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corner switching
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james jeffery
21 posts
Nov 03, 2015
12:29 PM
I'v heard people talking about this but I'm not really sure how it's done? I'm playing chromatic and was wandering if you can do it on small jumps, every I'v seen talking about have been using it for larger 3-4 holes?
thanks
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jj3ff3ry
Gnarly
1521 posts
Nov 03, 2015
12:55 PM
Listen to Bill Barrett, he is a master of this technique.
You can do one hole block to get a 3 hole split, or if you are ambitious like Bill, you can do 5 hole splits to get 10ths!

Last Edited by Gnarly on Nov 03, 2015 12:56 PM
james jeffery
22 posts
Nov 03, 2015
1:12 PM
you can do this on a chromatic?? 5 holes would seem like a whole lot of harmonica in your mouth!!
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jj3ff3ry
Michael Rubin
1074 posts
Nov 03, 2015
1:57 PM
5 holes gets you an octave. That is one of the standard sounds on chromatic that goes way back.

But Gnarly is talking about double stops. This means playing out of both sides of your mouth at once. Corner switching is playing one note or more out of the right, the switching to one or more out of the left.

It is very useful, with a slight push of the chromatic it can be an easy 6 hole spread.
james jeffery
23 posts
Nov 03, 2015
2:18 PM
so its baisicaly like tongue blocking on a diatonic but you alternate out of witch side of your mouth you playing...but does you tongue move from side to side or is itstationary and you move your mouth?
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jj3ff3ry
nacoran
8766 posts
Nov 03, 2015
2:35 PM
James Jeffery, it depends... for someone with a big mouth like me it's no problem!

(Actually, I double checked to make sure that was true- I don't play with my chromatic much. I can get 6 holes on my Chrometta, 8 on a diatonic if I stick on end in my mouth! I can fit a whole Hohner Puck in there with room to spare.)

Which gets me wondering- has anyone ever made a Puckish Chromatic?


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First Post- May 8, 2009
Gnarly
1522 posts
Nov 03, 2015
3:24 PM
I've got some audio from Bill of his "projects". There's one where he is playing goddam ragtime--insane.
Stan Harper is good at corner switching too, here's some audio:

SPAH 2014

Last Edited by Gnarly on Nov 03, 2015 3:25 PM
WinslowYerxa
980 posts
Nov 03, 2015
10:51 PM
Robert Bonfiglio uses corner switching to play Bach with all those back-and-forth leaps. I use it a lot for fiddle tunes. Little Walter occasionally used it as well on diatonic. I teach it (for diatonic) in the second edition of Harmonica For Dummies.

Here's me using it to play a jazz tune called Viseur's Dream on tremolo chromatic

Viseur's Dream

The way to really get into it is to use it for any move to another hole that's more than one hole away. From there you can scale back, but if you do that in a strict way to start, you'll start to really get the hang of it.
===========
Winslow

Check out my blog and other goodies at winslowyerxa.com
Harmonica For Dummies, Second Edition with tons of new stuff
Join us in 2016 for SPAH on the San Antonio River Walk!

Last Edited by WinslowYerxa on Nov 03, 2015 11:00 PM
WinslowYerxa
981 posts
Nov 03, 2015
11:16 PM
Here's another one where I use corner switching, in a less obvious way.

Blue Rant

It's in A on a C chromatic - fourth position. A lot of the time I'm bouncing around among G, A, C, and D. With two blow Cs side by side, that's a slightly awkward space to traverse quickly, but by using a three-hole spread and a two-hole split I can quickly move between G and A in the left corner and C and D in the right corner.

I also play standard octaves along with a few other standard tongue block things. But toward the end (at about 2:58) you'll hear me break the octaves and leap from the second-highest D to the highest one and then follow it with the same thing between two Cs. I do this because the highest D is a slide-in note while the second-highest is a slide-out note (in the top hole, instead of a B# on the slide-in Draw note, they give you a D). So instead of being able to play them together, I do a corner switch from slide-out in the left to slide-in in the right. Turns out it sounds pretty cool and adds to the heat of the closing moments of the tune.

===========
Winslow

Check out my blog and other goodies at winslowyerxa.com
Harmonica For Dummies, Second Edition with tons of new stuff
Join us in 2016 for SPAH on the San Antonio River Walk!

Last Edited by WinslowYerxa on Nov 03, 2015 11:19 PM
james jeffery
24 posts
Nov 04, 2015
8:19 AM
ok i was wanting to use it in my playing to help with the big jumps just wasn't sure about the techneque..
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jj3ff3ry
WinslowYerxa
982 posts
Nov 04, 2015
9:01 AM
It's great for big leaps.

For any leap where both the starting hole and the target hole fit in your mouth, the move is just a slight side-to-side shift in tongue position.

For leaps wider than what will fit in your mouth, it can still help because it still reduces travel. For instance, if you can fit, say, four holes in your mouth and need to move six holes, you only need to shift your embouchure by two holes.

I wrote a comprehensive series of articles on corner switching, from beginning to advanced, for the Mel Bay webzine HarmonicaSessions. You can find a complete list of my articles for them, including the corner switching ones, at
Winslow's HarmonicaSessions articles
===========
Winslow

Check out my blog and other goodies at winslowyerxa.com
Harmonica For Dummies, Second Edition with tons of new stuff
Join us in 2016 for SPAH on the San Antonio River Walk!
Diggsblues
1920 posts
Nov 04, 2015
10:21 AM
In this performance Cham-ber hardly seems to move his harmonica very much.


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