for beginners: lip pursing vs tongue blocking 

More thumbs-down than usual for this many views. It's obvious that a few full-time tongue blockers are miffed by the fact that I'm only a part-time tongue blocker. :)

Thank you Adam for doing this video. It is very helpful. Tony Stephens

Great video!!! The first time I heard a player do great tounge blocking, I was blown away and could NOT figure it out. Then, when I learned the opening lick to "Juke", I got the concept then and rolled with it....

If anybody’s interested in that little kick Adam starts showing at about 8:30, there’s an entire chorus it’s used heavily in “Take you Downtown” from his Word on the Street album. Db harp if I remember correctly. Great stuff if you want to hear it incorporated in a 12bar shuffle.

harmonica players should lip pursing and tongue blocking ..Creates a uniqueness.. Nice helpful video. Thanks

Thanks for all the tips. My father inspired both my brothers and I when he played the mouth organ. At the time his style was tongue blocking which was known as 'vamping' which was ideal to imitate an accordian type sound.

Just got my Marine Band Harp today, and was watching the the free lessons from Hohner. Was doing ok until I got to the one about tongue blocking. I'm glad I started watching your channel before ordering my instrument, because I found this video, and Now I understand. I'm 51, and decided to finally learn harmonica. I play bass guitar in a band, and wanted to learn something new, so here I am! Thank you for the insight, and encouragement to learning something new.

I tonque block all but blow bends,somethimes 1st hole,somethimes i tonque switch on 1!i started years ago with lip p and this great man videos so gussow thank you for all this years on youtube still a fan-subscriber!

Adam. I really enjoyed your old vids about fast playing. I would love a new SERIY covering this.

Nice one Adam

I love tongue blocking octaves, especially for mimicking Zydeco style accordion movement. It's also great for rhythmically pulsating the full chord between the octaves...or beneath a single steady note. Beyond that, the nature of a wide embouchure is such that, during movement along the harp, the holes adjacent to the "isolated" hole(s) will sneak in, resulting in tiny "ghost notes" that add a great texture...displayed beautifully by Little Walter and other great Chicago Blues players. Unfortunately, being primarily a lip purser, I can't play clean, tongue-blocked, single-note lines for squat, which is why I'm so glad you have figured out...and shared...a way to create those textures via tiny embouchure adjustments. THANK YOU!!!

I tried harmonica around 10 years and I remember the few tutorials taught that you have to tongue block to get single notes, I couldn't get it right even after a few days of trying, so I gave up on playing harmonica. I went back to it last week after knowing about the lip pursing, now I could get single notes much easier, and that made me gain interest again. I can see why tongue blocking would better in some situations, but maybe it isn't for beginners like me.

Awesome. A hybrid method is the way to go. I play guitar too, and use a pick and fingers.

You are just great!!! I am so sorry that I can't find Satan & Adam on netflix!

You do not have to necessarily use the tip of your tongue and going straight forward to tongue block... I like using the front underside of my tongue to tongue block... there's quite a few harp players that do this... Gary Primich did... John Nemeth does, and I'm sure there are others. It's just a matter of what feels natural and how you hold your harp in your mouth... straight, slanted up, or slanted down. I started as a lip purser (lip blocker), and did so for many years, then decided I needed to do some tongue blocking, for octaves and flutters, etc... the tongue is a muscle that needs to be exercised to get it to do what you want, otherwise, its kind of just stiff... tongue fluttering was what I really wanted to do, and it did take awhile to develop and exercise my tongue to do so.

Personally I mainly lip-purse. I find that I get a louder volume when lip pursing. People talk about tongue-blocking having a better tone, but if you get the harp as deep in your mouth as you can when lip-pursing and form a correct embouchure I find the difference to be negligible. Pursing is also easier to bend on, and easier for doing fast runs. But I had to start learning tongue blocking because of the effects you can achieve (such as vamping and split octaves) that I needed to broaden my playing. I don’t know why there’s this ‘tongue block vs lip purse’ debate. One is not superior to the other. It all comes down to what feels comfortable to the individual and what sort of sound they want to achieve. There’s no reason why you can’t do both, depending on what you’re playing. It’s even ok to switch mid-song, depending on what you’re playing.

This video was just in time for me. I’m a beginner and I started my first harmonica single note melodies by lip pursing. I watch all your and Tomlin vids. In fact I didn’t even know there was another technique as well. But 3 days ago I bought a new Hohner harmonica and it came with 1 month free trial lessons from David Barrett so I decided to give it a try and I started watching his beginner videos, he teaches with tongue blocking which at first seemed very strange and difficult for me and it still does. I prefer lip pockering but then I realized there are some melodies which are impossible to play without using tongue blocks. Also I get this feeling that although tongue blocking is more difficult, it has bigger and brighter sound. Anyways.. I was like: can one play harmonica well without tongue blocking? And here comes Adam Gussow: I don’t use tongue blocking, and plays magic on his marine band 👍 this video was an answer to my question. So I guess I will try to master some tongue blocking but if it goes wrong now I know I can always play by pockering :)))

I don't know what the heck Iam doing wrong I played my old childhood pocket pal ad did something worthy of an audience. I got an expensive suzuki pure harp and a couple reeds. Can't play a thing on it. Or my pocket pal. 🙁

Years and years of starting to learn to play, and not nothing against the other guys doing videos so I won't mention them, but I always got frustrated not learning a style or approach I actually wanted to play, I didn't care for the special 20 and I prefer sonny terry over Paul Butterfield, few months in (mind you I did still remember most basics and bending techniques) but now I can do some rythms and single note solos using pukcerkng, now Im.getting into tounge blocking, because I just want to learn, but I'm discovering for where I'm at and what I want to play at the moment it's not as dire as I thought

Hi Adam. I got a c harp for Christmas this year and I bought your program. Do you teach youth “mysterious” method either on RU-vid or in your program? Thanks for all the great videos. Your video on the pucker technique set me up for success when I found a local harmonica teacher.

Nice but I would have liked a little more insight into the technique of tongue blocking im still in the dark about it, but im loving the lip pursing

I consider myself to be a beginner-intermediate player, and I play like you - mostly lip-pursed. But I find there are things that must be tongue-blocked. Sonny Boy's Help Me, for instance. Parts of that have to be tongue blocked. So I'm leaning :-)

Where were you 30 years ago when I was learning. I had to figure it out on my own. lol. Thanks for the video.

😰😲😮😳😁

Old Micheal Bluth

Damm I'm still trying to get the hang of it

Hi!!! 👋🏻😃

Will you adopt me?

Embouchure might as well be called “trump lips” from now on because that’s exactly what you do