Tip of the Day

The most common error in performance is counting the band in incorrectly. An incorrect count causes the band to play faster or slower than you intended to play (a great way to make a song really hard to play). The count sets the tempo of the song. New performers make the mistake of arbitrarily counting, without hearing the song in their head first. The key is to hear the song in your head, singing it in your head for a couple of bars to confirm that it feels right (not too fast or slow), and then count the band in. continue reading...

The more motivated you are, the more you will practice. Here are some tips to stay motivated:
1) Study a song that gives you goosebumps (the more you like a song, the more motivated you are to learn it).
2) Do the Levels of Achievement program at BluesHarmonica.com
3) Give a concert at home to family and friends
4) Start a rehearsal band (this is a band that rehearses songs for fun at someone’s house or rental practice space)
5) Participate in local jam session (or start your own) continue reading...

Change the key of your pocket harp (the harp you carry around with you) monthly. This helps you to become comfortable with each key of harmonica.

Take the sheet music for the song you’re currently studying and analyze where the best places are to: take a breath where there is rest (commonly exhaling for us); open the nose on a blow note; or shorten notes to steal a breath (this last method is not as preferred).

Think of things that you can study when you’re not in the mood to practice, such as:
1) Listen to a song intently that you’re studying. Listen to all the instruments all the way through once, not just the harp.
2) Music theory
3) Figuring out the keys and positions of the songs in your collection
4) Harmonica customizing (don’t go too far down the gear rabbit hole—spend time on your craft)
5) Interviews
6) Equipment lessons
7) What else can you think of?

When improvising to a fast tempo song (or jam track), it can be difficult to stay in time. When this happens, play sparse, leaving more space between your licks (Jimmy Reed is a great example of a sparse player). The more actively you play, the more the probability of you moving out of time. Long holds are also helpful (it doesn’t take any mental power to hold a note—you can use this time to listen more closely to the band).

Using a program like the Amazing Slow Downer you can make a custom jam track. Let’s say you have a song where you’re unable to find a jam track in the same key and speed. Find a jam track that is close in feel to your original song and change the tempo (faster or slower) and key to match your song. Save that song as a new file.

Check the intonation (how well you play in tune) of your bends often. Sometimes use a pitch recognition device (HarpNinja app, or a tuner for example) and sometimes use a pitch generating device (piano or app). Playing your notes in tune is essential for good music. Side note—the bottom bends (1’, 2”, 3’’’, 4’, 6’, 8’+, 9’+, and 10”+) are often bluesy notes, and we prefer to bend as far as we can, playing them out of tune—this sounds more bluesy. The exception is when playing in unison with another instrument (say playing the head of the song)—those bends need to be played in tune.

For each repertoire retention day choose an overall theme. Examples of themes are: use your hands a lot to shape the sound; use a lot of tremolo; use extreme dynamics (extremely soft-softs and extremely loud-louds); play amplified; give the band the opening speech (key, groove, where the form starts, and count the band in) and give all signals as you play (like the ending signal); and play into a vocal mic.

Take one day a week to play all the songs (that you like) that you’ve studied so far. This helps you to: not lose the ability to play songs that you’ve worked hard to learn; be confident when performing (whether with a band or when someone asks you to play for them); keep fluent with the licks within your songs (this is the vocabulary that you use for improvising). Your goal is to play along to the original track with a high degree of accuracy, then move to playing with a jam track (ultimately without the sheet music).