The Train

Harmonica players sometimes use glottal stops as an articulation, but I think it’s more useful for beginners to focus on keeping the throat open and relaxed while breathing from the diaphragm.

To help with this, I recommend learning to play The Train, a common old-timey blues exercise:

Big relaxed mouth, playing the 3 holes on the low end: that’s holes 1,2,3

Long IN breath
Long OUT breath
Long IN breath
Long OUT breath

Now put a little pause in the middle of each breath.

IN IN
OUT OUT
IN IN
OUT OUT

Repeat steadily.

Keep throat relaxed and open, feel the breath in your belly.

The goal is to remain relaxed while breathing rhythmically, whether you’re going slow, medium, or fast.

If throat still closes up unintentionally, play long notes: IN…….OUT and repeat until relaxed.