a longshot theory). My brother can't listen to me play anything higher that a LF harp because one of the overtones harps makes rings at the same frequency as the ringing in his ears. I don't know the science of it, but when I get light headed I get a little bit of ringing in my ears. If you are bending too hard maybe you are triggering something like that.
I'd take A440's advice, at least for diagnostic purposes. See if that clears it up. Weird that it would ring on a tremolo too though.
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kudzurunner
5159 posts
Dec 01, 2014
5:01 PM
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I don't know about the popping feeling, but I suspect that when you bear down on that airstream, using your tongue as the implement, the vibration of the bent note is tweaking your bones a bit. I don't focus on that specific aspect of the bending experience, but just today I had my first MRI--a patellar tendon needs some TLC--and realized just how dramatic the whole sonic spectrum can be when you're entering a new subdomain.
Hope that makes sense.
Short answer: You're fine. Keep blasting away and having fun.
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HarveyHarp
616 posts
Dec 01, 2014
10:34 PM
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I used to take singing lessons a bunch of years ago, and one of the exercises had me going up and down scales. At one particular frequency, my sinuses opened and my nose ran. Once in a while I still get in on stage. It is wierd.
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HarveyHarp
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