Tip of the Day

Cool quote from Kid Anderson (producer, recording engineer and guitarist with Rick Estrin, Charlie Musselwhite, etc.) on the Hold The Eyes Images Podcast from 2/9/13.

1:00:50 "There's two types of good musicians. There's the guys who get up there and play what they've learned, and then there's the guys who get up there and play what they feel."

Also listen to 1:02:30 on the issues with players getting up on the bandstand a bit early in their learning process.

Hold The Eyes Images Podcasts
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/hold-the-eye-images/id363484296

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (Volume 133 / Issue 5 / ICA 2013 MONTRÉAL) released the basics of the MRI study we've been doing on the bending process. I'll now start work on a detailed paper of our findings (with VERY cool images of the bending process).
http://asadl.org/jasa/resource/1/jasman/v133/i5/p3590_s1?bypassSSO=1

Peter R. Egbert1, Lewis K. Shin1, David Barrett1, Thomas D. Rossing2, and Andrew Holbrook3
1School of Med., Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA
2School of the Blues, San Jose, CA continue reading...

From your list of memorized instrumentals and solos, you wrote down what the grooves were. Within each groove, licks are contained that have a light feel, a dark feel and combinations, depending on what the band is playing to create that groove. Lighter notes tend to be chosen for Swings and Rhumbas (E's and B's), where Box Shuffles and Slow Blues will tend to use more bluesy notes (F's and B-flat's). continue reading...

Tips #1 and #2 are predicated on two facts... 1) That you have some lick vocabulary... and... 2) You're able to track where you are on the harmonica at all times (know what hole or pitch you're playing), so that you can change a lick dynamically to follow the guidelines we spoke of (E for Light = 2+, 5+ and 8+ and F for Bluesy = 2", 5 and 9). continue reading...

Here is the other way to easily control whether you're playing bluesy or light in 2nd Position. The 3 (B on the C Harmonica) is light and the 3' (Bb) is bluesy. So... if you want your licks to sound bluesy, choose the 3' over the 3. If you want your licks to sound light, use 3 over the 3'.

The ability to play the 3' at ANY SPEED and in ANY DIRECTION (ascending or descending) is paramount for the harmonica player.

There are two ways to easily control whether you're playing bluesy or light in 2nd Position. Today I'll talk about one of them. The 5+ (E on the C Harmonica) is light and the 5 (F) is bluesy. So... if you want your licks to sound bluesy, choose the 5 over the 5+. If you want your licks to sound light, use 5+ over the 5.

These relationships also occur in different octaves. For playing bluesy choose the 2" F over the 2+ E... and vice-verse... and 9 F over the 8+ E... and vice-verse.

To sum up... use draw for bluesy (F) and blow for light (E).

Sometimes the best melodic variation tool is deletion. Instead of adding notes, or changing the presentation of the notes, try taking some notes out... I think you'll be surprised how cool the rhythmic affect is.

It's common for us harp players to sit in and play with bands we've never played with before. After you've told them the key and the groove, try having them start on the V (five). This is the last four bars of the 12 Bar Blues Progression and works great as a four-bar intro to the song. Most importantly, it gives you a little bit of time to hear the groove they're laying down BEFORE you play. What the musicians play collective creates the pitch context of the song, which determines what YOU can play as a soloist (light, bluesy... or a combination). continue reading...

If I come across a really cool lick and I want to ensure that it finds its way into my vocabulary, I write it on a sticky note and sit it in my harp case. In practice or performance every now and again my eyes are caught by that neon pink sticky and it reminds to use that lick as soon as I can fit it in. When I find myself placing that lick into my soloing without the visual cue of the sticky, then I crumple it up and throw it away... mission accomplished.

Any key of diatonic harmonica can play in any key or mode. Some keys and modes are very far from the key of the harmonica, making them impractical to play in. Seven of those modes can be played without any change to pitch (bending). We call the modes you can play in on the harmonica "Positions." You can extrapolate from this that for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc., positions that you use the same blow and draw notes, it's just the ordering that makes the difference. This is a correct statement. continue reading...