Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:03:17 -0400
From: "Rick Epping" <rickepping@gmail.com>
Subject: [Harp-L] Re: Beginner with harmonica quality problems!
To: harp-l@harp-l.org

Beginners often have technique problems that manifest like quality problems
in the harmonica, particularly with the low draw notes and most
particularly with the 2-draw note.  So much so that I had a form response
message I would send while I worked at Hohner.  Most harps sent back to
Hohner with this problem checked out fine.

If the player's tongue is choking off his/her air column at the back of the
mouth, the resulting isolated oral cavity may not have a resonant frequency
sympathetic to the natural frequency of the reed being played, causing the
reed to sound choked, muffled, or flat in pitch, or to not sound at all.
The fix is to relax a bit and open and widen the air column, all the way
down the lungs, as if speaking in a deep, resonant  voice.

Sometimes players would complain that a note will work fine for the first
15 or 20 minutes and then choke up.  This is likely due to the beginner
practicing too long, causing the tongue and throat muscles to begin
cramping and constricting, leading to a constriction of the air column.

The good part of this is that the main cause of the problem, the tongue
constricting the airflow at the back of the mouth, is similar to the
technique used in note bending.