Tongue Blocking vs Lip Pursing

The Quest For Ultimate Tone

“We gasp for air who believe they are absolutely right, whether it be in their machines or their ideas” -Albert Camus

Human beings have had a tribal mentality since time in memoriam.

It developed our ability to judge people, dismiss those who didn’t align with our values, and recognize the ones who did. We formed teams to realize a communal identity. We wanted, and still do, want to feel like we belong to a group.

Over time, we learned the value of critical thinking, individuality, and developing an unrighteous mind to realize the potential of bipartisan discovery better.

Today, the world is filled with self-inflicted division. It seems that the easiest way to operate is to divide ourselves into genres, communities, and ideologies constantly.

While looking at the world with this dangerous black-and-white thinking might be easier, it’s not always the best policy when trying to grow as an informed, conscious individual.

Yet, despite the grey area we know exists in the world, it seems that everywhere you look, we have division after division, team after team, tribe after tribe:

Democrats vs Republicans.

Thin Crust vs Sicilian.

Coffee vs Tea.

Yankees vs Red Sox.

Liverpool vs Manchester United.

And, of course, when it comes to learning the harmonica:

Tongue Blockers vs Lip Pursers.

When I first joined the harmonica community and started making friends in the blues world, I was surprised to find a palpable division between two types of players: those who puckered and those who put their tongues on the instrument's wood comb.

I couldn’t help but wonder:

What’s the big deal here?

Why does this division exist?

Why do some believe that the only way to play this thing is tongue-blocked?

I noticed that, after I would play, the most common questions weren’t “What notes were you playing?” or “What harmonica is that?”; it was always the same divisive question:

“Are you tongue-blocking or lip-pursing?”

“Or” is a dangerous word. It might be one of the most dangerous words when developing voice on the instrument.

At first, I didn’t know what I was being asked. Like most people I’ve talked to, I started as a pucker player and thought that was it. I had no idea there was another embouchure because no one told me it existed.

When I was learning from records of all the old blues guys, I would try to mimic the sounds they were getting with as wide an embouchure as I could get as a pucker player. This worked reasonably well for a long time, and contrary to popular belief, you can get an incredible tone as a pucker player. You can imitate much of the tongue-blocked sounds and still get a convincing, bluesy sound.

I didn’t learn tongue-blocking until five years into playing. I began to play more octaves and incorporate more slaps, and I realized that this magic technique was the silver bullet to sounding like Sonny Boy II and Big Walter Horton. It was like someone had given me a cheat code, and I finally understood how those old Chicago guys were getting that big, fat sound. The fact that I had been playing all those years and never came across this term didn’t dishearten me; it made playing a much more potent obsession than it had been before.

It almost becomes your identity marker as you move through the ranks of up-and-coming harp players. You are seen as a team player for the tongue-blocking traditionalists or a modern, edgy, fast player lip pursing.

I am not a fan of labels. The harmonica player's only job is to make the music sound as good and honest as possible. You must learn both embouchures to be the most versatile, well-rounded harmonica player. I don’t care if you consider yourself a traditional blues player or a jazz chromatic player.

The music doesn’t care either.

Ego is the ultimate danger to music. You can’t play honestly until you have all the tools in your toolkit. You can’t be fully realized as a player until you deeply understand both techniques' pros and cons.

You can’t be fully yourself until you know how best to serve the music.

In today’s article, I will discuss the pros and cons of both embouchures and convince you that the best approach is to embrace a hybrid option.

Tongue Blocking

What is Tongue Blocking?

Tongue Blocking is playing a single note or multiple on the harmonica with your tongue blocking the other holes on the harmonica. This results in several unique abilities that you can only do when playing this embouchure:

-Octaves

-Splits

-Slaps

-Tongue Flutters

These textures add immensely to the tone and development of your phrases as you become more advanced as a harmonica player. They fatten your sound and make your tone especially big when playing into a bullet mic.

It’s indisputable that most Chicago players (the Walters, Cotton, and Sonny Boy) mainly utilized tongue-blocking. Listen to any Sonny Boy II recording; there’s no way you can mimic anything he’s doing without tongue-blocking. For that style of music, especially Chicago blues, this style fits like a glove and, you could say, is fundamental to understanding how to play blues harmonica in general.

Tongue blocking is not without its downsides:

-Reduced speed and articulation, especially on the bottom end where all the bends are located. This is the single biggest con

-harder to produce overblows/overdraws (but not impossible)

-can feel a little clumsy and messy if you aren’t used to it

-it takes more time to get used to than lip pursing

-bending becomes more challenging as you must bend the notes from either side of your mouth with your tongue on the harp.

So, what should you do?

I firmly believe that tongue blocking is critical to learning the harmonica. I wish I had discovered it earlier in my journey. I try to get many of my beginner blues students to use it early, not because I feel it is a “better” embouchure in general but because it is the embouchure to use when learning blues harmonica vocabulary. All the subtleties of Sonny Boy, Sonny Terry, and Big Walter can only be achieved by utilizing this embouchure.

Simply put, you must learn tongue blocking if you want to learn blues harmonica.

Lip Pursing

Lip pursing, or pucker playing, is pursing your lips to obtain a clean, single-hole sound on the harmonica. In doing so, you achieve several benefits:

-Clean Single Holes

-Sharper Attack

-Greater speed as you move from hole to hole

-Better articulation

-Better control of the bends on the bottom end of the diatonic

-Precision when moving from hole to hole

-Easier to conceptualize for a beginner player than tongue-blocking

This is not the preferred embouchure when it comes to learning blues harmonica. Sometimes, it’s even frowned upon. But, in all other genres of music, this embouchure works great, especially for those players who want to sound like more modern players (Paul Butterfield, John Popper, Adam Gussow, Jason Ricci, Sugar Blue, Alan Wilson, Pat Ramsay, etc.) Not to say those players didn’t also utilize tongue blocking, but most of their sound comes from the sharp precision and articulation of the pucker embouchure.

Many beginners first come to harmonica and learn this embouchure because it is the more logical of the two options. When we initially see the harmonica, it makes the most sense to pucker up and get one of those holes in your mouth.

Now, the cons of Puckering:

-Because of the smaller amount of harmonica in your mouth, your tone is more likely to suffer. Not to say you can’t get a great tone as a pucker player, but the odds of having a worse tone on the harmonica increase.

-Inability to use the techniques of tongue blocking like slaps and octaves

-More head movement around the instrument

Learning the older styles of harmonica playing becomes more challenging without understanding tongue blocking. If you only lip purse, you will only partially achieve the sound you hunger for as a blues player.

So, what does all this mean?

It means that both embouchures are valid and can be used to significant emotional effect.

I firmly believe that you must be a musician first and a harmonica player second. Musicians must have all techniques and sounds at their disposal to be able to do the following:

-Support the music

-Express yourself in an honest way

-Play your instrument in a way that allows emotion to be expressed not as a means to show off but to communicate genuine feeling

Steven Pressfield once said":

“The professional masters the how and leaves the what and why up to the gods.”

As a harmonica player, the job description requires you to know the “how” of your instrument. It requires you not to become dogmatic or lost in meaningless labels, genres, or tribes. To fully express yourself and be the best harmonica player, you must know your instrument intimately and without ego. That means learning “how” the notes are produced in every possible way. That means understanding both embouchures. Every situation will be different. Being one-dimensional is a surefire way to stall your growth as a musician and an easy way to lock yourself in an unnecessary box.

There’s a great saying from Alan Watts that goes,

“ It is by thinking that we divide the world.”

The grey area of this instrument is utilizing a hybrid approach. It seeks a balance between tongue blocking and lip pursing. It lies in knowing when to use each embouchure, which takes years to understand.

It lies in dismissing labels and accepting that music isn’t about which team you are playing for or how impressive it is that you can play 100% tongue-blocked.

Music is about communication.

Tongue blocking and Lip pursing are simply vehicles of expression.

You don’t have to choose a tribe.

Just choose to be honest. Choose both. Learn from both.

You’ll be happy you did.