Overblowing
Encyclopedia
Overblowing A technique used while playing a wind instrument
Wind instrument
A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator , in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into a mouthpiece set at the end of the resonator. The pitch of the vibration is determined by the length of the tube and by manual modifications of...

 which, primarily through manipulation of the supplied air (versus, e.g., a fingering change or operation of a slide), causes the sounded pitch
Pitch (music)
Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...

 to jump to a higher one. Depending on the instrument (and less so on the player), overblowing may involve a change in air pressure, in the point at which the air is directed, or in the resonance
Acoustic resonance
Acoustic resonance is the tendency of an acoustic system to absorb more energy when it is forced or driven at a frequency that matches one of its own natural frequencies of vibration than it does at other frequencies....

 characteristics of the chamber formed by the mouth and throat of the player (a feature of embouchure
Embouchure
The embouchure is the use of facial muscles and the shaping of the lips to the mouthpiece of woodwind instruments or the mouthpiece of the brass instruments.The word is of French origin and is related to the root bouche , 'mouth'....

). In some instruments, overblowing may also involve the direct manipulation of the vibrating reed(s), and/or the pushing of a register key
Register key
The register key is a key on the clarinet that is used to play in the second register; that is, it raises the pitch of most first-register notes by a twelfth when pressed. It is positioned above the left thumb hole and is operated by the left thumb...

 while otherwise leaving fingering unaltered. With the exception of harmonica overblowing, the pitch jump is from one vibratory mode of the reed or air column, e.g., its fundamental
Fundamental frequency
The fundamental frequency, often referred to simply as the fundamental and abbreviated f0, is defined as the lowest frequency of a periodic waveform. In terms of a superposition of sinusoids The fundamental frequency, often referred to simply as the fundamental and abbreviated f0, is defined as the...

, to an overtone
Overtone
An overtone is any frequency higher than the fundamental frequency of a sound. The fundamental and the overtones together are called partials. Harmonics are partials whose frequencies are whole number multiples of the fundamental These overlapping terms are variously used when discussing the...

. Overblowing can be done deliberately in order to get a higher pitch, or inadvertently, resulting in the production of a note other than that intended.

In simple woodwind instruments, overblowing can cause the pitch to change into a different register
Register (music)
In music, a register is the relative "height" or range of a note, set of pitches or pitch classes, melody, part, instrument or group of instruments...

. For example, a player of the Irish tin whistle
Tin whistle
The tin whistle, also called the penny whistle, English Flageolet, Scottish penny whistle, Tin Flageolet, Irish whistle and Clarke London Flageolet is a simple six-holed woodwind instrument. It is an end blown fipple flute, putting it in the same category as the recorder, American Indian flute, and...

 can play in the upper octave by blowing harder while using the same fingering as in the lower octave.

In brass instrument
Brass instrument
A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...

s, overblowing (sometimes combined with tightening of the embouchure) produces a different harmonic.

In beating, or striking, reed wind instruments such as the saxophone, clarinet, and oboe, the transition from lower to higher register is aided by a "register hole" which encourages a vibration node at a particular point in the pipe such that a higher harmonic is produced.

Another type of overblowing is that used on instruments such as the flute, where the direction of the airstream is altered in order to sound higher notes. This technique can also be demonstrated when blowing across the top of a glass bottle (beer bottle, wine bottle, etc.) to produce a pitch.

Bagpipes

Some bagpipes
Bagpipes
Bagpipes are a class of musical instrument, aerophones, using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. Though the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe and Irish uilleann pipes have the greatest international visibility, bagpipes of many different types come from...

, most importantly the uillean pipes, are capable of overblowing in the sense of jumping to a higher pitch, though most bagpipes are not normally played in this way. Among Highland pipers, the term more often refers to a problem affecting the steadiness and reliability of the pitch and tone caused by an excess of air pressure. When a piper plays, a rhythm is set up between blowing into the blowstick and squeezing the bag. Often, a piper will over-squeeze the bag while still exhaling, causing a pipe to cease to sound or to vary its tone and pitch.

Harmonica

Overblowing is an important modern technique among players of some harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...

 types, notably the standard Richter-tuned harmonica or blues harp. Combined with note bending, it yields the full chromatic scale across the instrument's range. Though pioneered on Richter-tuned harps, overblowing, or the related overdrawing, is possible on any harmonica having both a blow reed and a draw reed mounted in the same airway (i.e., behind the same mouthpiece hole), but no windsaver valve on the higher-pitched of the two reeds. While superficially resembling in its pitch-jumping effect the overblowing of other (beating-reed, aerophone, brass) wind instruments, harmonica overblowing is completely unrelated from the standpoint of the underlying physics. It does not induce the sounding reed to sound a higher overtone – free reed overtones do not even begin to approximate the harmonic series
Harmonic series (music)
Pitched musical instruments are often based on an approximate harmonic oscillator such as a string or a column of air, which oscillates at numerous frequencies simultaneously. At these resonant frequencies, waves travel in both directions along the string or air column, reinforcing and canceling...

 nor are they particularly musical – nor does it induce a higher vibrational mode in air in a pipe or other resonator – harmonicas generally have no such resonator. Rather, it silences the sounding reed while eliciting sound from the formerly silent one – the one that normally responds to air flowing in the opposite direction. A key fact for understanding both overblowing and bending on such an instrument: a free reed mounted over a reedplate slot will normally respond to air flows that pull it initially into the slot, i.e., as a closing reed, but, at only slightly higher air pressure from the opposite side, will also respond as an opening reed; the resulting pitch is generally just less than a semitone higher than the closing-reed pitch.

Overblown notes can be played as softly as any other note on the instrument. Proper embouchure alone will cause the closing reed to cease vibrating and induce the opening reed to start. Overblow notes are naturally flat but can be bent up to the correct pitch. An overblow consists of two steps: the closing reed must be choked (silenced), and the opening reed must be sounded. A clean overblow note requires that both of these steps be executed simultaneously. The steps can be learned separately: Remove both cover plates from an old Richter-tuned harmonica, use tape to block the draw reeds of holes 1-6 and blow reeds of 7-10, and reassemble the harp. Play any single note. Without blowing (or sucking) unduly hard, try to choke off that reed's sound. You may wish to try almost forming the letter K, or G way back in your throat, or on the high-hole draw reeds, pushing your tongue slightly forward. However you do it, when you can easily and completely silence the reed in every hole, then again disassemble the harp, remove the tape, tape the opposite reeds – 1-6 blow and 7-10 draw – and put cover plates back on. Now use your single-note technique while trying to play the reed that normally does not sound. Do not blow (or suck) hard. Try the same embouchure changes as above. When you can produce clear sound, both soft and loud, and can bend the pitches slightly upward on all 10 holes, then remove all tape, reassemble the harp, and try overblowing holes 1-6 and overdrawing holes 7-10. Overblowing technique also has been described as not much different than doing a blow bend, except on a draw-bend-only reed (holes 1-6), and doing a draw bend embouchure, except on a blow-bend-only reed (holes 7-10). The latter technique is also known as the "overdraw" due to the reversed airflow, and these techniques are sometimes collectively referred to as "overbends".

Certain modifications to factory-built harmonicas can increase the sensitivity of the instrument and make overblows far easier to achieve. Lowering the reed gap (over the reedplate) and slightly narrowing reed slots (a process called embossing) are probably the most common customization methods used to set up overblow-friendly harmonicas. Because it involves both reeds in the chamber, overblowing is not possible on fully valved harmonicas (including chromatic harmonicas or the Hohner XB-40, a harmonica with discrete reed chambers and extra sounding reeds).

Notable practitioners of overblowing are Howard Levy
Howard Levy
Howard Levy is a Grammy Award–winning, American harmonicist, pianist, composer, and producer....

, a founding member of the Flecktones, Otavio Castro, Chris Michalek
Chris Michalek
Chris Michalek was an American harmonica player.Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he was an accomplished modern diatonic harmonica player in many styles including Jazz, Funk, Blues and World Music. Michalek was also the organizer of the Global Harmonica Summit in 2000...

, Jason Ricci
Jason Ricci
Jason Ricci is an American harmonica player and singer.-Biography:Raised in Portland, Maine, Jason Ricci is the son of the controversial businessman/politician/activist Joe Ricci, founder of Elan School. Ricci started playing music in punk bands at the age of 14. After discovering a love of the...

, and Carlos del Junco
Carlos del Junco
Carlos del Junco is a renowned Cuban-Canadian harmonica musician.Mr. del Junco immigrated with his family when he was one year old. He started to play the harmonica at 14 years old. He graduated from college with honors at the Ontario College of Art majoring in sculpture.He specializes in...

.

Woodwinds

In the case of the clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

, the instrument's single reed beats against its mouthpiece
Mouthpiece (woodwind)
The mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument is that part of the instrument which is placed partly in the player's mouth. Single-reed instruments, capped double-reed instruments, and fipple flutes have mouthpieces while exposed double-reed instruments and open flutes do not.-Single-reed instruments:On...

, opening and closing the instrument's cylindrical closed tube
Closed tube
In the field of acoustics, a tone is created by the periodic vibrations of air applied to a resonator. There are several ways in music to create such vibrations. One of these is to use a closed tube and to blow across the end. This creates a Bernoulli, or "siphon", effect just below the open end or...

 to produce a tone. When the instrument is overblown, with or without the aid of its register key
Register key
The register key is a key on the clarinet that is used to play in the second register; that is, it raises the pitch of most first-register notes by a twelfth when pressed. It is positioned above the left thumb hole and is operated by the left thumb...

, the pitch is a twelfth
Interval (music)
In music theory, an interval is a combination of two notes, or the ratio between their frequencies. Two-note combinations are also called dyads...

 higher.

In the case of a saxophone, which has a similar mouthpiece-reed combination to the clarinet, or of an oboe, where double reed
Double reed
A double reed is a type of reed used to produce sound in various wind instruments. The term double reed comes from the fact that there are two pieces of cane vibrating against each other. A single reed consists of one piece of cane which vibrates against a mouthpiece made of metal, hardened...

s beat against each other to the same effect, the conical-shaped bore
Bore (wind instruments)
The bore of a wind instrument is its interior chamber that defines a flow path through which air travels and is set into vibration to produce sounds. The shape of the bore has a strong influence on the instruments' timbre.-Bore shapes:...

 of these instruments gives their the closed tube properties of an open tube
Open tube
In the field of acoustics, a tone is created by the periodic vibrations of air. There are several ways in music to create such vibrations. One of these is to use a tube and to blow across the end. This creates a note of a given frequency, depending on the length of the tube and the pressure of the...

; when overblown, the pitch jumps an octave
Octave
In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...

 higher.

Further reading

  • Kool, Jaap, Das Saxophon (The Saxophone). pub J. J. Weber, Leipzig. 1931; translated to English by Lawrence Gwozdz
    Lawrence Gwozdz
    Lawrence S. Gwozdz is an internationally renowned American saxophonist in the classical tradition. His artistic sensibilities have made him a champion of a broad array of compositions, from Baroque transcriptions to contemporary music.-Biography:...

    . Herts, England: Egon Publishers Ltd, 1987.

  • Master Your Theory: 4th Grade by Dulcie Holand

  • Bahnson HT, Antaki JF, Beery QC. Acoustical and physical dynamics of the diatonic harmonica. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 103:2134-44 (1998).

  • Thaden J. Doctor Diatonic. Harmonica Horizons 5 (1990).

  • Johnston RB. Pitch control in harmonica playing. Acoust. Aust. 15:69–75 (1987).
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