General Discussion

Bill "Mud" Morganfield is touring the UK and playing in my home city (Hull, UK) next month as part of the annual jazz festival here (just shows you how blues is marginalised over here when there is no real distinction between jazz and blues). Anyway, we have the ultimate pleasure of opening the night and I am SO excited about the prospect! I know that Steve "West" Weston has been Bill's sideman on a previous tour and I can't wait for the event, hopefully to meet the guys and get autographs, photos, etc. continue reading...

I know that it is often difficult to find people to play music with.

For a long time, I have been involved in 'digital long-distance'
recording. It has allowed me to play music with friends all over
the world. I thought that it might be something that interested
students here.

Every year, I make a musical Christmas card. It is done with
friends across North America. We use the internet to communicate
with each other and to build the song recording.

This year we recorded 'The Carol of the Bells'. It was done entirely continue reading...

Hi all,

I just joined the site. I am a banjo player - I play, primarily, jazz banjo in a group called 'Acoustic Vibe' here in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. I have always loved the blues and decided to try and learn to play 'blues harp'. We have started to add a number of traditional blues tunes to our set, and harp seems like a good alternative to 'blues banjo'.

I am looking forward to getting started with the lessons and meeting the community here on the site. continue reading...

Two days ago I made a quick lesson for every level player.
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MmY6t7kHNg

Just take your old licks and play them backwards. It usually still sounds good.

I was wondering who of you can do the flutter , sounding right, by moving the tongue sideways?
I'm watching the interview with Jim Liban and in the part called " tonal effects " he plays a Junior Parker style riff and then uses the sideways flutter on the 2/5 octave. I really love that sound and prefer it to the normal flutter in slower songs. Kim Wilson uses it a lot as well. continue reading...

Many of you probably knew this but it just dawned on me that holes 4-7 on the C diatonic are equivalent to holes 1-4, 5-8, etc. on the C chromatic. This makes it easy to transpose licks in 3rd position within those holes back and forth.

If you're learning with a 64 note chromatic harmonica, I find it useful to scratch the 12 hole equivalents under the numbers with a file. For example: scratch "1" under the 5 hole of the 64, and so on. Like the diatonic, eventually you won't need to look at the hole numbers. But especially with 16 holes, I find this useful to prevent getting lost as easily. Additionally, I've scratched little arrows over the top of the 5, 9, and 13 hole to keep track of octaves. Sure, it's defacing your expensive chromatic but hey, you're sticking it in your mouth not going to a fashion show.

-Taylor

Many of David Barrett's book are available for digital purchase through Google Books. However the transcription books which went out of print a decade ago are not. It is nearly impossible to find print copies of the following books. I have called MelBay a couple times over the past year but haven't heard back. David can't release these transcriptions because MelBay owns the copyrights. So I'm asking for everyone's help. continue reading...

My name is Ricky. I am new to harmonica. I play drums and piano, and I am really excited to learn this instrument. I hope it is not bad form to introduce myself. I just felt like saying hello. --Ricky