Tip of the Day

At my 1998 Harmonica Masterclass Workshop, Charlie Musselwhite was fielding questions from students and just answered a question about playing on the high end of the harmonica. The next student asked, "But what happens if you play a wrong note?" Charlie said, "Well, I'm only one hole away from the right one." Pretty simple, but generally a true statement. continue reading...

We can all be better at playing on the high of the harmonica (holes 6 and above). Grab a new lick from the High End 2nd Position Lesson and mix it into your improvising. Write this lick on a sticky note and keep it next to your harps. Whenever you go to improvise, play that lick. Do this until you remember to throw the lick in without the sticky note reminder.

Reference: High End 2nd Position Playing

The challenge on the high end of the harmonica is moving from a 4-hole embouchure for blow octaves to a 5-hole embouchure for the draw octaves. Here are key things to keep in mind:
1) Be larger than you think that you need to be for your draw octaves (smile and frown at the same time to make your mouth wide).
2) Be smaller than you think you need to be for the blow octaves.
3) Move in half-hole increments (changing the size of your mouth already moves you a half of a hole).

A jam session is not…
1) all about you.
2) a place to play your most polished piece (it's an opportunity to play new material—test it out and change it over time). continue reading...

When you play a 3 and 4 draw together, a third note appears that sounds two octave lower than your 2 draw pitch. This is called a Difference Tone and is what we listen for when testing harmonica amps (a G Harmonica is a great harp to use for this test). Simply stated, a good amp is one where you can here the difference tone well and it fills the room with bass (warm and resonant bass) and a bad one is where you can't hear it (thin tone) well.

When playing a lick that emphasizes the 3 draw in 2nd Position (B on a C Harmonica, the 3rd of the I7 Chord), you can repeat that lick, but make sure to bend down to 3’ for the IV7 Chord (B♭, the ♭7th) and to 3” for the V7 Chord (A, the 5th of the V7 Chord). You can make some cool phrases with these changes.

Commonly the roughest part of a song is the last chorus, especially the ending. This is for a simple reason—it’s the last thing we learn. We get tons of reps on the opening of a song, and much less on the ending. The added challenge of the ending is that we need to signal it, listen carefully to the band so that we can sync up rhythmically (there’s often a ritard and straightening of the swing rhythm), and give a final ending signal. It makes sense to make the ending lick (maybe the last four bars) the first thing you learn, reviewing it often as you study the song.

“Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”

Make playing softly your default volume. Not only will you save money on harmonicas (loud playing is the #1 killer of harmonicas), it gives you somewhere to go.

Use a slight yawn… this drops your jaw slightly (opens your mouth cavity), drops the middle/back part of your tongue (most important... this the #1 cause of poor tone, even if everything else is in alignment), raises your soft palate (so that no air goes through your nasal cavity when you don’t want it to) and opens your throat (gives you a larger tone... noticeably more bass).