Octave Training - Simple Songs For Octave Playing
Sun, 06/02/2013 - 08:56
Hello David, thank you so much for the amount of wonderful content that you are creating and deploying on your website.
I am curious if you know of any simple songs, maybe traditional harmonica tunes, that you know that I can practice playing octaves or splits.
I am ironing out my tendency to fall back to the Ublock or the Cleavage block and get the TB that you teach. I am making steady progress in that regard.
I am working thru "The Split", but I had an idea about simple melodies that I can use to play octaves.
Thank you so much, as always.
Will
Being that octaves start on hole 4, any melody that's on the 4th hole and above can work... "Oh Susanna" for example. Though keep in mind that the only draw octave that's an actual octave with your 4-hole embouchure is 4 draw... holes 5 and 6 are not, and then at 7 and above you can place your lips over 5-holes (we'll do that in tongue blocking study 5 down the road). So, have fun playing those 1st Position melodies and just ignore the dissonance of the non-octaves in the name of 4-hole octave embouchure practice.