Do you find yourself often out of breath when playing? You could be leaking air through your nose and not knowing it. In many cases, players who have trouble closing their nose can’t hit bends well and struggle to achieve good tone. Playing long lines that require good breath control can almost be impossible. It’s like trying to blow up a balloon with a hole in your cheek.

This month we’ll dig into the mysteries of the nose and how to control it.

Checking the Nose
To check to see if your nose is open, take a deep breath and play a single blow note (anywhere on the harmonica). You should be able to blow for about 30 seconds without a problem (some players can comfortably play 60 seconds). If you can’t play for 30 seconds with a deep breath, there’s a good chance that you’re leaking air through your nose. If you lasted around 15 seconds, you have a small amount of leakage from your nose (or you have a very small lung capacity). If you lasted around 8 seconds, your nose was partially open. If you lasted around 2 seconds, your nose was fully open.

If you’re not sure, do it again, but with a small hand mirror under nose. If the mirror fogs up, air is escaping through your nose. Another easy check is to plug your nose while you play that single note; if your note lasts longer, you know that your nose was open before.

Try the same for the draw. Some players don’t have the nose open on the blow, but will on the draw. It’s good to check both. For blues harmonica playing that relies more on the draw notes, having the nose open on the inhale is a much more problematic condition. This is especially the case when someone is trying to learn how to bend. I have heard instructors falsely state that you cannot bend with your nose open. The problem lies in the fact that so much air is leaking through the nose that the student does not have enough time to experiment with tongue location to work towards achieving the bend.

There’s another side to learning how to open and close your nose (nasal passage) at will. No matter what style you play, there will be passages in a song that have a lot of playing in one breath direction with little or no rest to take a breath (in or out). For the blues harmonica player (playing in second or third position) this can commonly turn out to be six draw notes to every one blow note for an average passage. This can make some passages that have more draws next to impossible to play for the player with the nose open.

First Steps
We first need to understand a bit of about our body. In the back of your mouth is the soft palate. The Soft Palate (known as the Velum) is a muscular flap that can be raised against the back wall of the mouth (Pharynx) to shut off the nasal tract, preventing air from going out of your nose. When this area of the mouth is closed (called a Velic Closure), it separates the nasal tract from the oral tract so that air can only go out the mouth.

Moving the Soft Palate
To feel this area of your mouth, say the word “hang,” paying close attention to where the back of the tongue touches for “ng.” This is the soft palate. Look in a mirror with your mouth wide open to see where your soft palate is located. The area just in front of your uvula (the small appendage hanging down) is the soft palate.

If you have the ability to open and close your nasal tract you should see in the mirror your soft palate raise when closing off the airway (velic closure) and lower quite a bit when the airway is open. If you cannot control this, read on.

If you hold your tongue in place for the start of “T” in the word “Tea,” you will experience the front of the mouth closed (the closed “T” is blocking the airway) as well as the nasal passage (the soft palate is raised to stop air from escaping); this is called an Oral Stop. This can also be felt with the first part of the words “Pie” and “Buy.”

If the air is stopped in the oral cavity (your mouth), but the soft palate is lowered so that air can escape through your nasal tract, it is called a Nasal Stop. Saying “M” and “N” will help to give this sensation. Notice that in both letters air is escaping through the nose.

Let’s do a quick review. When starting to articulate “T,” your soft palate is raised and no air is traveling through your nose. Try this on the exhale and the inhale. When saying “N,” your soft palate is lowered and air is traveling through your nose. Try this on the exhale and the inhale.

Let’s now put these two devices together. Say the word “Tin” slowly. For the start of the word (T) your nose is closed. For the end of the word (N) your nose is open. Say the word as many times as it takes to feel the movement of your soft palate. Now try to say “Tin” without opening your mouth or moving the front of your tongue.

The only part of your body that is moving is your soft palate opening for the “N” after the closed “T.” This will feel like you’re humming. Try this now on the inhale. Let’s get rid of the “T” part and just focus on the “N.” Say “N” for a couple seconds and then try to close (raise) the soft palate to stop it from sounding. Don’t stop exhaling to stop the sound, the focus is to close your air stream at the soft palate—you’re trying to gain control of that muscle. If you were successful, try it on the inhale. This will be the key practice for many players—gaining control of the soft palate on the inhale.

What we have just covered may take moments to grasp or months to grasp. Review this concept as many times as it takes for the “light bulb” to come on. It’s all about experimenting with positions within your mouth that you can’t see, so it makes perfect sense that it might take a while to achieve success on this. If you were lucky, you were able to follow me as you read the text.

If you are successful up to this point (congratulations if you are!), let’s move on to trying is on the harmonica.

Practical Use on the Harmonica
Take a deep breath and blow through one hole on the harmonica with your nose closed. After about five seconds (and you have confirmed that you feel your nose is closed), open your nose. When opening your nose, air should rush out of your lungs (commonly the shoulders slump quickly) and leave you breathless in about two seconds.

Repeat this until you can really feel a big difference between being open and closed. Repeat this with the draw. Most players do well on the blow, but the draw can be very challenging at first.

Application
The first goal of these exercises is to feel how the various parts of your mouth, specifically the soft palate, work and how to control them.

Now that you have control of your soft palate, let’s put it to good use.

Nose Usage Option 1
Keep the sucker closed! Keep your nose closed all the time as a general rule. I believe that many players start their studies this way, but when finding the 2 draw (commonly on the C harmonica) difficult to play, the body over time learns that if you open your nose, the problem for the most part disappears (depending on how open your nose is). The untrained tongue of the beginning player commonly rests too high in the mouth, causing the 2 draw to sound flat, airy or not sound at all. The nose open is like a pressure release valve, helping this problem, but of course causing the problem of this article’s study.

Nose Usage Option 2
Open your nose when you need it. When you have six draw notes, then one blow note, and another six draw notes, it makes sense to open your nose on that one blow note to release built up air. This is a necessary skill for the advanced harmonica player.

I commonly leave my nose slightly open for all of my blow notes. This helps to keep a general balance in my playing. I wouldn’t say that this should be considered a technique to strive for, though it works for me.

Final Thoughts
As always, when I write very detailed about focused techniques, it will take time for you to fully master the entire concept. Take your time… it will come. Some players will fight controlling their nose for a long time (I have a few students that have become fine players that have never learned how to fully control their nose), but if you work on it diligently, it will get better over time. Good luck in your journey becoming a master of the nose!

About the Author David Barrett http://www.harmonicamasterclass.com/david.htm