After many years of pucker style playing, I've finally woken up to the joy of Tongue Blocking. Only slap style at present as bending is proving to be more difficult for me. Some low bends are getting there but higher holes blow bends and overblows are nowhere in sight. Still, it's great fun trying and has reinvigorated my love for the harp.
FWIW here are 2 small samples of where I am with tongue slaps. The first is riffing and the second a short sample of 'Easy'
The Low D is something of a factor in the sound here, but the tongue work is obviously coming along. With the blow bends, I just refused to play them any other way for as long as it took. I recall it was about 3 weeks of daily 5 minute sessions working on a few well chosen tunes to get the 8 and 9 working so that I was quite comfortable. The 10 took a bit longer
the blow bends will come in time and really they aren't the point of slappin' anyway which is rhythm, harmonic sparkle, and percussive effect but it's good to have it all in your wheelhouse..
---------- 4' 4+ 3' 2~~~ -Mike Ziemba Harmonica is Life!
Thanks for the feedback and tips guys. I think I'm going to have to be patient with the blow bends. It's weird how much more difficult it is to shape my tongue correctly for the bend when the tip is rested so lightly on the comb. It's like a leaky gasket as I can't seem to get sufficient compression with my altered mouth shape.
Thought I would mention if you are learning tongue blocking it's a good time as any to learn to do it on either side of your mouth. I don't know much about the TB blocked blow bends, but the corner switching I do a fair amount of.
