Speaking of lip pursing exclusive techniques, Winslow Yerxa actually has a video explaining a few of the techniques that lip pursers use (blues or otherwise): the three mentioned (the names that I call them are different from Winslow’s) are lip slapping (which emulates tongue slaps with the lips), rapid tapping, and single note shimmers.
I really like using the second technique Winslow described as I think it is one of the most versatile techniques to use on the harmonica. It can be used for a variety of tempos, styles, and can be implemented in different ways. I’ll showcase a few examples.
These first three examples I’ve stringed together were all played by Terry McMillan and isolated with stem separation software. All of these samples use the 45 draw double stop compared to the single note used in Winslow’s video. If you’re wondering why I named the file “tapped triplet”, it’s because a lot of Terry’s moments that use this technique are done as a set of triplets (three taps per quarter note per bar). I don’t know if this was his experience as a drummer/percussionist rubbing off on his harmonica work, but I really like the way he uses triplets.
The first example is used on a song with more of a swing vibe for its groove compared to the rest of the tracks. This example uses the triplets both in the beginning and the end of his solo.
The second example is more of a slightly faster rock-ish tempo. Although this is not swung, the triplet is still present. This was done only at the beginning of the solo.
The third example is an upbeat southern gospel groove. This is actually the most common way he uses triplets from what I’ve noticed, which is using the string of triplets as a lick itself. What he usually does when it’s just the triplets is that he gradually increases volume of them and slows down the tongue tapping when reached at the desire max volume. This is also present in example 1, but I felt like it’s better explained in this section.
There are obviously other ways Terry has played with this technique (mainly the single note triplet licks from songs like “I’ll Fly Away”, where he uses the triplets on the draw notes while working his way up the harp, and using them in fills like in “Easy Chair”) as well as the different ways other players like to use it (Todd Parrott, for example, does this as a lead-in to his final solo on “Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven”). I’m just using these three as prime examples.
