overblow.com
 
Playing Effortlessly
Sometimes people get into the habbit of playing overblows and overdraws with a lot of force. They feel that the overblows have to be kicked into action. They choke the blowreed and then push the drawreed into sounding.

There is no need for this, overblows and overdraws can be played with no more effort than is needed for a bend note or non bent note. The only thing that is needed is accuracy in resonating the right pitch.

Using a lot of force in overblowing is bad for the reeds it will damage the harmonica. Many beginning overblowers go through several harmonicas before they learn to play gently enough for the harmonica to survive.



User Contributed Notes
 
04-03-2010 15:01
Thats the info i was looking for without knowing it.
great help! thanks!
04-03-2010 01:48
Walt
Yeah, that seems to be helping. Thank you.
04-03-2010 00:26
@Walt: have you tried closing the blowreed slot? Does it get louder when you do that? The overblow should just get louder if you increase air pressure.
04-03-2010 00:18
Walt
So I'm finally able to get an overblow, but the volume is really low. I'm trying to play gently, not force it, but I can't seem to get a similar volume as bent and an bent notes. Any ideas on what might be causing this?
30-08-2008 22:13
thank you
30-08-2008 00:09
No you can only overblow in holes where the blow reed is tuned lower than the drawreed, that would be hole 1 to 6 on a normal diatonic. In holes 7 to 10 you can't overblow, but you can overdraw
29-08-2008 21:16
can you overblow in any hole
06-07-2008 23:05
Very little needs to be done to the drawreed, although it does help the uniformity of tone if the reeds are set up similarly. Also gapping the drawreeds tightly makes it easier to get them to respond. But since this makes bending them more difficult you have to find the optimum gap yourself.
06-07-2008 16:41
OK, Say you've done all the harp modifications to the blow reeds for overblows.
What modifications to the draw reeds need to be done, since that is the reed that
is really producing the overblown note. Help! Thanks
17-03-2007 22:32
Thanks, T. The whole sustaining thing started to open up yesterday after listening again to your recordings of overblows on this site. Implementing the idea of seperate parts to the overblow is also valuable and very workable. Re-reading your info about relaxing the lips and cheeks was also helpful. I am getting the overblows to sustain with a whole lot less effort. Thanks very much.
17-03-2007 13:18
If you loose control of the overblow then I suspect that you need to spend more time learning to control the seperate parts of the overblow. Open up a harmonica and isolate the reeds. first isolate the blowreed and learn to choke it really well. Try to choke the blowreed while playing really gently and then keeping it choked while increasing the pressure. Also work on just playing the drawreed. Isolate the drawreed and play the overblow note. Try to do this with as little force as possible. Especcially pay attention to starting the note softly, whithout extra force to get it to start, but starting it by resonance alone. If this works well start to bend the isolated overblown note up. If you can bend it up a fith or so you can start to play the overblows without isolating the reeds.
16-03-2007 23:04
I am getting overblows on holed 4, 5, & 6. I have difficulty in sustaining the overblown note. Any advice on technique to do this? I have the reed gaps set very close. Thanks.
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