Tip for blow bending

Technique
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(Experienced harmonica players may think this tip is beginner-ish)

Blow bending is…weird.

To the uninitiated, Blow bending is when you bend the notes on holes 7,8,9, &10, but by blowing instead of drawing air.

The challenging part is that blow bending requires a different embrochure than draw bends, and is almost as frustrating to learn. Tougue placements for blow bending is much more fine than with draw bending.

My tip is to practice blow bends on a ‘G’ harp. This is much easier to hit the bent notes on, in part because of its low tuning.
Once you get the idea of how to do a blow bend, the other keys become much easier.

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Thanks for the explanation. I am getting the draw bends ,( not so happy with the tone yet ) but the overblows had me pretty confused. I am working with the Blues Harmonica Bending & Beyond book by Steve Cohen . And his explanation of jaw lowering combined with tongue movements really helped . But hey if it was easy , everyone would do it right ? Ha ha
Thanks again

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No problem - I had to learn blow bends to play Whammer Jammer (which I am still working on).

Blow bending an ‘A’ harp is WAY harder than on ‘G’.

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