Comment by SOLAR_FIELDS

Comment by SOLAR_FIELDS 9 days ago

Bending takes a bit of practice but it’s not terribly hard. Here are some general tips for absolute beginners that are based simply on my anecdotal experience as an amateur player:

1. Don’t start with a wooden harp like marine band. The metal and plastic ones are typically a bit easier to bend.

2. One hole at a time. Ensure you can exclusively blow in a single hole to practice

3. Lower notes are generally easier to bend than higher notes

4. Make an O with your mouth and have the tongue float in the middle. Start by pulling, not pushing, in my experience bending on intake is slightly easier than bending on blowing out.

5. Tighten the lips and decrease the size of the O to increase pull force on the reed to create a bending effect, and also tighten the airflow chamber above your tongue by pulling your tongue back and up, then loosen it by moving your tongue forward and down

This tool looks great for helping improve once you’ve been able to perform the initial bend. Excited to try it out!

Stratoscope 8 days ago

> Lower notes are generally easier to bend than higher notes

One thing to note (pun intended) is that you can only bend the higher of the two notes in a hole. On the lower half of the harmonica, those are the draw notes. But the upper octave switches these around. The blow notes are the higher ones there, and those are the ones you can bend.

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LorenDB 8 days ago

> you can only bend the higher of the two notes in a hole
This only holds true if you don't count overbending.
Overbending works by forcing the "wrong" reed to play, e.g. forcing the draw reed to sound when you blow while the blow reed remains silent. Overbends nicely complement normal bends, but interestingly, overbends are a half-step higher than the highest reed in the hole.

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balfirevic 8 days ago

> you can only bend the higher of the two notes in a hole
Do you know why that is?

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- Stratoscope 8 days ago
  
  I tried to look this up but wasn't successful. I remember it has to do with the lower pitch reed starting to vibrate along with the higher pitch reed, pulling the two notes together. But I don't quite understand the physics behind it.
  If anyone find this, I am all ears! (Figurately and literally.)
  While searching, I did run across this wonderful video of Toots Thielemans and Elis Regina:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=909HG10GLhE
  And completely off topic, that somehow reminded me of my favorite live version of Ride Like the Wind:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYofDL0QnBE
  No harmonica there, but everyone was having so much fun together!
  
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LorenDB 9 days ago

> Don’t start with a wooden harp like marine band. The metal and plastic ones are typically a bit easier to bend.

OTOH I find the Marine Band Crossover (with a bamboo comb) to be probably the best bending harp out there due to it receiving detailed factory setup.

> Lower notes are generally easier to bend than higher notes

Additionally, you'll probably find a lower key harp to bend better, at least to a point. I feel like an A harp is the sweet spot for bending really well without being so low that it starts becoming difficult. G harps are good too, but require you to dig deeper to get a good bend.

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philip-b 8 days ago

I disagree with (1) and (3). I think for a novice bending low notes is more difficult. For me the easiest note to bend was hole 6 on a C harmonica. Also, I don't think wood vs plastic matters for how easy bending is.

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SOLAR_FIELDS 6 days ago

The reason that wooden combs are harder is because the wooden comb swells from moisture (e.g. your saliva) and creates micro-gaps which subsequently requires increased draw or push force from the end user to perform the bend.
They sound the best though!

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