hey i'm new, and just started being able to get sounds out of my high notes on my lee oskar c harp, it helps alot if you suck in like you're trying to bend a note on the high notes to get sound out of them
DutchBones has listed some practical suggestions for you. Here is another suggestion.
Before trying this, try Dutch's advice. If his advice works, go no further. If your playing technique isn't the problem, contact Lee Oskar (read below).
An evaluation is difficult to make without seeing or hearing the harmonica, but here's my guess on the situation:
The harmonica is a Lee Oskar, one of the most airtight harps in the world. That rules out air leakage, in most cases.
My guess is that the non-sounding reeds of your harmonica need an adjustment in their gapping.
Contact Lee Oscar harmonicas at www.leeoskar.com. Explain the problem. They will be very co-operative, and will probably fix it free, or for a small fee.
You can re-gap the reeds yourself, with time and patience, and a wood toothpick. Don't use any metallic object to re-gap (paper clip, file, etc). Metal objects may accidentally scrape metal off the reed(s), de-tuning the reed(s).
Before trying this remedy, you must know that it might void your manufacturer's warranty. Contact the manufacturer first.
Try the following procedure only if the manufacturer's repair is unsatisfactory. Practice the repair techniques on a defective, unfixable or cheap harmonica first, to learn the procedure. Then work on your Lee Oskar harp.
The distance in height, between a reed's open end (free end) and the reed plate, is its gapping.
If the distance (gap) is too high, the reed won't sound, or it will need a stonger breath to activate it. If the reed's gap is too low, it will only sound with a light breath, or not make a sound.
Sit at a table, with a white sheet of paper on the table, to catch falling parts. With a small, slotted or phillips screwdriver, remove the metal harmonica covers. Put the small screws and nuts safely in a covered container, to avoid losing them. Put the covers off to the side, out of the way.
If the harp won't sound on a draw note, you will be working on the bottom reed plate, holes 7-10 (whichever reed or reeds need adjustment). If the harp won't sound on the blow reeds, you'll be working on the top reed plate, holes 7-10 (whichever reed or reeds need adjustment).
Visually inspect the reeds that aren't working. If the reed(s) are not as high or as low above the reed plate as the other, sounding reeds adjacent to them, adjust the non-working reed(s).
LIGHTLY press a wood toothpick once or twice, at the free end (un-riveted end) of each reed, into the reed chamber. If the non-sounding reeds are at the same gap (before adjustment) as the other reeds, you'll have a different problem.
Work on only one reed at a time. After your adjustment, play the reed. If it sounds good, go on to the next reed. If it still doesn't sound, we'll discuss that in another post.
Follow the same procedure on the rest of the un-sounding reeds, one at a time.
Play each reed. If they sound good, put the covers back on the harmonica. The cover with the hole numbers will be placed on the top of your harmonica, hole #1 on the left. Hole #1 is the hole with the longest reeds.
The cover with no hole numbers will be placed on the bottom reed plate. Place a screw into the hole in the top cover, with the slot or phillips head on top. The screw will go through both reed plate holes and the bottom cover hole.
Put the nut on the screw, screw it down, lightly, just until the screw grabs. Attach the other cover screw and nut in the same way. When both covers are fastened, tighten them just until they grab, then a little more.
DON'T OVER SCREW. You might bend the covers out of shape, creating air leakage.
Hi 2draw, Jon has some very good vids for this on youtube and his CD's (Tone& Bending Workshop) are especially recommended.... But for now...did you try to "breath" thru the upper holes as opposed to blowing and sucking air thru them? If you can get 3 holes at once and make them sound, you should try to breath thru those 3 holes, with the harp firmly/deep stuck in your mouth.. gently in and out, in a relaxed way....next you "narrow the target down" to one hole by pushing your lips out (like trying to close your mouth with the harp still stuck in it) You should be able to get a clean single tone this way... Whatever you do...don't force it....it might take some practice...and keep in mind that the higher notes are somehow more difficult to play than lower notesin the beginning (for most people anyway)
It's a 10-hole Lee Oscar diatonic in C. I bought it new. The individual blow and draw notes on 7-10 play fine when I block everything else with my fingers, I so know it's something wrong with me, not the harp. It's when I use my mouth alone that I'm stuck.
As I try to play these notes, here's what I encounter: Sometimes I can hit the note I want, but only for a split-second before it fades into silence; sometimes I get a wild off-tone sqeak; and other times ( most of the time) I get no sound at all. I can play any 2 or 3 of these together as a chord just fine. But when I try to narrow it to a single note, that's when I have difficulties.
I'm a new player. After about two months of practice, I'm feeling comfortable with holes 1-6; but 7-10 remain out of reach. (8b, 8d, and 9d seem especially impossible.) I've spent hours experimenting with lip, tongue, and harp positioning, all to no avail, and find myself quite frustrated.
