The following .wav files will show you which bends are available on each hole, and what the bends sound like.   In each case the first note is the natural note in the hole, and the following note(s) are the bends available in that hole.  Note that there are no bends in holes 5 or 7 - you can flatten the note slightly, but it is not a true bend.  Also note that draw bends are only available on holes 1 through 6 (and you cannot bend the blow notes on these holes), and on holes 7 through 10 only blow bends are available.   For more assistance, order Doug Puls' bending tape or CD .  I gave this tape to my 15 year old non-harp playing son to try out and he was fully bending the 2 draw at will within 15 minutes.

Here is an amazing MRI image (it's an animated GIF) that clearly shows the changes in the inside of the mouth needed to form a draw bend.  The player is Gary Green of Virginia. This is a large file (about 1/2 meg) so it takes a few minutes to load -- but it's worth it!      Animated MRI of Harp Player Gary Green Doing a Draw Bend

Folks! There have been some questions about note bending. Here are my suggestions on the subject; dealing with hole 2 bend only.

1. Many beginning benders tend not to put the harp far enough in their mouths to get a good seal over the cover plates.  Make sure in the beginning you get up to and over the numbers, then Pucker, drawing both lips into the harp for the seal.

2. Next, use a Backwards "K" Sound on the draw to get the air back into your throat where it will be most effective. You are going for pressure not airflow.

3. If you find you are "breathing" thru the harp you will have no luck bending.  Bending is a pressure thing.

4.Using the back K thing above with a twist try saying OOOO EEEEEOOOO along with the Back K! This sounds tough but try it.  If the seal is good you should get a Bend on the EEE thing.

5.  If this is not happening yet, try this:  Place index finger of left hand into hole 1 then place index finger of right hand into hole 3, then "REACH with your lips to get to the harp. I had a 9 year old student who nailed the hole 2 bend in this fashion no problem!!!

6. Copy this. Try each day for about 20 minutes.

7. Try to focus on hole 2 draw bend ONLY, and don't work on anything else until this begins to break.

8. Bending is a pressure issue and coordination issue and not hard work.

9. Doing all of the above then tipping the harp slightly will alter the air flow and help you with the bend.

Once you find out where the bend happens for you you can eliminate the crutches above and bend on your own!

Doug Puls

You may want to print this thing in order to keep it at hand for reference or something. Since I normally charge for this information I must include some sort of disclaimer/copyright notice:

Re-posting, publishing or distributing hard copies of this message in full or parts of it is allowed, provided proper credit is given to the author by including his name with the text published. The author is not responsible for any damage, personal or material, resulting in following the instructions given in this text. Following the instructions is done entirely at own risk. (I have to do this. Suppose some poor sod sucks a broken reed into his throat and wants to sue me for telling him to draw on a harp...)  Okay, with that out of the way, let's get back to business.

Frustration is the first harvest when learning to play the harmonica (or any other instrument for all that matters). Now whenever you get frustrated there are two options open to you:

1. Toss the harp against the wall or even better, try tossing it in a nearby pond from your open window. The resulting splash or crash will ease your mind.

2. Use the energy that is released by your frustration to try even harder.

I think you readers are far too intelligent for me to use any form of reverse psychology on you. Therefore I won't advise you to trash your harp in any way and tell you that you are unfit to play it whatsoever. I could, of course, but you wouldn't go for it.

So let's consider the second option. When I teach harp to a beginning student I always tell them to stay in the middle octave, playing simple tunes. Most simple tunes can indeed be played within one octave so that is not the real problem. I teach them to play single notes. In order to have some tunes handy, it is a good idea to make a small list, so that you always can think of a song to play when you start practicing. If you don't have that list, you'll either end up with no idea what to play or with a song that turns out being too complicated. I tell them they are in for a couple of weeks of utter hell. That they will be boring the living daylights out of themselves playing tunes they would get laughed at by their infant kids if they try to even consider teaching those songs to them. Welcome to hell, people! But you are grownups and you know that here on earth each hell has its limits. The second you are able to grab any harp and play a single note within one second, you are ready and will have reached the limit of your own personal hell. Then the doors to heaven open, but you have to cross another mine field first: your first bent note.

Usually I see it as a signal when students start to complain about missing notes. That is the point where they can start learning bends. Take your harmonica and start practicing on bends. In the meantime you really should keep on working on single notes. Now I must caution you. Hell is a holiday camp compared to the frustration you will encounter learning to bend notes. Heed my advice: USE that energy for practice instead of wasting it screaming and stomping your feet.

When learning bends the first question that arises is: "Where do I start?". The answer is plain and simple: anywhere, as long as it is a draw note. Blow bends are also possible, but are much harder to achieve. It is easier to learn blow bends when you know how to do draw bends first. So stay away from the upper three holes and stick to draws only for the time being. The bendable holes on a standard diatonic (any standard diatonic) are 1; 2; 3; 4 and 6. The 5 draw will bend, but only a quarter note and every attempt to bend it will at this point most probably only end up in an undefined squeal that won't get you anywhere. Same goes for the 7 draw. Special diatonics, like the ones with valves or a discrete comb have different rules. I can explain those too, but the main point is to learn bending a "normal" diatonic first, so you know what you can do extra on the specials and how to use that.

It is a given fact that everyone finds their first bend on a different hole on the harmonica, so try them all instead of wasting time and effort on restricting yourself to one hole and one hole only. Once you have your first bend, you can use that as some sort of reference point to get the others. My first bend note came from the #1 hole on a C harp.

I cheated by tilting the harp upwards, partially blocking the hole with my lip, but it worked and it gave me the push to learn more. Most students start with the #3 hole draw, because there are three possible bent notes in there so the chance of you hitting one is the biggest. Could be, but the chance of you bending too far and thus missing it is just as big. Yet I would advise you to go for the 3 draw first.

Sit straight, breathe deeply from your diaphragm once or twice and concentrate on relaxing your chest muscles. Empty your lungs, but not completely. If you do that you will have the urge to gasp and that is not what we want. Controlled breathing is the key, so start with your lungs NEARLY empty, leaving just enough air in there for you to feel comfortable. Bring the harp up to your lips and start the draw note with your tongue flat in your mouth, sides of it touching the upper molars, tip (almost) touching the back of your lower front teeth. Analogy: saying "weeee" while breathing in. This is the way to achieve a clear, single note. If you won't get it that way, you're not ready yet. If you find it cumbersome or uncomfortable, try playing a single note in your own way and be conscious of your embouchure. FEEL the way your tongue is when you play a straight draw note on that particular hole.

The size and shape of your oral cavity and the tract behind it is different with each individual. What works for me does not necessarily work for you, but it is a starting point for finding out what does work.

Be sure when you start the draw note that no air comes in through your nose. That leaking air would be a waste of lung capacity. Close off your nose using the soft palate in the back of your mouth. Don't force it, because that is a thing you already can do: drink through a straw with your nose open and you won't get a drop. Try blowing up a toy balloon with your nose open and you won't even be able to give it the first go. So you already can do it, just think about the drinking through a straw analogy. The closing off of your nose should be something you do unconsciously. When you have to force it, the muscles there will at some point give way and that would result in one of the most disgusting snores you ever heard. Not a pretty sound when you are being amplified through a zillion watts Marshall stack in front of 2,000 people. Don't try and play too loud either. That also is a waste of capacity and totally uncalled for. You can bend notes at the lowest possible sound level, no need for noise there.

Back to bending. Okay, starting positions please! Lungs nearly empty, harp up, "weee" sound with the tongue flat, clear note. Now think of your tongue as a sliding drawer. Slowly pull that tongue back toward the back of your mouth, humping up the excess material in the back. Don't curl up from the front, but from the back! At the same time, drop your jaw down, without losing lip seal on the harp. Analogy: you end up with your mouth in the position of an exaggerated "Oh" sound. Practice the embouchure without the harp first, if need be. The entire thing should be like saying "weeeee-oooooh" slowly and in an exaggerated way while breathing in.

When drawing through the harp, you can hear the sound alter throughout the movement. Do it slowly, so you can listen for changes in the sound. At a certain point you hear the sound start to waver and drop in volume or even disappear completely. That is the point where you freeze your tongue movement and about double your air intake through the harp. Don't suck hard, just gently but quickly increase the air flow to about twice the amount and out pops the bend.

There is no way of saying how far your tongue should be moved backwards and how deep your jaw should drop. I even know of players that bend by just dropping their jaw, keeping their tongue flat on the bottom. Others do it by squeezing the back of their throat. There is no golden rule here, whatever works for you is fine. Experiment. Don't expect the bend to come out the first try. If you hear no sound change at all, try another hole with the same movement or try altering the movement ever so slightly. Don't get too creative, because there are only so many ways to get the bend and twitching your mouth in odd shapes and positions won't help. It might be helpful to tilt the back of the harp upwards slightly. This is cheating, but if it works, hey - so what. You should however try to bend notes with the harp in the same position as playing straight, since that is the most practical for instance when playing with a microphone in your hands.

I know it sounds silly, but you can also try to use your body in the process of learning. Stand straight, with your knees unlocked and while bending the note, bend your knees and torso along, sort of squeezing it out. It may look stupid, but it could work psychologically. I heard this method from a fellow harp teacher and when she demonstrated it, I must admit she had a point. Who cares if you look like an utter moron doing it? I take it you practice alone. You should, because the learning curve for bending notes is not the ideal time to make new friends or even keep the old ones.

Another helpful hint (also psychological) is to visualize the spot in your mouth where the sound forms. Normally the sound originates somewhere just behind the middle of your tongue. Lower notes slightly further back, higher notes slightly more to the front. Visualize that spot when you do a draw note. Now when you try to get a bend, visualize yourself drawing the originating spot further and further to the back, into your breathing tract and all the way to your stomach. The deeper you are able to draw the sound down, the deeper the bend. This is the method I use. Someone pointed it out to me once and I immediately grasped the idea. It worked first try and I got my deepest bend on that 2 draw almost at once. I still use it when I have to bend down a very low note, like on a G or a low-F harp. Try it.

There is one general rule in bending notes though. The higher the note, the smaller the mouth movement needed to bend it. Low notes, like the 1 draw on a G harp, require huge mouth movements. High notes, like the 6 draw on an F harp, require no more than a mere twitch of the tongue. You could say that with a higher note it is easier to achieve a bend so you should practice on for instance an F harp. True, but there is a risk involved. Since the high note only requires a small movement, it is very easy to overdo the movement. If you can get the bend but overdo the move, the sound comes out like "eeeee-oo-eeeee", just dipping down in the middle for a very short time and immediately coming up to the straight tone again. The chance of that happening with a lower note is smaller. Each bent note on each harp has its own embouchure. The trick is to develop a certain muscle memory for each one of them. Of course that sounds more difficult than it is, since you will have to memorize positions for each bend on twelve harp keys, but that is not what is happening. When you have the positions for one harp key down pat, you will find that when using another harp you can use that position and unconsciously you slightly alter it for the higher or lower key played. You'll get the hang of that, don't worry. Just remember that practicing on one harp to get them all is the simplest, but do try other harps as well. It may be the one you practice on is not ideal for you to start on. Don't worry about that; if you get the hang of it, you will be able to bend notes on every diatonic you lay your hands on. It may be not as comfortable with you as it is with the harps you normally play. Could be, some harps are leaky, others gapped wider than you are used to. In both cases bending will cost you more trouble than normally, but that is obvious. You will get that bend though, even on a leaky monster.

The agility with which you move your tongue is paramount. In order to do that, you can train your tongue. It has to be strong. There are some simple exercises you can do in order to train your tongue. With your mouth closed, push your tongue up flat to your palate. Push hard and keep it there for ten seconds. Relax. Now push the side of your tongue to the inside of your molars, push hard and hold for another ten seconds. Do left and do right. Last one: push the tip of your tongue to the inside of your lower front teeth without it touching your palate. Push hard and hold for another ten seconds. If ten seconds turns out to be too strenuous, use five seconds and try to gradually increase. Repeat these exercises as often as you can. It can be done anytime. Nobody will see what you are doing, so you can even do it in a meeting, in the theatre or in your car. Having a stronger tongue enables you to do difficult bends like the 10 blow and hold them. It makes the tone of the bent note more stable.

Once you have the draw bends down, you can start on the blow bends. When you have those in your grasp, the road to full chromatic play on the diatonic is open using overbends (i.e. overblows and overdraws). Those are not too hard to get, provided your harmonica is set up properly and you know how to blow bend. I have one comment on overbends though. I learned all of them (still haven't got the 1 blow overbend though) because I knew they were there and I wanted to be able to get them just because of that. I never incorporate an overblow in my play. The whole thing is, that unless you are very, very skilled at the technique (like Howard Levy is), you can always hear a difference between a natural tone and an overblown one, where the overblown tone sounds either forced and unnatural or slightly unstable. Full chromatic play on a diatonic can be done, but the instrument was never intended for it. I myself wonder why I should torture myself practicing for years on end to do something fluently, while for 60-odd bucks I can buy myself an excellent instrument that has all those notes available at the mere push of a button. It is a matter of choice I guess and I admire anyone who has the skill and technique to do it and do it well. But I think everyone who can overbend but not as fluent as is necessary shouldn't do it because to my ears it sounds awful, no matter how admirable it is, no matter how much of a display of control over the instrument it is.

So the entire idea of learning to play the chromatic as well is in my opinion a good one. Buy yourself a decent chromatic, that does not leak (or only very little). That is important because then you won't be distracted from the learning process by the limitations of your instrument. You don't have to spend a fortune on it. Like I said, a Hering 5148 in the key of C comes at some 62 dollars. And that Hering is a very good, very airtight chromatic (no, I am not affiliated, just enthusiastic about an instrument I own too). Just beware: the chromatic is an entirely different instrument. It just happens to produce sound roughly the same way a diatonic does, but there the comparison stops. Consider the differences between a mandolin and a guitar. The techniques involved in playing the chromatic and even the thinking involved in it are totally different. The note layout is different, the embouchure is different and even the recommended method for single notes is different. It is possible to bend notes on a chromatic, but you have to use a different technique. By the way: don't try it, because you'll drastically shorten the lifespan of your reeds and replacing the plates is vastly more expensive than it is on a diatonic. Besides: why should you? The note you reach bending is there on the next hole with the button in. I know Toots bends notes on his chromatic, but aside from the fact that man has 70(!) years of experience I believe Hohner supplies him with harps for free by the truckload. And with his amount of experience I think he is so skilled he can get the most of his harp without straining it. I can't, and you can't either, so we trash chromatics when trying to do what he does, whereas he just plays on without as much as a twitch from the harp. The only abilities you have to have when learning to play the chromatic are playing single notes flawlessly and being aware of your embouchure. Especially the latter is very critical on a chromatic, since a faulty embouchure will result in a squeal or a choking reed immediately, specifically on the highest and lowest couple of notes.

Well, that pretty much sums it up. The rest is up to you now. Practice until you drop, get frustrated, throw your harp out the window, buy a new one, practice again and on and on and on... This is a phase you will have to go through if you want to play the diatonic harmonica. Be tough, hang in there, and if there is anything I can do or explain to help you get there, just gimme a holler!  Good luck!