Posted Thu, 07/23/2015 - 07:07 by David Barrett Admin
I'll be happy to work with students at Joe Filisko's Teach-In each afternoon starting Thursday 8/13. I'll also be performing with a list of great harmonica players at the Wednesday Night Variety Show (PT Gazell, Jerry Devillier, Buzz Krantz, Brandon O. Bailey, Johnny Bishop, Will Scarlett, Dale Spalding and James Gordon) as well as the Saturday Morning Gospel & Country Seminar (Eric Noden, Phil Duncan, Mo Vint, Jimi Lee, TJ Klay and Todd Parrot).
Posted Thu, 05/14/2015 - 09:04 by David Barrett Admin
Playing in time is challenging, and when you think your timing is good, then try playing with a metronome. The skill you're developing is a listening skill. You listen to the metronome (which is a stand-in for another musician) and adjust your playing to stay in time with it. Just like when riding a bike with a friend and trying to hold a conversation, you're consistently adjusting your speed so that you're within comfortable speaking/hearing range. As soon as you lose concentration, you're soon too far behind/ahead to continue the conversation. continue reading...
Posted Wed, 04/01/2015 - 09:45 by David Barrett Admin
When preparing to perform a song make sure to practice your intro speech, count-in and signaling for breaks and ending (especially for breaks and ending). If you neglect this in your practice you'll be more likely to miss the timing of your signals in performance.
Posted Wed, 01/14/2015 - 09:15 by David Barrett Admin
Fellow student Mike Z (thanks Mike!) is also a guitarist and said that this video is really informative on how to back harp players in the traditional 1950's style. If you play in a band or with a guitarist buddy that's not hip to this way of playing, it would be wise to purchase this DVD for them as a gift.
Little Walter - 50's Guitar Styles, Instructional Guitar DVD continue reading...
Posted Tue, 11/18/2014 - 08:57 by David Barrett Admin
A student asked how I would structure an 8 hour a day practice routine. I thought you would appreciate seeing this...
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Assuming I was where you're at right now, this is how I would structure my practice day...
1) 15m - Warm up playing scales: Major Pentatonic and Blues Scale for each chord of the three positions (C, G, D, A) across the entire range of the harmonica.
2) 15m - Arpeggios: Major, Minor and 7th Chords from of all the chords based on the home scale in three positions (C, G and D scales) continue reading...
Posted Fri, 11/14/2014 - 10:58 by David Barrett Admin
Only stories and pictures from the Harmonica Masters Workshops this year so far... here's the first footage to release. Thanks to Mason Dabbag for filming and sharing.
Posted Fri, 05/23/2014 - 21:34 by David Barrett Admin
In this Performance Training lesson I'll help prepare you for success at a Jam Session. Jam sessions can be very challenging, but they provide a valuable opportunity to gain stage experience, meet like-minded musicians and try new material. No harmonicas are needed for this lesson, but download the PDF to reference as we go through the points in this lesson. This lesson is for all skill level players, but is generally focused on intermediate players. continue reading...
Posted Fri, 04/04/2014 - 09:39 by David Barrett Admin
Excessive volume from the band is an extremely common problem for harmonica players. We have issues hearing ourselves (which causes feedback problems trying to raise above the volume of the band) and all ideas of musicality and dynamics are thrown out the window. Here are some tools you can use to help combat this... 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