4-5D predominantly. I know this because I went through a time of finding other things to play instead of that, but it’s still sometimes the appropriate cliche.
Im not sure I play the others very much as warbles, if I understand what is meant by the term.
It's interesting that almost no-one uses the Draw 1-2 or 2-3.
Little Walter used a whole chain of descending warbles, alternating draw and blow, starting with Draw 5-6, in Mellow Down Easy. He also alternated Draw 3-4 and Blow 4-5 in the head to Blues with a Feeling, where he also starts his dolo with a Draw 5-6 warble.
How fast does the movement between notes have to be to qualify as a warble, I wonder. And how many notes? Is it sufficient to just play 1 hole twice with a single excursion to the adjacent note? Or does it require at least 2 visits to each note?
I’d forgotten about blues with a feeling but of course that’s so; most of the solo consists of warbling. I’m struggling to hear the mellow down easy example. I can hear several instances but not a chain descending. There’s only one potential candidate I can make out, or can’t quite make out, which is in the second solo/outro section, but it all happens rather quickly
In the linked Youtube post, you can hear a 5-6 warble at beginning of the V chord at 1:25.
In his second solo (second occurrence after vocals, *not* the second verse of the first solo) that starts at 2:11, he begins with a 4-5 warble, which he repeats at the start of each phrase.
At 2:22, at the start of the V chord, he plays the descending line that starts with a 5-6 warble.
During the fade he plays something that sounds like a warble but is a tongue rake, repeated side to side over Draw 2,3,4 and 5.
It seems I misremembered a long descending chain of warbles.
Here’s another, very different feel generated with a warble, by Rice Miller, at the very start of the song, and again at the start of his solo at 1:41:
One of my favorite examples of warbles is used by Jerry Portnoy on his song, "Blues for Big Nate." He uses warbles though out the song. Around 1:22 he plays 4-5D, 3-4D 3-4D bent a half step, then releases back to 3-4D. This is similar to the descending use of warbles Winslow describes above.
"Blues for Big Nate," is an artist study song used by David Barrett. Hope you enjoy this!
Last Edited by Gary Glazner on Feb 02, 2020 2:04 PM
IMO, warbles are comparable to trills on the piano (reference Baroque era as a starting point).
Musically, (at least based on my pianistic understanding), they are supposed to create a "shimmer" that focuses on one of those 2 alternating notes as the "root"....in other words, it's not just 2 alternating notes with no reference upon which that "shimmer" is grounded.
The true origin of this technique was to give a sustainability to a harpsichord (pre-dating piano) note on an instrument that produces a very short duration of same.
To take this "mind set" to the harmonica makes sense to me....if one is doing that 4/5 hole inhale warble and the attention is focused on the note created by the 4 hole inhale itself, with the "warble" supporting that single note, the result seems to be more compelling. ---------- The Iceman