On Thu, 22 Feb 1996, Rob Pitt wrote: > > What I really wanted to say was, does anyone play blues blocking out of > the left side (other side for awkward people/lefties)? I can do it, but > it doesn't improve my tone any.
I'm going to afford the benefit of the doubt and assume no excoriation was intended of humanity's most highly adaptable element, the right hemisphere dominant, leftside oriented, creative, intuitional, and innovative people of the world. Please know I smile teasingly as I type. As a "lefty" and mainly pucker-style player, I'd first like to say that I don't perceive tongue-blocking, u-blocking, lip-blocking or any other styles as awkward, just different. And perhaps, due to my right-brained, left-sided thinking, I readily recognize the merit in any and all of them, accepting that any and all are workable and achievable, and have no trouble learning the basic concepts of each. Admittedly, some present more frustration in the learning process than others, and some seem impossible at times, but I can't accept that if anyone exists who can do it. [For me, it's over-blowing/drawing, but that will come if I apply myself to it...I believe that.]
The appeal of any technique is not what it is, but what it does; and then, not what it does, but where it does it. Blocking on the leftside is no more clumsy than on the rightside, unless it's used where it doesn't fit. To mix the lower notes in hole one with those in hole two, blocking one or the other hole is the only way to go; if the mix needed is for the chords above the second hole, then you move over, block hole one, and that's where the music's made.
Too much can be made about where the notes are and not where the music is.
*** Bobbie ***
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