I think that one of the most interesting uses of tongue blocking is that it allows us to be rhythmic: hearing the great pre-war blues players or certain tremolo players work on even simple melodies, making them incredibly articulated, makes you really reflect on how a humble harmonica can sound like two or three instruments at the same time! Today we have a lot of instructions on effective tongue blocking, but I wondered if it would be possible to implement a series of step-by-step exercises to improve my rhythmic attitude and make it more ‘scientific’ and programmed. I certainly don’t want to sound like a robot, but I would like to make my training more rigorous and explore this particular aspect in depth. Is it possible to evaluate how tongue blocking is able to rhythmically enrich a song? Can you keep a fixed melody and change the rhythm behind it? I decided to choose a melody and check it out. For the melody, I was inspired by the Maestro himself: in 1781, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote twelve variations of the famous French popular melody ‘Ah, vous dirai-je Maman’ (‘Twinkle twinkle little star’): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyhxeo6zLAM The result is amazing, and sometimes it is even difficult to hear the original melody! A problem can arise because of the harmony: on a standard Richter-tuned diatonic harmonica, few chords are actually available, but in this case we focus on the rhythmic aspect, so each slap (i.e. the moment when the tongue strikes the harmonica, blocking the holes that should not play) will be the fastest and most decisive possible, so that the percussive aspect is more appreciated and the harmony is reduced to a minimum (i.e. the chord that is inevitably produced by the vibrating reeds). Two movements are involved (I’m using the same nomenclature as Joe Filisko - someone who knows a thing or two about tongue blocking): Clean single note: the tongue is resting on the harmonica and lets the air escape into the single hole we need on the right side of the mouth.
A STRICT APPROACH TO TONGUE BLOCKING Matteo Pulin Profetto
Vamping the note: played by making the tongue lash – quoting David Barrrett, ‘by breathing a fraction of a second in advance (allowing the four reeds to vibrate), then blocking the three holes [left] with the tongue, leaving the right hole open’. WARNING! This technique, which is used in Chicago style to give push and aggression to a note or split, in this case (which we can refer to as old time style) serves much more to mark the time, and is executed with more subtlety!
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The magazine for HarmonicaUK
