Posted Wed, 03/19/2014 - 08:20 by David Barrett Admin
“Your creative capacity is determined by your musical and technical abilities, along with your available practice time. Your capacity will increase as your strength and skills grow. However, for you to make progress with basics such as on-stage confidence and ease of execution, your repertoire choices must be within your capacity. Musicians who pick unobtainable pieces foster destructive habits, such as anxiety and tension, and they miss out on learning how to present secure, poetic performances.” Pg 14
Posted Wed, 03/12/2014 - 09:57 by David Barrett Admin
"Walkin' By Myself" by Jimmy Rogers and Big Walter Horton stands the test of time as one of our greatest harp accompaniment and solo recordings every produced. Thanks to the "You Missed Monday" crew at the B1 Blues Room for sharing this.
Posted Tue, 03/11/2014 - 08:44 by David Barrett Admin
Check out William Clarke's "Pawnshop Bound" on the Serious Intentions release at 1:44, it's a killer solo that not only includes high end work, but high end work with 5-hole octaves. He's on a C Harmonica in 2nd Position.
Posted Mon, 03/10/2014 - 14:56 by David Barrett Admin
Playing above the sixth hole in 2nd Position is generally rare for post-war blues harmonica players. The 1961 instrumental "Steady" by Jerry McCain is a rare example of one of our classic blues harmonica players doing just that. The lick is found in the 4th Chorus, with a pickup of 4 5+ 6+ and the main lick of 6 7 8. He's using a Bb Harmonica. The recording I have is from "Blues Masters, Vol. 4: Harmonica Classics (Rhino R2 71124)," though I just looked it up on iTunes and it can be found on "Harmonica Classics By The Blues Masters" and can be purchased individually. continue reading...
Posted Thu, 03/06/2014 - 09:02 by David Barrett Admin
Though only one of the blue notes in the blues scale is available from holes 6+ to 9+, it's still a viable way to play, especially when you add the 6 and 6' to round out the scale. Put on a more bluesy jam track (a "Box" is a good choice) and give it a try.
Posted Mon, 02/17/2014 - 07:21 by David Barrett Admin
If you do have the opportunity to work with a private music instructor, I highly recommend you record your lessons. I record the lessons for my students (using the Tascam DR-40) at School of the Blues. A student asked me to give him some thoughts of how to best use his recorded tracks from his lessons. I thought you might like to see this as well.
Posted Thu, 02/13/2014 - 09:05 by David Barrett Admin
I was playing to a slow blues jam track many years ago and was frustrated at the way I sounded.
I went to my well of inspiration and listened to slow blues solos performed by Gary Smith. I noticed that the last note of each of his phrases was held (with a vibrato commonly) and the volume decayed slowly until the next phrase. It didn’t sound as if he actually stopped any of his last notes… they either disappeared into the mist of the noise floor of the band (maybe he was still playing, but I couldn’t hear it?) or he decayed to the point of almost stopping and he started his next phrase. continue reading...
Posted Mon, 02/10/2014 - 09:11 by David Barrett Admin
Today's tip comes from Gary Smith in his latest submission videos (Submission 44). Gary's tip is that you set your delay repeats to that of triplets relative to the song you're performing. In this lesson
Posted Fri, 02/07/2014 - 14:35 by David Barrett Admin
It can be a great challenge to study an artist's song and remember the order of the choruses and the fine elements they contain. It's common to hear complaints by students that songs take a tremendous amount of time to memorize well enough not to have a simple mistake lead them astray and cause a wreck. continue reading...