Overblows and Overdraws - Harmonica Lesson (Overblow Manifesto)

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Pete Hogie, who is awesome, is working on a project about the value of learning to overbend. I took that as a call action to ramble for nearly 20 minutes about the topic! This is a manifesto of sorts in that I cover a lot of ground about overblows and overdraws and how they should be treated as important as draw and blow bends.

Other then a few edits for time, this is pretty raw and hopefully helpful. It is by no means totally comprehensive, so if there are chapters you'd like me to go deeper into, please let me know!

I would highly recommend JDR Assasin harmonicas for out of the box overblows. That being said, many harmonicas will work out of the box or with a tiny bit of TLC. Personally, I prefer to play Lee Oskar harmonicas for most of what I am doing and find that I can tweak those and use alternate tunings. The Trochulis/Game Changer harmonica is a great alternative to overbends if you are ok with using a slide. Hohner has a great reputation for making custom harmonicas that will overbend, but I have found harps by Suzuki and Seydel to work too. I have been very impressed by Bushman and JDR for the quality of the instruments, great pricing, and ease of set up to overbend.

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:52 Philosophy
1:10 Design of the Harmonica and Bending
1:35 Overbends
2:00 Pros and Cons of All Bending
2:14 Bending to Pitch
2:50 Timbre of Notes
4:36 Major Difference in Overbends
5:25 Overbend Squeals and how to manage them
6:15 How hard is it to Overbend?
6:41 How to play a 6 Overblow - Two Strategies
8:56 Embouchure for Overbends
9:42 How to use the 6 Overblow
10:05 How to play 4 and 5 Overblow
10:46 How to play 7 Overdraw
11:27 7 Overdraw Riff
11:41 Playing Overbends with Blues Traveler
12:05 10 Overdraw
12:17 Practical use of Overbends
12:40 Summary of the value of learning Overbends
13:34 What keys work best for learning Overbends?
14:17 Why all bending is legitimate
15:16 Rant - Why just because you can bend doesn't mean you should (other ways to play a note)!
16:30 Bending for Rock and Blues vs Jazz and Classical
17:46 Harmonica recommendations for Overbends

Here is the full video of my sitting in with Blues Traveler:


Here is the overblow-heavy instrumental playing at the start of the video:


Here is where you should buy your harmonicas:


Here is where you see my gig schedule and send me a tip: