Damn these guys are Olympians: Norton on that nimble nimble chromatic and John with that gritty soulful vocal and nice long vibrato. d ---------- Myspace: dennis moriarty
U-blocking is when curl your tongue a bit and place it against the comb in order to direct the air into a single hole. I'm sure others can give a better description, I can do the technique, but it's not really something I ever use.
Ah, what I refer to as tongue curling. I do it a lot. You can (for example) get a fast boogie pattern going with the same sound as a side-action TB but with better facility. You should work it up Ryan, you can get a fat tongue slap going and it's sonically as fat as a TB.
Norton Buffalo was the first DVD'S i bought as Harmonica Tuition,Still got them,his Bag of tricks and Blues techniques DVD'S
i started out as a U-Blocker my Toungue is in a curled position but my tongue is outside my mouth touching the Bottom cover plate directing air into the hole i wish to sound just tryed it then it still works,
Yo Bro's cool down i was Jokeing with my opening line
Last Edited by on Mar 17, 2010 7:40 PM
I played around with doing slaps that way, but it does give you a different chord than regular TB. When you do a slap with TB you hear the chord from the holes to the left of the note you're playing. But when you slap with a U-block it puts note you're playing in center of the chord. So when you slap while TB you get a lower sounding chord than with u-blocking. This is all up to personal preference, but I personally prefer the sound of the lower chord when the extra notes are to the left. So I choose to use a regular TB for slap.
Although on the bottom holes of the harp, it doesn't really make a difference. When playing the 2 draw I actually like like to have it in the center of the chord, as opposed to just playing the 1 and 2 draw and slaping your tongue down on the one hole. I think it sounds better to get a 3 note chord. Adam shows a way of doing this by opening closing the sides of your mouth to get the extra holes, and this immitates the tongue slapping sound very convincingly at the bottom of the harp.
EDITED because I have trouble telling left from right : )
Last Edited by on Mar 17, 2010 3:06 AM
Oops you're right, I meant to the left. I don't know why I wrote right, probably because I'm always thinking of the main note being on the right when I tongue block.
I am mostly a U-blocker. I get the best, clearest, fattest tone for single notes this way. The only time I ever use puckering is when I want to do a draw bend with a nice wide vibrato @ the bottom. I will quite often switch back and forth between U-block and TB if I want to do slaps or octaves and strong single notes variably during the course of one song.
I started as a U-blocker. Then I had a hard time learning how to bend and was getting really thin, terrible tone. That's about the time I started to look into more stuff like this website/Adams vids and I switched to lip pursing. I wish I had chosen tongue blocking because, at that point, it might have been easier to transition to that style. Now, the only time I TB is when I do splits.
---------- "Take out your false teeth, momma, I want to suck on your gums."-P. Wolf
I can do it, but I get better results LB'ing. I think it's because I play with such an extreme tilt. Course, I use TB'ing selectively, too.
Point is...were all different anyway. I was at a jam last night where six different harpists played. Six different styles/sounds. One guy plays loud and fast ( and I don't think knows how to bend ). Another does wah-wahs almost constantly. Another plays in that Piedmont/country style. Another guy I would term intermediate...more chording, but his single note playing is improving. A player showed up last night that I consider very good and tasteful: Kevin McCracken. My style is all over the place...depends on the song and sometimes how I feel. Performed "Forty-Four" last night, utilizing the talents of an excellent guitarist that I knew could pull the Hubie Sumlin licks.
