harp harmonica little walter bio story history songs charts

As you start to go into the 8th Chorus and to the end of the song, there’s not much to bring up that you haven’t already encountered earlier in the song, but a couple of notes are in order. The shakes used in the 9th Chorus are fast. Practice playing 3 draw/4 draw shakes in a quarter note rhythm. Place a dip on the start of each shake, which should start with the 4 draw. In almost all cases when performing a shake you’ll start with the bottom note (4 draw). The slight bend in the shake over the IV chord will take some time to play at proper pitch. continue reading...

The last line of this chorus foretells the first four measures of the following chorus. As with previous choruses, which used rhythmic breathing, make sure your exhale chords are soft and fall directly on the beat. Though the result is soft, the technique is not. Use a “ts” articulation for the blow chords, having your lips placed very softly on the face of the harmonica, with the sides of your lips off the harmonica to allow air to escape (very similar to the steam train imitation on the harmonica… the steam portion). continue reading...

Note the nice variation each four measures bring. Look at bar two, “and of” 1 and downbeat of 2, again he’s using rhythmic breathing/chording in place of standard notes for rhythmic affect and to make each line more interesting.

In my "You Missed Monday!" email from the B1 Blues Room yesterday (Joe Filisko's weekly classes at the Old Town School of Folk Music) was a very interesting chart titled "Little Walter Songs Overview"... a fascinating graphic overview of Little Walter songs assembled by Scott Dirks and Billy Blue. Take a look at it here, it's pretty cool: http://www.mynewsletterbuilder.com/email/newsletter/1411546531