A great lesson from Ronnie Shellist on using articulation.
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Right on @Dai. You may know this already, but I’m a HUGE Ronnie Shellist fan! I’ve never seen a lesson of his that I didn’t love and from which I get some awesome nugget.
Thanks for sharing this, and here’s my notes from this one:
Chords: Duh and Yuh. This is such a sexy groove. at 3:15. He’s lip blocking but it’s got a cool feel as if he was tongue blocking.
I love how he always gives shots out to my predecessor and teaching mentor JP Allen, like he does here before he goes into the “Tucka Toodle” articulations that I teach in Beginner to Boss.
I’d never heard of Yucka Tucka Tee before.
I like how he advises to breaks up articulation concepts into single note stuff versus chordal stuff as you go to practice it.
I like this dudda dudda duh exercise.
I never heard of the gentle “Luddle luh” before. Very cool. He mentions that Joe Filisko talked about it, maybe within the context of Sonny boy Williamson. Joe’s Sonny boy Williamson teaching product is on my wish list to buy and go through at some point.
Love his use of the staccato single notes in his rendition of Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon” (which he mis-attributes as the Meter’s “Cissy Strut.”)
THIS CHORD GROOVE IS SUPER-SICK!!!
Hee ducka dee (on inhale)
Hudda (on exhale)
Single note to double stop! GREAT ONE!
Doy -4’ -4
Dadda -45 -45
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Big fan of Ronnie myself
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Been doing a lot of research whilst down with a cold, so now I’ve got Vamping and SuperVamping soon as I’m better I’m going to start fitting in tongue articulations, also try any weird sound I can make inside my mouth. I’ve also discovered by accident I have a tuner with a metronome so I can practice getting my train faster. But at the moment can’t stop coughing
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This all looks like a lot of good information. Excited to start exploring it.
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In a blues solo what percentage of notes are articulated or even staccato?
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27.53%
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and staccato?
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Welcome to the forum @adam.grabusk! Glad to have you here. I think our friend @Carlos1 was being facetious, lol. That was his way of saying, “you are asking an impossible question.” Try making your question more specific. Ask about a specific song, or better yet, a specific part of a song! Hope that helps. Rock on! 
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I confess !! I could not resist pulling a little joke. 
But to give @adam.grabusk a serious answer: You need to realize that no matter how you blow or draw on a harmonica, you are doing one of the many articulations that are possible. So the real answer would have to be that 100% of the notes in a blues solo are articulated (in one way or another).
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What I meant to ask is something along the lines of, “how much energy is spent playing legato vs non-legato in a typical righteous blues harmonica festivus for the rest of us?”- respectfully
Hello again @adam.grabusk
It might be best for you to address this directly to one of forum’s gurus, such as @Luke or @Hogie.Harmonica or @davidkachalon (who is very well-versed in articulation techniques). Nevertheless, I will try to provide you with some further food for thought.
Legato technique is required for slurred performance, but unlike slurring, legato does not forbid articulating the notes with a very slight interruption.
Staccato signifies a note of shortened duration, separated from any following note by an brief interval of silence. There is also an intermediate articulation called either “mezzo staccato” or “non-legato” (sometimes referred to as “portato” – not to be confused with “potato”, which has little, or no, relevance to this discussion).
These factors alone make this a very ambitious and challenging topic!
The question “how much energy is spent playing legato vs non-legato …?” is quite provocative. The answer is dependent upon various parameters, e.g. the type of music (“typical righteous blues harmonica” vs the classical, but rather uninteresting, “Mary Had a Little Lamb”), the sound volume produced, the key of the harp, etc. etc.
You know, of course, that energy is an indirectly observed quantity often understood as the ability of a physical system to do work on other physical systems. And since work is defined as a force acting through a distance (a length of space), energy is always equivalent to the ability to exert force (a pull or a push) against an object that is moving along a definite path of certain length. So we also need to consider whether the music is being played on higher tuned harps or lower tuned harps, with their longer, heavier reeds, as well as whether the reed material is plain brass, phosphor bronze, stainless steel, titanium or whatever.
I will desist at this point as my allotted time and character count for posts on the forum has nearly been reached. But perhaps one of the people mentioned at the beginning of this reply will jump in to continue this fascinating and thought-provoking analysis.
I remain your harmonica friend,
– Carlos
It’s all coming together now Carlos!
Last one though I promise:
Luke: Do you go around tonguing every note or even every other note? I find myself not doing it at all. Where on this continuum should I be? I got this boy’s and I aint quit’n! -thanks