What is good tone

Froggy · Member

RE: What is good tone

bear · Veteran Member

fssharp sure said a mouth full that time. And I have to agree with him 100%.
But let me add this, no matter how good of a tone you have it will never sound good! At least to you it will not sound good. People and harp players most of all, are their own worst critics I know of a very good harp player that goes by the cyber handle of KiwiBlues that plays a super good harp but insests she sounds like crap. I could name quite a few others but I think you all get the idea.

As the man said, enjoy the tone you have, practice practice practice, learn new things (bending, throat vibeto, overblows, tongue slapping etc!) and practice some more. Quite try to be like everybody else and just be yourself. Who knows maybe you'll wind up being one of those everybody is trying to be like!

Although I just cannot imagin everybody wanting to be a bear.......:hmm:

fssharp · Veteran Member

Excellent thread.
Open up....... Resonance..... Relax..... Deep breathing
This will all improve your tone.
BUT....
I will never have Jon Gindick's tone. I will never have Dennis Gruenling's tone. I will never have Big Walter's tone. I am not Jon Gindick. I am not Dennis Gruenling, I am not Big Walter. I am fssharp, and I can only get the best tone I can get. If it is weak and thin, what to do? Work on it to get it better. But physiologically, I may never be able to sound like my harp heroes. So then what. Enjoy the tone that you have. Use it to your advantage. Try to improve, but enjoy the process and don't get frustrated. The diatonic harp is a wonderful instrument, capable of all sorts of sounds, timbres, and resonances. Use what you have to your best advantage, enjoy the process of learning, and strive for the best you can be. But..... tone is in the ear of the behearer!! You probably sound better than you think, just keep working on it and have fun!

jpmcbride · Senior Member

Tone is everything on the harmonica ... but hard to define...and hard to get. Get Jon's tone and bending workshop. Lots of good ideas and examples.

When I first got Jon's books I was frustrated that I couldn't make the sounds like he did. I even remember thinking this guy should not be playing all this vibrato and stuff because its too advanced - he should play "dry" notes so that I can sound like he does when I practice. But gradually I found my tone becoming more like his. Some of it was from specific instructions in the materials, some of it maybe from just hearing it over and over and gradually copying it, sometimes without even being conscious of it. The thing you learn though is that the more tone you get, the better you get at hearing subtle things in more advanced players tone, and the more work you realize you have to do to get there. Its a moving target man!

A guy gave a tone lesson at our harmonica club and he did something that really makes the point about how to start with that good tone on your chords (I think I remember Jon uses this same example somewhere)...

Open your mouth up wide and clench the harmonica in your teeth - no hands! Now blow and draw easy through the 1,2,3,4 holes. hear that sound? Now try to make your chords sound like that.

Other tone suggestions:

1) Harp deep in your mouth
2) Open your mouth up big on the inside - like a ping-pong ball is in there :-)
3) Don't blow or draw hard. Easy is better ... I have to work on this one.

Jim McBride

Jon · Senior Member

Tone--yes, that's the whole ball of wax for 2nd position. Why play a riff, a song,
a sound, if you don't have good tone? Harmonica is not about ugly sounds.
It's about using your body, breath and instrument to create a strong, flexible living voice.

Plus, it's a test, if you do not have good tone, there is something wrong in your fundamentals. When you are doing it right, it sounds good. It feels good, like smacking a golfball perfectly, or a baseball, perfectly. It's a sweet spot feeling.

There are certain things you need to know about the sweet spot.

1. It comes from playing with your mouth open, and the harp filling it up.
Closed mouths create lousy tone.

2. It comes from articulating in your throat, which can be accomplished and perfected using the "secret sauce" in my bending and tone lesson, or using other people's secret sauces.

3. It comes from NOT using or tightening your lips.

4. It comes from whole body breathing, breathing as though you were
engaged in exercise. You also descibe this as second level breathing.
Breathing you can feel in your stomach.

5. Relax.

All of these ideas and much more are in the Tone and Bending Workshop.
See link below. This workshop is the most important thing I have done on harp.

Over the phone, I can coach you into the deep tone.

But if you do go it alone, here's a an idea about how to proceed.

First get great tone on chords, and only then move onto 2 draw and 3 draw.

Do not allow yourself to proceed from chord to single note until you can make a chord sound full, rich, tremolish (word?) and musical.

Practice in 8 beat sections (two 4-beat measures) over and over, getting more relaxed every time.

To download bending and tone workshop, go to

Jon's 60 minute Bending and Tone Workshop

-- Edited by Jon at 17:44, 2006-04-29

Delboy · Member

My idea of good tone is getting clear single notes?

bear · Veteran Member

Me thinks I would like to hear the answer on this one myself.

Chicagoland Rick · Newbie

A lot of things got me thinking about tone as of late. I read McBride's suggestions for playing Rock and Pop. He emphasized good tone. When I listen to Jon and others play, there is a quality that I don't have; a quality that goes beyond vibratto. You don't play vibratto every note, but the quality is there.

I thought it was an artifact of the recording process, until last night. I was listening to this guy play... no microphones or amps at all. Thick. Lots of low frequency sidebands, not a lot of high frequency screeching.

I got Jon's tone and Bending CD. I can bend now, but I just don't have that thick sound. I was screwing around last night, just drawing long notes (much to the annoyance of my wife). The sound did not change significantly when I tried different things: jaw open, jaw shut, throat open, throat more closed off. I mean there were changes, but it all sounded pretty much the same.

Any suggestions?

Rick
'burbs of Chicago