Progressing through the LOA
I know this will vary with each person, but I thought I would ask for a general answer. How long should we be at each level before progressing if we are playing 30min-1hr a day? When you came up with the LOA program did you have a timeline for level progression? Should I be on Level 1 for 1 month or 3months..? What is the general expectation?
I hope you are not getting discouraged. When I first started playing the harmonica, I thought this was going to be 1 or 2 months and I’d be entertaining from a park bench. It took me 1 year to complete levels 1-3 and even then, I thought I rushed things. I’m on level 4 and I still am working on getting better at things from the first 3 levels. I think I practice between 3 and 6 hours most days for the first year. I studied solo harmonica in the mornings and the study song, plus other stuff in the evenings. I also worked on learning some folk songs to add some fun to the harmonica and did some lessons from other instructors.
From the way you asked the question it looks like you might be asking David for his input. If that is the case, you may want to repost your question in the Ask the Instructor forum which is where David answers questions.
Good luck on your studies,
Brian from Tennessee
I appreciate the responses, I am not getting discouraged rest assured. I am just curious if this was set up with a general timeline of level progression is all. I agree, perhaps I should ask David himself. Thank you! Happy harping
Just in case anybody is curious. This was David's reply:
"Generally it takes students three months for each of the beginning levels and four months for each of the intermediate levels."
One of the great things about the way David has set up bluesharmonica.com is that you can choose for yourself just how you want to use all of the great things here. E.g., I'm currently working on LOA 4, but have in mind that doing a level per year might be right for me, in large part becuase I'm using the site for a lot of other things. After completing LOA 3 I took a side journey into chromatic harmonica, and have worked on all five of David's chromatic blues lessons, getting a thumbs-up from him on my submissions for each of the five lesson tunes (plus his George Harmonica Smith chromatic artist study), a process that's been going on for about a year and a half. I'm also doing Skype lessons with David, and he's been giving me chromatic bits from various artists to work on. Add to that, frequently he'll post a diatonic artist study that may be intended for players more advanced than me, that I'll focus on for a month or two. All in the process of developing various skills that may not track the LOA process exactly, but are certainly helping me be a more confident player. The bottom line may very well be, "Are you having fun?" I certainly am.
Apologies if my response sounded discouraging. I often see comments on the web that advertise learning the harp in weeks type of hype. Won't happen. I would also add that during my studies I also completed four of the chromatic lessons so that extended the time frame.
John S: Funny you should mention the hyped-up advertisements from various teachers. I took up harmonica after a lifetime of other instruments (I'm now 72). I was playing with various groups, as a guitarist, four-string banjo player, ukulele, vocalist, etc., and working from time to time with a really good local (Sacramento CA) harmonica player. Add to that, as this is his home base, I get to hear Rick Estrin frequently when he sits in with local musicians, and I've literally watched Kyle Rowland grow up on the harp. So at a certain point I thought to myself, "Well, that certainly looks easy!," and bought a C Marine Band and an instruction book written by my friend Marc "Lil' Rev" Revenson. It took less than 10 minutes to realize, "Nope ... that's not easy at all!" At which point I used David's 30-day coupon that comes with Hohner harps, and have been having a blast ever since, litterally learning something new every time I pull out one of my harmonicas.
Yep I have been having a blast for the last five years. I am sure with your experience and being able to play with other musicians must be a big learning advantage, something I dont have. I often get asked how long it would take to "learn" the harmonica and my useual reply is about as long as it would take to learn any mucical instument.
As you have already identified it varies so much on so many factors. I know that I wanted to progress through the levels so as to learn as much as quickly as possible. Whilst I am happy with the progress that I have made I know that when and if I complete LoA8 I will be going back and working on aspects of the lessons that I did not give as much attention to as I now know I should have. This means a gap in my potential that I want to fill. An example is those parts of the lessons that related to improving my lick vocabulary and improvising. I would expect that that process would last amother year and possible indefinatly. I spend at least two hours a day practicing. That is deliberate focussed practice and not just playing. To answer your question with all those provisions I have gone from scratch to where I am in about five years. So add another year to the process and that would be roughly a level a year. The earlier levels obviousl took less time than the later ones. Again many variables. For example I have had no musical training at all. I have never played a musical instrument. Added to that I am 78 years old. I expect a teenager would learn a lot faster hence how long is a piece of string. Advice to myself would be to continue to savour the learning experience and don't put a time on it. Hard to do with my temproment but I try. Finaly I would highly recommend the LoA process. It is a structured well developed process that will provide targets and a very logical progression to follow. Go for it.