Tip of the Day

Transpose "When the Saints Go Marching In" up an octave.

4+ 5+ 5 6+, 4+ 5+ 5 6+, 4+ 5+ 5 6+ 5+ 4+ 5+ 4, 5+ 5+ 4 4+, 4+ 5+ 6+ 6+ 5, 5 5+ 5 6+ 5+ 4+ 4 4+

Mid Octave: 4+ 4 5+ 5 6+ 6 7 7+

High Octave: 7+ 8 8+ 9 9+ 10 10' 10+

Playing folk songs can be a great way to build facility on your instrument. Folk songs commonly use the Major Scale, and the Major Scale is the scale our harmonica uses for its tuning. Here's a simplistic way to think of this scale... each note of the scale represents the next higher or lower note available on your harmonica. When you're copying another harmonica player's solo and you hear the next note go up, you know where that next higher note is. This also happens when improvising... continue reading...

Here's a well written article on the golden age of the harmonica: http://www.bookrags.com/research/harmonica-bands-sjpc-02/

At 2:33 he tries to play a vibrato, but he's going about it the wrong way. You see that he's moving his tongue backwards and forwards in the mouth, moving the tongue in and out of the bending range. The result is a bending and releasing of pitch, which is what a vibrato is, but the result is not pleasing... the tone is thin and whinny.

At 2:25 he plays a tremolo. Note the slight sympathetic movement of the tongue (see how it's moving because of the opening and closing of the vocal folds/chords... not because he's moving the tongue with the normal muscles associated with movement). continue reading...

At 2:25 he plays a tremolo. Note that his tremolo skill is not that great... he's working hard to get it started and sustain it. Our focus is the slight sympathetic movement of the tongue (see how it's moving because of the opening and closing of the vocal folds/chords... not because he's moving the tongue with the normal muscles associated with movement). At 2:33 he tries to perform the vibrato and he is doing it incorrectly. Take a look at this and we'll dig into this deeper tomorrow.

Video Referenced
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTEXSb6duVs&feature=player_embedded

At 2:17 see how far back his tongue is for the 1 draw bend. When I describe this to students I say to move more back than up, and you can see this in the video.

Video Referenced
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTEXSb6duVs&feature=player_embedded

At 1:50 he plays a 2", which is a bend that uses the back of the tongue to necessitate the large chamber needed to tune the mouth to a low pitch. At 1:51 he plays a 3", which is a bend that uses the middle-back of the tongue, further forward in the mouth, due to the fact that it's a higher pitched bend than the 2". At 1:53 he plays 3 draw and moves his tongue down slightly to tune the pitch of his mouth to the 3 draw and then plays 3+ and he really opens up to give that note a big, resonant sound (large chamber = big tone). The 3 draw after his bend holds the secret to vibrato... continue reading...

At 1:44 he's playing the melody 3+ 3+ 2+ 2+, 3+ 3+ 1 1, 2+ 2" 3+ 3" 3 3+... on a C Harmonica. Play along with him a couple of times. What do you see at 1:50?... and at 1:51? Try to make the same thing happen in your mouth. I'll discuss this more tomorrow.

Video Referenced
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTEXSb6duVs&feature=player_embedded

From 1:26 to 1:30, when the harmonica (and camera inside it) enters the mouth, notice how the player drops his jaw to make room for the harmonica and lowers his tongue slightly... this is the position you want to be in while playing... and most likely having the tongue in the middle-back lowered a bit more... this is an area that can cause trouble on the 2 draw. More to come...

Video Referenced
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTEXSb6duVs&feature=player_embedded

At 0:50 Dr Bahnson states, "the nasal passages are not nearly as important as a resonating cavity as is the oral pharynx (mouth cavity)." The oral cavity... our mouth... is the resonating chamber of our instrument. This is analogous to the body of a guitar being the resonating chamber for the string (mounted on the fret board). Have you ever seen and heard a backpacker guitar? They have full-scale fret boards, but the body of the guitar is very small. This makes the guitar easy to tote around, but the tone is very thin... non-resonant... continue reading...