how to play blues harmonica

“Everyone starts out in music as a listener. As young children, we hear music with freshness and delight. We fall in love with it and are entranced by the simplest song. But when we start practicing an instrument, we stop listening intently. We become so involved with producing sound that we forget to take it in.” Pg 12, The Art of Practicing: A Guide to Making Music From the Heart by Madeline Bruser

In this harmonica insight Joe Filisko discusses the importance of Tongue Blocking to the harmonica player.

Want to play a song that's not a 12 Bar Blues progression on the bandstand in a jam situation?... use your fingers! As you're playing, hold the mic and harp with one hand and with the other use one finger for the I Chord... two fingers for the ii Chord... etc. If you place your hand behind your back the audience will never know. You'll of course need to be familiar with the chord changes (ask your guitarist buddy for those) and will want to practice this before hitting the bandstand (it can be hard at first to make signals and play at the same time).

Play a note on your harmonica... any note... for about three seconds. While holding this note try to keep the volume the same at the beginning, the middle and at the end. Did you just do it? Good. Now, never do that again! :-)

For those of you using an iPad or iPod and want to watch lesson videos on BluesHarmonica,com, the Puffin Web Browser App By CloudMosa, Inc is a good solution. We're in the process of encoding videos to be iPod and iPad friendly at BluesHarmonica.com, but it's still going to be some time (working on it every night), and this is a good solution until then.

What were mentioned over the last couple of days as blessings also leads to one of our curses... since we don't have to learn about keys, scales, scale degrees and chords in our formative years, when it comes to communicating with musicians we're illiterate. Make sure to watch the Performance Training lessons on BluesHarmonica.com, specifically Groove; Openings, Endings & Breaks; and down the road the lessons on Theory and Accompaniment Playing. It's also a great idea to study books like Alfred's Essentials of Music Theory Complete. continue reading...

In this lesson Joe Tartaglia learns how to apply the licks he's learning. We also review the study songs Gary's Blues and Take It Easy Now.

- Checking in after Lesson 26 Video
- Lesson 27 - Introduction and Lesson 26 Review Video
- How to Apply a Lick - Part 1: AAA and AAA with Fills Video
- How to Apply a Lick - Part 2: Hints for Dealing with the I7 and IV7 Video
- How to Apply a Lick - Part 3: AAB and AAB with Fills Video
- How to Apply a Lick - Part 4: A BA C and IV7 Chord Ideas Video
- How to Apply a Lick - Part 5: Review Video
- Review: Take it Easy Now, Chorus 1 Video continue reading...