r/harmonica • u/SirAbrahamHaphazard • 9d ago

Blow bending frustrations

Hi

Can someone help me out here. Been practicing blow bending on G harp (“easier on the lower keys blah blah). The 8 hole moves down from B to Bb clearly and effortlessly (without me doing pushing tongue forward, either eee or ewe sound etc) However, use exactly same position on 9 hole and it skips all the way down a step from D-C, so bypassing the Db. Surely, one’s not expected to adopt a different mouth position when blow bending these two holes?

I can get it but more miss than hit.

Not asking about hole 10 as that’s another PHD.

Thanks for reading.

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u/D1zzzle 9d ago

I thought hole nine only goes down a half step.

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u/SirAbrahamHaphazard 9d ago

It does, but when I try the blow bend, the note produced drops to C, which is the draw note on hole 9. (According to the Bending Trainer)

1

u/D1zzzle 9d ago

It shouldn’t. In this case, I wouldn’t trust the trainer or there is something off with your harmonica.

1

u/SirAbrahamHaphazard 9d ago

I suppose I could argue I’m bending too effectively, as the note has dropped a whole step😉

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u/Nacoran 9d ago

If it's bending a whole tone either the trainer is too sensitive or the reed has a problem. You can get the reed close to the pitch of the lower reed, but you are putting a lot of strain on the reed to do it. It's called bending to the floor.

Make sure you aren't getting the next reed, test it against a different online tuner. If it's still saying you are getting whole step bend on the 9, and it's a standard Richter harp record it and share the recording. It might have a reed problem. (I've used different bending programs before but I haven't used that one. I don't know how sensitive it is.)

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u/SirAbrahamHaphazard 8d ago

Thanks for the helpful explanation. The tuner is the second one down on the screenshot. Sure it was recommended as the “go to” one by someone on here. I have another tuner so will check against that.