Tip of the Day

The chords created by drawing and blowing on the harmonica do not carry the same harmonic quality as chordal instruments such the guitar and piano, where they can choose the spacing (voicing), combination of notes (quality) and their inversions (which notes of the chord sound in which order). When playing "chordal" or what's often called "chugging" on the harmonica, it's not so much the "chords" we're playing that are the focus, but the rhythmic drive the pattern played creates. continue reading...

One of the coolest sounds of the amplified harmonica is that of the flutter tongue (lesson in Tongue Block Study 3). Grab your organ blues (Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff, Jack McDuff, etc.) and listen to when they hold a long note combination and you'll hear that Leslie Tone Cabinet spinning, creating a sound very similar to our flutter tongue (especially the 5 draw flutter). See if you can mimic the sound of the organ in your playing... especially accompaniment playing.

Recording material for Accompaniment Study 7 yesterday on the subject of bass lines reminded me of why slaps and pulls are so cool when used together. When playing a line, like what's presented in Solo Harmonica Study 2.1 through 2.3, the slaps found on the downbeat represent the downbeat notes of the bass and the upbeat pull represents the upstroke of the guitar in a swing (think T-Bone Shuffle style guitar accompaniment). The drive this combination creates is one of the great reasons why we learn to tongue block on the harmonica.

If you've been studying with me for over a year (first year students can ignore this, you're still focusing on your fundamentals) applying the Chorus Forms should be 1/3 of your practice time. The concept is simple... take a lick out of the song you're working on that day and apply the Chorus Form process...

A = that day's lick

Play it as these Chorus Forms with a jam track:
AAA
AAA with Fills
AAB
AAB with Fills
A B/A C
Move your lick up/down an octave
Work with fragments of your lick continue reading...

The first program to be adopted as a learning and backing tool by the music community was Band In A Box. The newest tool to become widely adopted is iReal (http://www.irealb.com). For our blues harmonica world, jam tracks are superior due to their high quality, but where they fall short is in the ability to make custom chord changes for those wishing to study non-12 bar blues or chords in their raw form (music theory study), where the backing doesn't need to be inspiring... it just needs to be what you need it to be. continue reading...

I was driving with my son (Ray, age 13) the other day and he was describing a new song that he really liked, stating it had killer little solos throughout the song. I assumed he meant fills. We listened to the track and sure enough the soloist was playing playing all the vocal fills, just like you've been learning in Accompaniment Study 4. This was a cool example of what I stated in the lesson that new players tend to play their accompaniment softly (which is correct to do so), but forget to bring their volume up for each of the fills... playing timidly. continue reading...

One of the purposes of my study songs is to give you "been there, done that moments" so that when you play to a particular groove, you have material to play. For example... you're about to do a solo in a slow blues, you could use any chorus from "Blues Creapin' Over Me, Version 1" (Accompaniment Study 3) "Blues Creapin' Over Me, Version 2" (Accompaniment Study 5), "My Blues" (Bending Study 3), "Blues for Paul deLay (Tongue Blocking Study 5), "Blues for Big Nate" (Jerry Portnoy Artist Study) or "Lonesome Bedroom Blues" (William Clarke Artist Study). continue reading...

In our soloing we employ dynamics... louds and softs. A common rhythmic error... I sure have to compensate for this in my playing... is when a player increases their volume for dramatic effect they'll commonly start to rush... play too fast. Knowing this, when you increase your volume in a passage, make a point to keep the rhythm laid back and swingin'... this will help this common error from happening.

I get emails on a regular basis in regards to what keys of harmonica and what positions they were played in for this concert. Here they are...

Joe Filisko continue reading...

Hohner just released this video interview of me in Trossingen, Germany. Thanks to all involved... it was an honor to be a part of this series.

David Barret - HOHNER Masters of the Harmonica
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vuvbSU86gs

David Barrett is the world's leading expert in blues harmonica education... blazing the way in every facet of its education for over twenty years. continue reading...