learn blues harmonica

“There is nothing more fatal for our musical sense than to allow ourselves—by the hour—to hear musical sounds without really listening to them.” Tobias Matthay, Pg 16, The Musician’s Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness By Gerald Klickstein

“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, The Musician’s Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness By Gerald Klickstein

In Mark Hummel's latest submission he covers his thoughts on playing different positions to match the key, mood and groove of a song.

“As a general rule, rest 10 minutes of each hour that you spend in the practice room. Rest more if you’re working vigorously or adopting new techniques. A sensible practice-to-rest ratio, widely recommended by teachers and medical authorities, is to practice no more than 25-30 minutes before pausing for a 5-minute respite. Many musicians opt for more frequent breathers and rest 2-3 minutes every 15 minutes or so.” Pg 12, The Musician’s Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness By Gerald Klickstein

“Wherever you hope to travel on your musical journey, practice is the only route to getting there. You may wonder whether you possess the talent to reach your goals, but musical progress depends more on practice than on talent. Talent symbolizes your underlying potential; practice enables you to realize that potential. But not just any sort of practice will do.” Pg 3, The Musician’s Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness By Gerald Klickstein

Do you have a mental model of the harmonica when you play? Lee Sankey's research says that it's a determining factor in your ability to create on your harmonica. I speak about this in the "Improvising Study 8 - Soloing Blocks & Chord Tone Soloing." Read about Lee's research (read the PDF) at http://brainstruments.com/

"The four laws of learning are explanation, demonstration, imitation, and repetition. The goal is to create a correct habit that can be produced instinctively under great pressure. To make sure this goal was achieved, I created eight laws of learning: namely, explanation, demonstration, imitation, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition and repetition." John Wooden

Though chrome bullet mics look great, they can be very tough to hold due to how slippery chrome feels... especially after a bit of performance sweat. A chrome grill can bring some holding challenges as well.

Solution #1 - Focus on FIRST bringing your palms together, allowing your mic to rest in the cradle created between both hands. In this case you're not HOLDING the mic, it RESTS on your hands. Your fingers then form into their normal cup. This is good cupping advice period... say goodbye to cramping hands! continue reading...

“Why is targeted, mistake-focused practice so effective? Because the best way to build a good circuit is to fire it, attend to mistakes, then fire it again, over and over. Struggle is not optional, it’s neurologically required. Nerve firings grow myelin, myelin controls impulse speed and impulse speed is skill.” Pg 34, The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How. by Daniel Coyle Notes

“Every human movement, thought, or feeling is a precisely timed electrical signal traveling through a chain of neurons—a circuit of nerve fibers. Myelin is the insulation that wraps these nerve fibers and increases signal strength, speed and accuracy. The more we fire a particular circuit, the more myelin optimizes that circuit, and the stronger, faster, and more fluent our movements and thoughts become.” Pg 32, The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How. by Daniel Coyle Notes