harmonica

Place your lips over a four-hole span, using a light touch on the face of the harmonica. Use the top of your tongue just past the tip (called the blade of the tongue) with a light enough touch that the convex shape of your tongue does not completely flatten on the face of the harmonica. Cover the left three holes with your tongue, leaving the right-most hole to sound a single note. Move the harmonica latterly—the focus is to generally move the harmonica, not the face or jaw.

Special Note for Lower Holes continue reading...

Wynton’s Twelve Ways to Practice
http://arbanmethod.com/wyntons-twelve-ways-to-practice/

"Play everything — no matter how trivial or trite it might be — with dynamics and sound and musical expression."

From: http://arbanmethod.com/wynton-marsalis-daily-practice/ Thanks to Jon Harl for sharing.

In this streaming radio archive Joe Filisko shares Rare Early Solo Instrumental Blues Harp Recordings. This comes to you via The Archivist (Roger Trobridge) of National Harmonica League: https://www.mixcloud.com/PodKast/

Now that you've had a chance to enjoy and analyze Aki's killer instrumental "Bombay Stroll," here are the Chorus Forms (CF) he used. Mr. Aki Kumar, can you please share with everyone on your Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/akikumar) how these CF came about? As you worked on writing this song, did you experiment with different CF's for each lick/chorus, or have you so internalized CF's now that you played the new lick at the beginning of a chorus and the CF flowed out? I assume that you worked out the first three or so choruses and then improvised by the time you reached Chorus 5? continue reading...

When preparing to perform a song make sure to practice your intro speech, count-in and signaling for breaks and ending (especially for breaks and ending). If you neglect this in your practice you'll be more likely to miss the timing of your signals in performance.

In this video we rehearse and record my shuffle arrangement (eventually to be titled "Playin' It Forward.") with Aki Kumar.

For about a month now we've been reviewing the common, and not so common, Chorus Forms used by blues musicians. Take a listen to Aki Kumar's instrumental "Bombay Stroll" released today at http://youtu.be/iAPr6qUTufg from the new It Takes Three CD and analyze it for his use of Chorus Forms.

Harmonica players who like to perform find that if they sing, they get to choose the song and lead the band at jam sessions. Singing is approached like the study of any instrument. There are exercises, such as scales to built range and intonation, and each song needs to be studied for its rhythm, melody and phrasing. Most new singers don't realize this and just start to sing the words and unknowingly start singing either on the wrong note of the chord or commonly in the wrong key.

There's an easy way to fix this... continue reading...

The theme in “Gary’s Blues” is presented in the first two notes, the 3+ eighth notes. This eighth note figure is restated throughout the song. You see this at the end of the first line, with the 4+ 3 played in the same eighth note rhythm. The second chorus starts with these 3+ eighth notes and you see them again in the third bar of Chorus 3… and at the end of Bar 4. This repeats in other places, but I think you get the idea. This type of thematic element is not commonly noticed, but it’s no doubt part of what makes a song cohesive. continue reading...