I am practicing my Diaphragm breathing. But normal breathing, Diaphragm breathing. I always run out of breath about hole 5 draw on the C Scale. I find myself trying to force sound through and i can hear the effort i am putting into the Harmonica.
I bought a £5 Harmonica on Amazon, i thought, cheap and cheerful would be the best way to start, is the problem the quality of the harmonica?
The longest I can hold a single note for, is around 45 seconds on hole 4 on Blow, and about 35-40 seconds on the draw.
I have a sound recording of me playing, I can post if anyone would find it useful. I listened to it, you can hear the blowing and drawing effort.
Without actually hearing you play, I can only suppose (based on your description) that cheap harp might be the culprit. If you are really serious about learning to play the harmonica then it is well worth buying something better – e.g. a Hohner Special 20 or a Hohner Blues Harp, both of which are not too expensive but are still played by some really good professionals.
Thank you for your response, I have a Dropbox link to the recording, if the forum is ok with such posts. I tried Vimeo, youtube, neither would allow a 3 second clip haha
If the link is not allowed to be posted on the forum, would you consent to a DM with the link?
I sorry to say that I agree with the conclusion @rich3 came to: it sounds like a harp that it is not even worth spending the time to take it apart and to adjust the reeds and emboss the reed slots. But it is also very important to be sure that your lips are making an airtight seal on the cover and not letting air slip by at the corners of your lips or anywhere that your lips touch the harp !!
Hello @Saucygibbon,
I agree @Slim! To me it sounds like the beginnings of me in the first few weeks.
I was pulling and blowing too hard, the wrong mouth position and I was way too tight in the lips and upper body.
I wanted everything too fast! Have tried for hours! Of course that didn’t work! When I recognized my mistakes step by step, I practiced the individual tones for just a few minutes a day, also to train the numerous small, unknown muscles and my breathing.
At the same time, I started @Luke’s BTB course without any time pressure and lo and behold, it got better and better! Remember the first commandment “Relax”, by the way patience, patience, patience!
Hi I’m a total beginner and finding changing my breathing pattern after 70 yrs of doing it wrong, very tricky. Trying to focus on correct breathing as well as practicing the stuff Luke says in Module 2 - can’t seem to do both. Tempted to not worry about the breath work for now and come back to it later. However, I know Luke is right that unlearning is far harder than getting it right from the get go. Should I be trying to use this new method of breathing all the time nowadays, so that it becomes a habit - before I even pick up my harmonica… …
@nmw2454 You don’t HAVE to get it corrected before you play any more, but DEFINITELY make correcting your breathing your # 1 priority - ESPECIALLY away from the harmonica!
You can practice breathing 24-7! And it’s soooo good for your health as well as your harmonica playing!
The only two things I have going for me are persistence and diaphragm control. Trumpet players are masters of diaphragm use. The best way to get the diaphragm in gear is to sit up and try cuss cuss out the teacher that went out of their way to ruin your day. Keep your lips closed and sit still. You should feel your diaphragm in use.
Another way is to exhale and then bend over. When you lift your upper body up your diaphragm will fill your lungs. Your are probably blowing too hard and the harp reeds may need to be closed a bit. A single note for 45 seconds is not bad so I suspect its your breathing to hard.
