Hey there
I learnt basic skills a couple years ago, but put the harmonica away for a long time. Now I want go play a bit to my guitar in my band, no fancy stuff, just basic melodies. Now I bought a brand new Marine Band Deluxe in D and I struggle a lot to get the 7th hole blow (high D) clean. If I block the holes with the fingers, the sounds seems clean, but I owerblow it faster than other notes, also the draw is difficult. I can can do all other notes, especially down holes 2-5 very easily, bit the D in hole seven almost never works. When using the neck rack it is barely impossible. It drives me a little crazy - so I am wondering is it inly my skills or are the hogher notes more difficult? Probably also being in the key of D? Or could it be a factory problem? I am thankful for opinions of the pros! Thank you!
@raketenmann 99.9% this is a technique issue, and not the fault of your Marine Band Deluxe.
Everybody struggles with high notes, ESPECIALLY at the beginning.
-7, -8 are the most frequent ones that REALLY trip people up, but anything above 6 can prove problematic!
Remember to be patient with yourself. This may take some timeâŚ
These are the tips for a getting good clean high notes.
1.) Let gravity lower your jaw so that itâs totally relaxed and in a nice âawâ vowel shape, your teeth should be far apart from each other
2.) Keep the back of your tongue down, like it is when you yawn. Make sure itâs not in the âKkâ zone (how your tongue is when you say a âKkâ consonant.)
3.) Nice steady, GENTLE, airflow. Most beginners (and many intermediate and advanced players) use WAY to much pressure.
Hope that helps! 
Even Mick Jagger struggles with high notes, youâre in good company. 
Aloha,
Luke
Hey Luke
Thanks so much. Well, this helps a lot! I wasnât aware of that, in some tutorials it was mentioned that that for example the 2 hole draw seems to be a tough one to master - noone talking about the high notes 
However, one last thing still unclear: when reading about ghe deep relaxed mouth technique, I reed thag the harmonica should be angled downwards. Is this only to find a better lip opening or does it need to be thst way always? Because then I would need to get a better rack. I only habe the classic K&M old schoool rack - i tried to curve it in the vise, now it stands pretty righangled in my mouth, but I donât think i can get it more angledâŚ
If youâre getting single notes by angle in the harmonica, thatâs great. But you wonât need to do that forever. Itâs just a crutch until your mouth really figures out exactly what to do, and then youâll be able to dispense with it. When it clean on the rack I think itâs always great to work with just the harmonica first and then once you get it solid on the harmonica, then start working with it on the rack
I was discussing this issue with a harp tech and I have tremendous respect for his work and knowledge. He suggested I extend my tongue toward my teeth but not to them when playing the high draws. It does help. Tilt the harp up as well. Its the little things I pick up that seem to make the biggest impact. Tilting the harp up helps keep moisture out of the harp and does make these notes easier. The best way to explain how hard to draw or blow these notes was a comment Luke made. He said blow these notes like you were blowing a candle but not hard enough to put the flame out. I picked a couple of tunes that have several of these notes in them and practicing these tunes has improved the right side of the harp. I feel they will always be a bit tougher but practice build confidence and confidence breeds success. The more I practice the luckier I get.
The high draws are tougher to play with confidence
Quick quesiton on what a clean tone is as for me from 7 up I get at times some screeching rather than the tone. Regardless of how softly I blow or draw, espeically on 9/10, could this be a reed/gap issue or do I need to blow/draw even more gently?
The reed(s) could be rubbing on the side(s) of the reed slot(s). In other words: the reed may no longer be aligned correctly in the slot. This can occur, for example, after dropping the harp onto a hard floor or sidewalk.
@webmetalreese - Everybody struggles with high notes, ESPECIALLY at the beginning. -7, -8 are the most frequent ones that REALLY trip people up, but anything above 6 can prove problematic!
Remember to be patient with yourself. This may take some timeâŚ
These are the tips for a getting good clean high notes.
1.) Let gravity lower your jaw so that itâs totally relaxed and in a nice âawâ vowel shape, your teeth should be far apart from each other
2.) Keep the back of your tongue down, like it is when you yawn. Make sure itâs not in the âKkâ zone (how your tongue is when you say a âKkâ consonant.)
3.) Nice steady, GENTLE, airflow. Most beginners (and many intermediate and advanced players) use WAY to much pressure.
Hope that helps!
Aloha,
Luke
Hey there
Aroun 9 month have passed since my last post. Well, I am not practicing a lot. But because I am frustrated. I just canât get around my harmonicas. I have four of them (Marine Band Deluxe in D and A, Hohner Pro Harp in G and a Seydel 1847 in D) and I am having issues with all of them - but not in the same spots. For example the D I have from Seydel and from Hohner: on the Seydel only the 1 draw sounds as if it is not possible to draw enough air through, on the Marine Band the 1 draw works just perfect, but the 3 draw and the 7 blow sounds weird, I am pretty sure my technique is getting better, but some notes just donât sound. On some reeds I have been able to
make significant better adjustment and I fixed some notes with adjusting the air gap in the reed, but on some draw notes I am just not able to do so and I am completely stuck because I have no idea to if the blow or the draw reed is the problem since the blow read does influence the draw reeds.
So I kept reading the internet and I found so many articles about how hard it is for beginners to perform some notes. But I also found a significant amount of voices that stated that the reed setup from factory isnât always good. In this case it is so hard to tell for me if I am dealing with reed setup problems or my technique is still completely wrong (although it seems to work on the majority of holes), This is a big issue and I think the only way I could figure that out is to take some lessons with an experienced harp playerâŚ. Its a real bummer!
99% itâs a technique issue. Iâm guessing on the -3 and 7 youâre accidentally bending the notes a little bit. You donât have a C harmonica???
Hereâs the tips to re-consider:
1.) Let gravity lower your jaw so that itâs totally relaxed and in a nice âahâ vowel shape, your teeth should be far apart from each other
2.) Keep the back of your tongue down, like it is when you yawn. Make sure itâs not in the âKkâ zone (how your tongue is when you say a âKkâ consonant.)
3.) Nice steady, GENTLE, airflow. Most beginners (and many intermediate and advanced players) use WAY to much pressure.
Hope that helps! 
Aloha,
Luke
Luke Your analogy of playing the high draws as if I was blowing on a candle but not hard enough to put it and make the flame flicker out helped me. Cannot remember if this was a reply on B T B or another response but was helpful.
Hey there
It is a long time ago - half a year since I last posted in this thread. So I have improved a lot in playing the harmonica. My breaht tecnique is way better and I can easily do both draw and blow bends and include them in my playing style. Right now I am mostly using a pretty new Hohner Special 20 in C to do all the harmonica.com course content and also love playing this harmonica because it just plays so easily and seems to be in perfect working order.
However, since I am a singer and guitar player and really want to play with the rack to my guitar, I need to be able to switch to a lot of different keys, and here I am still having the same issues and problems even though I belvieve my tecnique is actually pretty good right now. So I give you a list of the problems I am still facing:
Hohner Pro Harp in G
- 2 draw very hard to do
- 3 draw hard to do a nice tone, bending is easy
- 10 blow blend not working
- 4 draw bend not working
Marine Band Deluxe in D
- 10 blow bend not working
- 9 blow bend not working
Marine Band Deluxe in A
- 3 draw bend not working
- 4 draw bend not working
- 7 draw bend not working (bend is working but just before I would reach the whole step tone down the tone stops and dies)
- 10 blow bend not working
As you can see, the problems I have are sort if in the same area on the A and G hamronica, so the ones that are significantly lower than the C, so I am still having the question: is it just way harder to do some stuff on lower or higher keys? Are the problems I have classic beginner stuff or does it seem random? And if so: Is it really the case, that for every key and ever harmonica I need to play differently and always remember the key and adapt to it? That would actually be pretty hard.
But even if so, I am still not a 100% convinced that all of my harmonicas are in perfect order, since e.g. on the Hohner Pro Harp in G I was able to improve the 1 and 2 blow significantly by working on the reed gap. However, for me it is very hard to do the draw reeds, because the blow reed does affect the draw reed as well. Any suggestions how to perectly adjust the draw reeds? How to make sure that the blow reed is ok to work with the draw reed?
I know, still so many questionsâŚ. 
@raketenmann - Yeah this makes sense. 99% chance itâs technique more than the harp. The better your technique gets, you can play any of those harps youâve got and accomplish what you wanna.
Itâs harder to do the low draw bends on the low-key harps because it requires bigger mouth motions to make it happen.
Conversely, itâs harder to do the blow bands on the higher harmonicas because it requires smaller mouth motions that need a lot of finesse.
So YES, technical demands are VERY different on an F harmonica (higher = smaller mouth movements) versus a G harmonica (lower = bigger mouth movements.) They both have their different challenges!!!
There is no -7 bend. Holes 7 through 10 only blow bend, but 7 doesnât really bend much because only a half step between 7 and -7. Kinda like how -5 doesnât really bend that much.
Iâm guessing you meant -6 bend, which only goes down a half-step (because only a whole-step between -6 and 6.) The distance of the intervals between the blow and the draw are what dictate how many bands you can get. The draw three is a major third above the below three and thatâs why we can get three bends on that hole -3â, -3ââ, -3âââ.
Hope that helps. Rock on! 