Online blues harmonica lessons

We're most familiar with Post War Chicago Blues... essentially the 1950 to 1955 time range (before Rock really took a foothold). Most players are unaware of the mastery our early country blues harmonica players possessed... and in a much different way than players of today. Our friend Joe Filisko really hits it out of the park in this History of the Blues Harmonica 2xCD.

http://www.harmonicamasterclass.com/historyconcert.htm

Join us for the newest submission to the Bassman Chronicles where we hear musicians and student audience members comment on what they heard.

Many of you are familiar with Mark Hummel's Blues Harmonica Blowouts... we've been a sponsor of it for many years. This year is a Little Walter Tribute, featuring Charlie Musselwhite, Billy Boy Arnold, Sugar Ray Norcia, Curtis Salgado and Mark Hummel. I'll be hanging out at the Yoshi's shows this year, most specifically for the 10pm Saturday Show, this is where the grande finale of the King of Swing competition is going to be held. I'll be video recording interviews for BluesHarmonica.com all weekend, so I unfortunately won't be playing... maybe next year. continue reading...

The fully-closed cup, when playing acoustic, should only be used the moment before a "Wa" affect (closed, then open = Wa). Your cup should then remain open so that we can hear you play. The more open your cup, the less coloration from your hands. The more you close your cup (still leaving a little bit of room for sound to escape), the more hand muting you achieve, thus the more your hands color the sound. Experiment with this to hear the differences in color. How open or closed should you be?... this is personal preference. continue reading...

An alternative to logging into the site and viewing the forum each day is to sign up for the email RSS Feed on this page: feed://www.bluesharmonica.com/rss.xml

Now that you're focusing on tremolo for those long-held notes at the end of phrases, also decay the volume. Start that last note at the volume you played the previous notes in the phrase and then decay the volume over the length of the notated rhythm of that note until it disappears. It's rare that a final note of a phrase just stops... it decays until it dispersers into the mix of the band. This makes for a MUCH more musical phrase ending and is a common error comment to beginner, intermediate and some advanced student submissions on BluesHarmonica.com

Simple tip today... chin up.

I commonly receive questions from students about how to control saliva (especially those new to tongue blocking). In most cases they're practicing at a table or on a bed where the music or computer is low. Get the sheet music (music stand) or computer monitor (some stacked books to elevate?) up higher so that your chin/head is level. In other words, don't have your chin/head lowered so that your spit sides into your harmonica! :-)

Happy New Year to all of you!

Here's something fun for you to watch today if you have the time...

This is the footage of Gary Smith and I testing amp setups on the bandstand from an upcoming episode of the Bassman Chronicles. This is the part where we play each amp setup, each time making notes (strategically placed students in the audience, the band and us). The goal is to make note how each amp setup affects...

1) How well we can hear on the bandstand

2) The tone we get on the bandstand

3) How well it fills the house and what it sounds like to the audience continue reading...

Focus... what YOU like... these are all subjects to get you thinking of what your focus will be for the new year. Even though this is what I do for a living, it's very difficult to set aside quality practice time. When I do get focused practice time (not just quick moments of jamming), it's VERY valuable to me and it's imperative that I have a focus so that I can grow as a player with the limited time I have. continue reading...

Currently an Associate Professor of English and Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi with a specialty in blues literature and culture, Adam Gussow was one of the first amplified blues harp players to make overbends a key element of his stylistic approach, adapting Howard Levy's innovations in the late 1980s in a way that helped usher in a new generation of overbend masters such as Carlos Del Junco, Jason Ricci and Chris Michalek. continue reading...