How to Bend Notes on Harmonica

Video Transcript

On behalf of expertvillage.com I'm Eric Williams and I'm here to talk to you about beginning harmonica. Okay, on playing the harmonica the whole reason I got interested in playing harmonica was that I was really intrigued by it the way they would bend notes. Being a piano player, first you can't bend notes on a piano, you can but it's not a good thing to do. But if you do it on the harmonica it's really cool, because you can make the reeds which are in here, the brass reeds you can make them flex and detune to the point of being flat. You can bend them a 1/2 step flat, you can even bend them a whole step flat. While that happens is it takes the pitch way far away from what you're expecting, then there's that tension as the pitch gradually hopefully comes back to where it suppose to be. Let me demonstrate now, first I'll just do it so you can hear it and we'll talk about how I did it. Here's a regular note...and here's a note that's being bent flat...see how it wavers down low and then it comes back. The secret to bending the reed in a harmonica is you have to draw the air. You can't really bend notes when you're blowing the air through. When you're drawing the air you have to vigorously and energetically draw the air in a way that it actually distorts the reed, bends it out of shape and makes it go out of tune. You can enhance that effect by, some people try to tilt the harp a little bit. If you tilt the harp up it changes the air flow direction and helps bend the reed. You also can do it by arching your tongue which is the way I like to do it. By dropping your tongue different ways and arching it back up you're redirecting the air back inside your mouth as the air is coming in and you're bending the reed. Let try it again. Again, this is very hard to show someone but if you listen to it and then grab your own harmonica and try to make your harmonica do it, it is attainable. It is possible to try to play two different reeds at the same time or even three and bend them all at the same time which gives you that very distorted sound and they all resolve back. So it takes a lot of air power in reverse, you're actually drawing the air back in and then you're bending the reeds.

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