Blues Chromatic

PART 2 – neighboring same-breath notes to the home note and the dominant note

In Part 1, you got familiar with playing and hearing the two most important notes in the scale - the tonic or home note (E in the key of E, in Blow 2, 6, and 10) and the dominant note (B in the key of E, Draw 4, 8, and 12.

The next things to explore are the notes in the neighboring holes.

- The blow note on the right side of E

- The draw notes to the right and left of B continue reading...

When you start learning a new key on chromatic, start by just playing the home note over several choruses of a 12-bar blues progression.

For the key of E, that means just playing the note E. This is the blow note in Holes 2, 6, and 10.

This may sound stupid, but it gets you comfortable with that note as a home base:

- Feeling its location as home base

- Feeling the action of playing it (blow or draw, slide in our out)

- Hearing it in the 12-bar progression

Try playing it first as long notes, then as a repeated note with rhythms that fit with the backing track. continue reading...

As blues harmonica players, we like to play in positions that give us nice, fat chords to exert all our tongue-blocking skills and give us a nice cushion - no bad discordant notes if we play the neighboring holes to the important blues notes.

This is probably why as players we favor second, third, and first positions on diatonic, in roughly that order – all three positions have full "home" chords (the I chord) that run through much of the harp. continue reading...

Ryan's Chro is sounding nice
The kid is taking full advantage of his opportunity with Dave
Good Job

what is the name of original song at
"Blues Chromatic Study 1 - Tongue slap review and other tongue block techniques used for blues chromatic" david played ?
please tell me,If anyone knows...I can't sleep..

I'm having a really hard time tongue blocking - so hard that I put the harmonica down for a week. I read some people block with the tip of the tongue. Others block with the side. Others with the top. Just trying to hit one clean note tires out my tongue. I don't seem to be able to hit a note without another bleeding in. When I do hit one, I definitely don't get the next one I go to. I need some advice.

What are some of your favorite chromatic tunes?

Here's one of mine, "Leaving Chicago" by George Smith
(George can bring down the house with just one or two notes)
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=b_D-56WY57s

Do you know what kind of Chromatic GH Smith used?

Hohner has introduced a new model of chromatic, the Discovery 48. It features plastic comb ad mouthpiece, all screws construction. Its parts are fully interchangeable with those of the wood-bodied 270 Deluxe.

http://www.hohner.de/index.php5?2766

I hope to post a review soon.

On the album TAKE IT FROM THE TURNAROUND I am curious about the harp/key of song relationship on the third selection. It sounds like the song is in Bb and that he is using a C chromatic with the button in. To play in 2nd position on a diatonic he would be using an Eb, so has he just used the Eb possibility that you get with the button in on the chromatic instead of a diatonic?