@Slim I’ve kinda come full circle to my initial post on this thread, at which point, as you know, I was not able to do overblows and overdraws.
Then I discovered I could do them (on holes 4,5,6 on my Hohner Crossover Key of A) and had fun messing around with. (LOTS OF FUN!!) Oh to FINALLY play those missing notes. What a thrill…
I was having SO much fun with those 3 formerly missing notes, that I began thinking, “I want the other notes too! Maybe I should get a harp customized so I can get the 1 overblow and 7 overdraw?…”
A couple days later I happened to see Ronnie Shellist (whom I admire and respect greatly) mention that he doesn’t use overblows and overdraws in his playing (even though he’s capable of executing them.)
Shortly thereafter I was playing along with a jam track, having been inspired by Roly Platt to do so, who says in The Practice of Practice (which I highly recommend to anyone interested) that he spends 50% of his practice time working on phrasing, jamming along with backing tracks, and I noticed I could not play my overblows in the pocket with good tone and good time.
To make matters worse, immediately after trying and failing to get the the 6 overblow to play with “in the pocket”, the regular 6 blow then wasn’t responding at all in good time for the subsequent few bars. Aaargh. I felt frustrated and upset. What am I doing? I am NOT AS FAR along with this overblow thing as I thought I was…
Of course this is just a technical deficiency which theoretically could be remedied with more practice, but there are so many great things to practice (and only 187 hours in a week! 
) and all the while, the great Ronnie Shellist’s words are echoing in my brain.
Then when I was reading Howard Levy’s Rhythms of Breath Vol. 1 I noticed that he gave a big shot out to Joe Filisko, “the world’s greatest harmonica customizer.”
“That’s so funny,” I thought to myself. “I never think of Joe Filisko as a harmonica customizer.”
As you probably know, Joe Filisko has been my main harmonica mentor for the last 3 years, and it struck me as odd that in all of our correspondence, the subject of overblows/overdraws had never come up even once!
It just struck me as so odd that Howard Levy, the king of overblows/overdraws is thanking my mentor for enabling him to do what he (brilliantly) does, and my mentor has never once even mentioned the subject? 
So the other day, I’m placing an order with Greg Jones for a Seydel 1847 Silver to confirm if his customization fixes the issue I’ve had with responsiveness on -2 and -3 on those instruments in the past, and he asks me, “What are you wanting?”
I’m froze. “Dang! What the heck am I wanting???”
A few days ago I had thought that I wanted a OB/OD setup, but then with my frustrations jamming, and Ronnie Shellist’s words echoing in my head… I felt like… **this is the crossroads.
I’m gonna make my decision right now. I decided,** “I’m gonna ask Joe Filisko what he thinks, and I’m gonna go with his recommendation.”
I’m copying and pasting his response here:
I try and avoid them. Always the thinnest and smallest sound. Also very inflexible. I’m a big sound and tone player 
I wrote to him saying that, in light of his response, I’m thinking I’ll not go down that whole rabbit hole and just use alternate tunings when a song may require it. To which he responded:
I’m confident that you and your students will be happier. I used to be into that 30 years ago but have gotten farther and farther away from it
BOOM. And just like that, I’m back to where I’d been for 3 decades before I got my first overblow: just doing my best to have fun and make musical awesomeness on the harmonica using:
- lip blocking
- tongue blocking
- regular draw and blow bends.
Tongue blocking is actually a great technique to contrast with OB/OD’s. Both techniques I hadn’t really done until the last few years.
Tongue blocking opens up so many possibilities, all of which I teach an introduction to in Beginner to Boss.
The longer I spend with the technique, the more I find myself having fun with what it can bring into my playing.
I had a 3 hour harmonica gig at the beginning of this month. I’d say I was employing tongue blocking techniques at least 40% of the night. I didn’t even think to try an overblow once.