Tip of the Day

At 0:44 Dr Bahnson speaks about the soft palate being pushed back against the pharynx. This is what closes off the nasal tract so that all inspired and expired air travels through the harmonica. If you find yourself gasping for air after playing a short passage... your nasal tract is open. To get a feeling for when it's closed... yawn. Speaking while yawning you'll hear the result of closing off the additional resonating chamber of the nose... a whiny tone... the oral cavity AND nasal cavity are open normally during speech. continue reading...

Take a look at this very cool footage of the inside of the mouth while playing the harmonica. Make note of what you see... I'll discuss this as the week goes on.

Physiology of Playing the Harmonica, by Henry T. Bahnson, MD - heart surgeon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTEXSb6duVs&feature=player_embedded

Did you know that when most professionals do a cover song that they learn the head (the opening twelve bars... the most discernible part of the song) and then improvise the body? This takes a lot of the stress out of "memorizing" a song... learn the head and improvise everything else. If you're at the skill level where what you improvise comes close to sounding as good as what the original player of the song did, then this is the way to go. continue reading...

I'll be there... hope to see you there too. For more information visit: http://spah.org/content.asp?pl=20&contentid=20

Generally speaking, controlling bends and articulations further back in your mouth will give you a rounder/warmer tone. When articulating, the "K" articulation will help you to achieve a warmer tone (before and after the articulation) than the "T" articulation. You CAN achieve a good tone with "T," just make sure that the middle and back of your tongue is lowered so that you create a tone chamber behind the articulation. But, generally speaking, the more you use "K" or "G" (G is softer) the more of a chance your tone will be bigger.

Here's my interview with Michalis Limnios for BLUES @ GREECE. Thanks Michalis!
http://blues.gr/profiles/blog/show?id=1982923%3ABlogPost%3A144177

Did you know that when you play a 3 draw and 4 draw at the same time 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 up the room with bass (warm and resonant bass response) and a bad one is where you can't hear it (thin tone) well (or in some cases at all). continue reading...

This is a great reference for the tuning and tonal center of different tuning systems on the diatonic harmonica. Richter by the way is standard tuning. Try, "C" "Richter" "G" "Blues" and it shows a "C Major Diatonic Harmonica," "Richter" as the tuning system, "G" as the key you want to play in (2nd Position) with the root notes of the key highlighted (home base for soloing) and "Blues" as the scale and the scale is listed at the bottom of the page. Try the key of "D" under the "Melody" header and now you're playing in 3rd Position, highlighting "D" as the home base. Very cool. continue reading...

Many years ago Lance H. (a student of mine at that time) created an artist listing that details each album's title, songs, song keys, keys of harmonica used and positions played. Lance did the listing work and I formatted it and placed it on the Harmonica Masterclass website. Someday we hope to update this list and get it on BluesHarmonica.com, but for the moment it remains in its original form. Take a look, it's a nice resource. http://www.harmonicamasterclass.com/artist_listing.htm

Here's a fun video presented on SPAH's new website covering how the old Kratt Co. made harmonicas. Visit: http://090211d.membershipsoftware.org/content.asp?admin=Y&contentid=41