One of the most infected debate in the harmonica world is the pucker vs tongue blocking debate that has been going on for ever. This article is not meant as fuel for that debate although I am a tongue blocking advocate since a number of years. What I would like to do with this articel is giving you a good foundation start tongue blocking for single notes. I find that some people stay with puckering just because they don’t know how to change.

Defining tongue blocking

First of, let’s just define what tongue blocking is. It is the embouchure where you place your mouth over three or four holes on the harmonica and then use your tongue to block the holes you don’t want to play. What you end up with is one (or more) holes that gets all the air throught the corner of your mouth. You can actually play out of both corners for the octave split but let’s save that for later.

First, no air

To get a good a start tongue blocking you need to be able to control your tongue. This is quite hard for most people as we use our tongues sub-consiously every day. I find that the best way is to start by blocking all the holes at once so that no sound comes out at all. It may sound counter intuitive but it is actually a very useful technique as a base for more advanced techniques. To effectively block all holes you will notice that the tip of the tongue is not wide enough, point the tip slightly downwards and let the top of the tip block instead.

Block all holes with the top of the front part of the tongue.

Slight leftwards slide

The next step is to open the air flow for one hole. You do this by ever so slightly slide your tongue to the left. This will open up a hole in the right corner of your mouth that will allow air to pass through one of the holes. Don’t worry too much if you get more than one hole to begin with but spend some time finding the sweet spot where you only get one hole. Basically that is it, this is how you start tongue blocking. The sound you hear should be unobstructed and relaxed, no bend in the pitch a full tone. Use the process I outlined before on how to learn new techniques.

Slide the tongue to the left to allow air to pass through.

Common problems

Here are a few problems people run into and how to remedy them

Unable to block all holes

You are probably using too much of the tip of the tongue, curve your tongue downwards a bit more to use more of the top of the tongue. It is also a good idea to tilt the harmonica slightly downwards to more easily meet the top of your tongue. You may also be opening your mouth too wide, try narrowing it a bit to cover three or four holes. No more now.

Harmonica tilted against the cheek

In this case you are likely blocking with the side of your tongue, focus on holding the harmonica directly in front of your mouth no tilt. It is also likely that you have tried compensating for not curving your tongue downwards enough by tilting the harmonica. Go back to practicing the full block until you can hold the harmonica with no tilt.

Unable to control the tongue

If you feel that you are unable to control the tongue it is probably because you have no visual cues to build a picture of what is going on. In this case practice blocking all holes without the harmonica standing in front of a mirror and then sliding your tongue to the left. Seeing what you are doing will help you control your tongue and understanding how it should feel.You can also get the Filisko Tongue Block Trainer to get a more complete picture of what is happening.

Put it all together

Once you start tongue blocking I would recommend you to try to play as much as possible with this embouchure. You may need to relearn some songs you have played before but I think it is well worth the effort.