Tip of the Day

Today's tip is a simple one... warm up your chromatic harmonica before you play. continue reading...

Let's first be clear on what wind savers do and how they're installed on the chromatic harmonica. The chromatic harmonica has many more parts than a diatonic harmonica, including a side assembly that can have up to five parts. All of this equals an instrument that has issues with air leakage. This is helped by the use of windsavers. When playing the draw reed of a given hole, a valve (windsaver) closes over the blow reed slot to stop air from bleeding in. When playing the blow reed of a given hole, a valve closes over the draw reed slot. continue reading...

When connecting two amps together, the best solution for tone and usability is an A/B Box. You can choose to play through one amp (A), the other amp (B), or both (AB) at the same time. If "A" is your more distorted amp, it can be used as your main blues harp sound. If "B" is your cleaner amp, it can be used for the songs where you want a cleaner sound. When you need a lot of volume (band gets loud... or you just need some boost for a powerful section of a song), then use both "A" and "B" at the same time. continue reading...

If you have experience playing on the bandstand, then you know how important it is to have enough volume coming from your amp to be able to hear yourself... If you can't hear yourself, you can't play. Usually the answer is to use a big amp, like the Fender Bassman (4x10" speakers). Another way to go about it is to use two smaller amps. If you want variance in tone, bring two small amps that sound very different... one clean and one distorted. The clean one usually helps you to hear better and the distorted one is the one usually mic'd into the house system. continue reading...

Have you been studying Chorus Forms? If so, check out what Leonard Bernstein has to say about the same general concept in the "The Unanswered Question, Part 3" from his 1973 Harvard Norton Lectures. Watch from 41:55 to 52:09 and then 57:10 to when the musical example is done.

Special note to 1:02:30 where he speaks of the "Violation of Expectation"

YouTube Link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IxJbc_aMTg

In your lessons I teach that a shake should always start with the bottom note (and commonly with a dip if it's a bendable note). This is the case... most of the time.

Top Note Down Shake
Listen to the last chorus of Big Walter Horton's famous blues harmonica instrumental "Easy," and you'll hear on bar 6 that the 6+ is played as a 6+/5+ shake (this is due to the dissonant sound of the 6+/7+ shake option... the shake focused downwards still gives the melody the variation he was looking for, but with less dissonance).

3-Hole Shake continue reading...

In the Bassman Chronicles Mark Overman and I replaced all four of the Jensen P10R reissue speakers with Jensen Jet Tornados tenderized by MegaTone Amps (http://megatoneamps.com/) and they sounded really nice. I tried using just two of Jets (leaving two of the originals in there) and the sound was fantastic. So, no need to buy four, just two sounds great.

Some of my recent Tip of the Day posts lead you to very long YouTube videos that would be just fine to listen to instead of needing to watch. The free program "YouTube to MP3 Converter" is an easy to use, copy and paste URL, program for downloading an MP3 version of the audio from a YouTube video onto your computer, directly into iTunes if you wish. I love listening to podcast and audio books on my iPhone, so this is VERY convenient for me. Here's the developers pitch line... continue reading...

This tip comes from member Emanuel Villa...

The Amazing Slow Downer is definitely a great software, but there are FREE alternatives as good, at least for PC users, take a look to Practice# (Practice sharp)
http://code.google.com/p/practicesharp/

Grab a harp... hold it... play it... pull it away from your lips... look at your left hand... the farther back you can place your index finger and thumb, the more room you have to place the harmonica in your mouth (deep harmonica = deep tone). I hold the harp at the very back, on top of the crest, where it flairs out.

For more information, visit the Lesson titled "Cupping & Hand Effects" and look at the video titled "Ways of Holding/Cupping the Harmonica" for more information.