General Discussion

Hi, Dave. Last night I saw Mark Hummel and his band Blues Survivors at The Turning Point Café, a small club in Piermont New York about an hour North of Manhattan.  I had first heard about him on bluesharmonica.com. The music was absolutely fantastic, made more enjoyable because I had watched most of his videos. continue reading...

I admit I have been working on learning David's 'essential scales' for far too long.  It just seems it should not be this hard.

1- Do you guys envsion the musical scale?  In other words do you know the scale such that you could write it down from memory and then play those notes?

2- Learn the sounds from memory and essentially play by ear?

3- Have that 'mental map' David speaks of and envision the physical harp?

Or maybe you are just good at memorizing.

Any hints?

Gary

I have a friend who wants me to play with him and he's a piano player/signer.  He can play most anything.  Does anyone know of a Blues Harp player who works with a piano?  Solo or accompanyment.  Im looking to get some examples of 12 bar blues tunes that fit.

Ive been working with BH.COM for some time and am wondering if I could move faster with private lessons.  Can anyone share experiences of using Skype type lessons?  What do you have to pay and what are the results youve seen?  Im an intermediate player.

Gary

Nominees for SPAH Awards for 2019 are:

For the Stan Harper Award of Special Merit:

Steve Baker

David Barrett

Phil Caltabellotta

Joe Filisko

Greg Heumann

Joe Leone

Dottie Piskpecky

Steve Watne

For the Pete Pedersen Lifetime Achievement Award:

Steve Baker

Bud Boblink

Robert Bonfiglio

Billy Branch

Jerry Fierro

Joe Filisko

PT Gazell

Mark Hummel

Joe Leone

Will Scarlett continue reading...

Held roughly once a month,  Joe Filisko & Eric Nolden get together to play a live streamed performance of their act Roots Duo, with a traditional raw sound.

Managed to see 2 out of the 3 shows that have passed me by since I heard about this and I hope to catch many more.

The next one is in 40 hours or so from now.

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Hi everyone, I just joined as a newbie harp player (came from blues guitar) and have a quick question I want to think about before I really jump in with standard Richter tuning... I know it's best that I learn to play along with these lessons (and other lessons as well) using standard Richter tuning, but I can't help thinking in the back of my head I might want to change to a more personal, customised tuning soon... continue reading...

I’m lucky enough to be spending a couple of weeks in the Bay Area and the end of June, start of July. It’s a late honeymoon for my wife and I. 

I’d appreciate any tips on bluesy gigs, jams, music bars/events etc. Or really any cool places to visit or stuff to do while we’re there. 

We’ll be based in San Francisco (27 June - 5 July) and San Jose (6 -  11 July) I’ve already managed to book a lesson with Barrett so that’s sorted :) continue reading...

Hello All,

I am not sure of this has been discussed before since there is not search option in the forum (or maybe I am not looking for the search option in the right location).

Came across many posts in different forums where several people mentioning fire breath and praising it. I also came to know that its discontinued. So thought would ask the amazing people of this forum some questions that I have regarding the same.

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Since starting lessons here, I quickly discovered that I would want several harmonicas is keys other than C. Anyway, I've gone to mostly Lee Oskar harmonicas. The other day I was doing some tongue-blocking exercises and wanted to work with my Low F. I found that the 2 draw, 3 draw and 4 draw reeds seem to take a moment to start vibrating after I start to draw air through them. I've not noticed this on my G or any others. I thought that maybe just because of the long reeds, it might need more air (which is how it seems), but the 1 draw seems to be fine. continue reading...