I used to play alittle bit a couple years back, and maybe 2 or 3 months ago i picked up the harp again. i can play simple tunes and i can make some customized (kinda) noises using shaking and tounge techniques and souch, but i can not bend. Lil help pljease? I u-block and SOMETIMES tounge block or pucker but mostly ublocking. any help would be great thank you!

Try lip pursing and check out this thread.

Forget about ublocking. Go to YouTube and don't leave untill your'e satisfied that you've learned something. Get Jon Gindick's book n CD, blues harmonica for the musically hopeless($20) and keep at it. You won't regret it. But most of all, take joy from every little step you take on the ride. Good luck and practise everyday because you want to.
Mike

The best way I can describe it is that bending is the difference between drinking a coke through a straw to drinking a thick shake - you have to work the 'suck' (draw) a lot more to make it bend. So, start off drinking a coke and then change to the thickshake on the same in breath. AND ... go with Overblow ... just keep at it!

Thank you all for your help - I have figured it out and every one of you helped me. Now i cant stop bending constantly

I really need to go take my harp(s) and drive up into the mountains for a day. lol living in an appartment is really cramping my stlye!
lol once in a very great while I'll start whailing away (poor neighbors!)...but for the most part I feel like I gotta practice real quiet so I don't drive anyone around me insane!!

Any tips for tongue blockers?
Think it's time I try and teach myself how to pucker? Or should I just learn to bend while tongue blocking? (I've heard it's possible...just much more difficult innittialy).

Someone Recommended me whistling backward!

Bye!

Where the heck did that come from??!?!? I was just rereading forum posts on learning to bend, and all of the sudden it clicked... Thanks to everyone who's posted tips on bending on this and other feeds!

Glad for ya!!

I'm not a musician but, I found playing the bend diatonic notes on a C chromatic and trying to match them to a C diatonic helps. I know that doesn't help your technique question, but if you want to accelerate your learning curve I think it helps. The pitfall is that you may ditch the diatonic and only play chromatic. Still trying to figure out why I think that is sad, but for some reason I think it is.

docsoc11 Wrote:
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> Thank you all for your
> help - I have figured it out and every one of you
> helped me. Now i cant stop bending constantly

Docsoc, I am amazed that you are bending so quickly soon after learning what bending is. Most of us struggle for months or longer. Are you bending to the correct notes ? Hole 3 bends to 3 notes Bb A Ab on a C key harmonica.

If you like bending, try out a valved harp. Pretty much all of the notes are bendable, including both the blows and draws. The Hohner XB-40 was the 1st one I tried, but now I'm partial to the Suzuki Promaster valved harps. They are a lot cheaper than XB-40s (about $50-$65 on Amazon) and are regular sized, too.
The soda and milkshake analogy is okay if you like sugar. To me its more like kissing and saying wow at the same time. Bending the blow notes is similar. It can help to tilt the harp a little bit to get the hang of it. If you're in an appartment & too close to your neighbors, definitely try to get out somewhere. Keep practicing and maybe they'll even let you back in (lol).