Yep, the tongue is pretty important when it comes to harp playing, it’s used in bending and overblows and can be used to change the tonality of a note. You can pronounce ‘t’ to accent a note or play stacatto and you can use ‘t’ and ‘k’ to produce a train effect. There are loads of possibilities with different vocalisations, have a mess around with it.
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What a tremendous website, Excellent layout and easy to use.
The online tutor Wiil Tang is very easy to follow and listen to
Top class stuff!!.
Cheers Keith 🙂
Hi Will
Great site, thank you for your efforts. One thing that I have not seen mentioned is breathing. I tend to breathe through the harp so that when playing a succession of blow notes I need to draw to get a breath. Does this tend to suggest that when improvising I need to break up my play into shorter sections ? Any guidance? I have been playing and jamming for almost 2 years having never previously played a musical instrument. I am 72 which shows its never too late to start !!!
Hi Laurie, good question. An important thing when playing solos is how to regulate your breathing – keeping it comfortable without too much air in or out. One way to do this is to take little breaths either through or beside the harp, maybe putting a chord in here and there to inhale or exhale and also keeping the solo continuous. Try to avoid big build up of insufficient or excess air. Takes a bit of practice to get it feeling natural but when you get it right you should be able to comfortably play long solos without any noticeable pauses.