Ask Instructor David Barrett

Ho David!

In the level 5 submission, ex 2.3 is asked to play the 10 holes in 12 bar blues.

Until now we never studied blow bends, on the hole 9 there is that F# that is a blow bend, should I learn to play it now or I can skip that one like the one on the hole 10 ?

Thanks.

In your Accompaniment book's  Ex. 2.7 on page 7, and elsewhere, there's a + sign used as notation over the music that I can't identify in the Harmonica Notation listed on page 3. Hoping you can clarify it's meaning and intent. Thanks!

I have really enjoyed the Masco Chronicles. Skip and Mark are great resources! Thanks for doing that.

I believe Mark may have misspoken regarding pre-amp tubes (in "Looking Inside the Masco"). As I understand it, the 6SL7 preamp tube (the stock one) is a higher gain (70 or 80%), between a 12AT7 and 12AX7, and the 6SN7 is lower gain (around 20%), more like the 12AU7.  I think Mark reversed the values.

Thanks again!

Hi.  In My Blues, 4th course, measure 9, you've got two As with a dip.  My ears aren't good enough to figure out what's really going on.  Are you dipping up from below an A into an A, or up from an A? 

Thanks

In the first chorus of The Split there is a pull noted as a blow pull +5 +4 +3 +2 in the 4th and 8th measures. When I listen to you play it in the lesson it sounds like the draw pull 4 3 2 1 just before it or a draw pull 5 4 3 2. Same on the mp3 file.  This also happens in the second chorus.

Hi David, i'm a little confusing to do accompaniment test in LOA 3.

I already watch the videos but i still have some doubts.

For example:

At hole 5 we don't have a note in the I neither in the V, then should i play the I of the hole 4, D, and the V of the hole 4, that is D too?

At hole 3 we don´t have a note in the V then i should play the V of the hole 1, D?

Some holes sounds weird.

In Ex 1.14 simple shakes are used for the V and IV. Shakes aren't my strong point but they are improving after making sure to start the shake clearly on the lower note. In order to be prepared to hit the IV shake squarely on the first beat of bar 10 I find I'm letting the V shake trail off before the end of bar 9. It sounds a bit weak to my ear. Any other suggestions? Thanks!

While watching a Gary Smith accompaniment interview this morning I noticed a bottle of Sterisol on the shelf in the background. Recently I asked Kinya about a cleaner for bamboo combed Crossover's and he recommended a product I could only find in Canada on Amazon at $15 for a small bottle plus shipping which I thought was a bit much considering it was a third of that on the US Amazon site. So in my local music store I found the horn mouthpiece cleaner Sterisol. It was labelled as being safe for wood so figured it was similar to what Kinya recommended. continue reading...

Hi there.

I'm pretty new to the harmonica.  I've been playing for a couple months, mostly working from youtube videos and such.  I just joined the site about a week ago.

I hadn't seriously tried tongue blocking until last week, and I've got some questions about it.  My primary concern is that while tongue blocking I seem to have dramatically less control over my saliva, and the front of my harmonica ends up really wet.  I'm concerned that a lot of it is getting into the reeds.  Is this just a matter of practice? continue reading...

It's kind of hard for me to get the side-flutter to sound good, like at the beginning of Skeet a Little Taste, but I find that if I place my tongue for an octave, then do a shake with my head, I get more or less the effect sought for.  Is this an acceptable way of doing it?

Thank you