I've been working on the 4 draw bent, 4 draw, 5 draw triplet and would like to know how you articulate the bent to unbent 4 draw. Specifically, do you just relax your tongue or do you use your tongue to make a ta or ga or some other articulation? I realize this is a strange question, but I really do appreciate your help.
That's a good question. It took me months to stumble upon the answer.
Basically, you combine the action your tongue takes to bend with whatever action you are using to articulate the note. Then you combine the action of moving your tongue back into neutral position with another articulation (same as before) to make the next note.
Keep working at it and it will come. Just recently, I've been working at that triplet to gain speed (there was a youtube video of three french people playing really fast - look up "turtle walk") and one of the players repeats that triplet for about four bars. I was wondering where she put all that air (since they are all draw notes). After about a week of practicing, I noticed I was making a lot louder notes and using a lot less air. I was articulating each note more with my mouth than anything else and being very efficient.
The more I used my mouth to draw air in, the more control I found I got at being able to sharply articulate the bent-to-unbent notes.
Does this make sense?
Last Edited by on Mar 25, 2010 4:21 PM
sometimes slow vs fast articulation takes different technique. but it still is good to start slow and work to fast. What arzajac is talking about is the john popper approach where the fill notes in the triplets are forced by the mouth. Try to make notes with no breath, just changing the size of your mouth. strangely this works best on the high notes or really low notes of a low harp.
This is me, or rather a zoom-in of my chin as I try to make it clear what is going on when I do this. Maybe someone else can give a better description of it.
To get that triplet sounding more clearly, articulate the mouth positions of these sounds as you play:
"Doh-Wee-Da" -4b -4 -5
Concentrate on making the "W" part of the "Wee" fast and clear. That's the transition between the the bent and unbent -4. The other two notes will come out clear because the "D" articulation makes sure of that. ---------- ------------------ The magnificent YouTube channel of the internet user known as "isaacullah"
To get separation between the notes, try suddenly stopping and starting airflow w/ the diaphragm instead of using your tongue. It's faster, produces more even tone, and, once you learn how to do it, it actually gives you better control.
To do diaphragm articulation, you can say "Ooh-Ee-Ah", while concentrating on starting each vowel with your lungs/diaphragm. Or you can articulate them with your throat by starting each vowel with a glottal stop (like saying the word "Butter" with a stylized British Cockney accent: "Buh'er", where the glottal stop is the pause between "Buh" and "er").
Personally, and contrary to hvyj, I find the tongued articulation to be more immediate, and so that's why I recommended it to you first. Of course, every player is different, so experiment with all three methods to see what suites you best. ---------- ------------------ The magnificent YouTube channel of the internet user known as "isaacullah"
@isaacullah: With all due respect, you've got to be kidding. If, for example, one is going to play a long, fast 16th note run at high tempo, with bends at proper pitch and maintain an even tone (like one might need to do to play a sax line with the same speed and phrasing as a sax) it's simply not possible to do if you are using your tongue for separation between notes. Even if your tongue is fast enough, (which is unlikely) it alters the evenness of your breath attack and so adversely affects the phrasing unless you are going for a very staccato effect which is not what one ordinarily tries to do when playing triplets.
@arzajac: A well known example that comes to mind is Paul Butterfield playing "Too Many Drivers," or any of his recorded versions of "It's Gonna be Alright." There may be some tongue articulation in each, but most of it is from the diaphragm.
Last Edited by on Mar 26, 2010 4:01 PM
As you like. I can do double tongued articulations pretty fast, tho. I can do them at the speed of the solo in the version of Mojo in Adam's tradebit Mojo lesson, which is pretty fast. I say again, to each his/her own! ---------- ------------------ The magnificent YouTube channel of the internet user known as "isaacullah"
Hvyj: I just wanna be sure we are talking about the same thing. At around the 5:50 mark, Gussow starts a few licks with triplets that include going from the bent-to-unbent notes. In this video is he articulating with his mouth or diaphragm? What about at 8:00 minutes?
Adam is a proponent of tongue articulation and regularly articulates separation between notes that way, BUT at EXACTLY 5:50 as he moves between the bent and the unbent note, he is articulating with his diaphragm--whether he is doing it deliberately or unconsciously is not clear.
At around 8:00 it all sounds like tongue articulation to me. BUT at 6:28-6:29 Adam very clearly moves from tongue articulation to diaphragm articulation, again as he moves from bent to unbent notes.
Now, Adam is a great player and has his own identifiable style. If you listen to the richness of tone he gets as he moves from the bent to unbent notes using diaphragm articulation, to my ear it sounds just a little different (fatter) than the tone he produces using tongue articulation. While certain passages of the tune sound better articulated with the tongue, IMHO, a player's tone usually sounds a little fatter and more even when articulating with the diaphragm on unbent notes, too, the same way Adam is articulating w/his diaphragm at 5:50 and 6:28-6:29. His tone and phrasing at those points as he moves between bent and unbent notes is particularly nice--really fat and smooth.
But, as Issacullah has said, different players do it differently.
Last Edited by on Mar 27, 2010 12:54 AM
By way of clarification, I should say that playing more complicated phrases may require some light tongue articulation to sound right, so diaphragm articulation cannot necessarily be used 100% of the time.
But, if one uses diaphragm articulation regularly, and minimum movement when tongue articulation is necessary the tongue can stay lower in the mouth while playing. This allows the player to maintain a larger and more unobstructed oral resonance chamber, a more open and relaxed air column, and facilitates even and consistent deep diaphragmatic air production, all of which contribute to producing superior tone. If you are doing it right, it will feel like there is a direct connection between your diaphragm and the reeds that bypasses the rest of your physiology as you start, stop, vary or maintain the air column.
Of course, staccato playing may require harder or more intense tongue articulation. It all depends on what the player is trying to do and how the player WANTS to sound.
Last Edited by on Mar 27, 2010 1:18 AM
I just don't see it. I would have said Adam is articulating the notes with his tongue. To me it's all being drawn in by the diaphragm and articulated in his mouth.
And I don't see how the compressible volume of a huge column of air (from the diaphragm to your lips) can play 16th notes faster than the tiny compressible volume of the air in your mouth.
In Rachelle Plas' solo in the first video I embedded, you can see her tummy - it's flat, she's fit. While she is running through that series of triplets, which is as fast as I have ever seen by the way, she is clearly (to me, anyway) not using her diaphragm. Are you saying it's possible to do that even faster using only the diaphragm to articulate the notes?
Last Edited by on Mar 27, 2010 4:39 AM
Being kind of dyslexic with terminology: Is this what you mean by a triplet (3 variations with my tongue while half asleep embedded below? ---------- Myspace: dennis moriarty
bigd - that's it. Thanks for the tips all of you. So far for me the oodle dee articulation seems to be working. What tongue articulation are you using bigd?
@arzajac: So that I'm not misunderstood, i want to say that I do not consider playing harmonica to be like an athletic event and faster is not necessarily always better. Also, there are very good players who approach this stuff differently. A lot of it has to do with the sound the player WANTS to create--it's not that one method is necessarily inherently better than the other. But each does produce a somewhat different result.
Adam, for the overwhelming most part IS articulating notes with his tongue--you can hear a slight "T' or "Tuh" sound between each note when he does. But this consonant sounding prefix is not present when he moves from a bent to an unbent note at the particular points i identified in my previous post. The start of each of those notes--the attack-- is more blunt or full, which is a sound I happen to prefer. Again, it has a lot to do with how a player WANTS to sound.
Michelle is articulating with the tongue. Her speed is impressive, but certainly no faster than, say, most of Sugar Blue's higher tempo stuff or Charlie McCoy's rendition of "Orange Blossom Special". She is a terrific player and plays extremely well at very fast tempo, but although she's very fast, IMHO, her speed is not exceptional.
I also listened to your vid. Objectively speaking, your tone and level of air pressure changes as you use your tongue to articulate. Accordingly, there is an unevenness to your tone and phrasing. Now, if that's how you WANT to sound, there's nothing wrong with that. But it does produce an identifiably "harmonica-like" sound rather than a "horn like" sound. This is okay, but not so useful if, for example, you are playing with a horn section and want to blend in well or if you are trading jazz solos with a sax player and want to play with the same sort of phrasing as the sax player uses. FWIW, i also observe that you do not keep your jaw dropped and relaxed as you play.
But, to answer your question, yes, it is possible to play with equivalent speed as Michelle or faster articulating note separation with the diaphragm, however, there is a little more to it than just that. I don't use my tongue to bend, either. i either use my throat (maybe it's actually the root of my tongue, which is so far beck it feels like my throat) and/or i change the size of the resonance chamber formed by my mouth like Walterharp described.
It's a little hard to learn to do, but once a player is comfortable with this stuff, it's MUCH faster to simply start and stop diaphragm movement which instantaneously starts or stops the airflow than it is to move your tongue to achieve separation between notes. And the phrasing is more legato and the attack more even doing it that way. It's also VERY MUCH faster to bend constricting the throat or simply changing mouth size/shape than it is to use the tongue to bend and again, the tone and attack stays more even. It's easier to achieve horn like phrasing and play controlled triplets this way once a player gets the hang of it. I strongly prefer the sound i get playing this way, especially when playing amplified. But there are a lot of good players who don't do it this way--it depends on HOW the player WANTS to sound.
In my experience, by not using the tongue to bend or articulate separation it's unquestionably MUCH easier to play faster with proper meter, tempo, tone and phrasing. Btw, these techniques are more difficult learn than they are to employ. Sort of like riding a bicycle--after you learn to do it, it's easy. But, your MMV.
Last Edited by on Mar 27, 2010 10:02 AM
Hvyj: Thanks for the details. That's helpful. I agree that faster does not mean better, but you mentioned that the diaphragm articulation was faster.
As for my video, as I mentioned, I have only started working on that triplet recently so I don't think I sound very good at it. Yes, the notes are uneven. You are saying that my tone changes when playing that triplet. Well, I'm glad I played a few extra notes so that someone could point out the difference. I'll work on that. I am assuming that I will be able to iron that out in time.
Adam plays first, followed by Jason. Adam is on beat, but all of his notes are not perfectly spaced. Is that an example of what you mean when you say that articulating with the tongue will never be as good as with the diaphragm?
To me, the Butterfield clip of Too Many Drivers I listened to had that same unevenness. Not to digress, but does Butterfield do throat vibrato or diaphragm vibrato? Because I find it very harsh. And I hear the same sort of quality in his triples - well that triplet anyway. So is that inherent in diaphragm articulation?
Last Edited by on Mar 27, 2010 10:38 AM
Well, I don't think i said that tongue articulation will "never be as good" as diaphragm articulation, but I definitely believe it's EASIER to play faster with more even attack, tone and more controlled phrasing using the diaphragm. On the other hand, tongue articulation can produce a more "percussive" effect which some players may prefer.
Regarding he MP3 clip, I hesitate to criticize the first player because i do not know what he was TRYING to sound like, but the meter is inconsistent. To my ear, the attack, tone and phrasing of the second player is more even and consistent, with more accurate meter and generally more controlled and precise. The first player is playing a little faster than the second player, though. i prefer the sound of the second player. I would rather sound like the second player than the first. I consider the sound of the second player to be one I would prefer to use as a good example.
On "Too Many Drivers" Butterfield's tone and phasing IS uneven, but i think that's deliberate. The harshness is from the tube amp he's using. i agree with your assessment of the over all sound. i don't think the harshness is as much due to technique as it is due to the equipment he's using. IMHO, it is certainly not the result of vibrato.
FWIW, i think you could help fatten and even out your tone if you played with your jaw dropped in a very open and relaxed position, sort of like it is when you are in the middle of a yawn. Just a suggestion.
Last Edited by on Mar 28, 2010 1:30 PM
Sudsy: Regarding your question relative to my clumsy half-asleep exampled linked earlier. I'm a U-blocker. So I U-block bend the originating draw hole and quickly move my tongue to the adjacent hole and back repetitively. I do it on 4 draw/bend to 5 and 6 draw/bend to 6 for drama (all in a certain context of course) ---------- Myspace: dennis moriarty
