Welcome back to Harmonica Notes Learn Harmonica In 30 Days Day 9! Today we are going to be bending while playing! The flattened third hinted at on day 6 is put into play today. We will be adding bluesy inflection to the mix. Now as you play along with the music you will be adding bent 3 hole draws for the blue note!
Learn Harmonica in 30 Days Day 9 Putting In The Bend
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Hi Eric,
I think you’re doing a really great job. Very good introduction, very handy lessons, without too much theory! I think after the 30 days I will be able to go on with the lessons from A. Gussow on youtube to learn the deep secrets thanks to your solid foundation. Go ahead like that!
Greetings from Germany
Marcus
Thanks for the positive feedback! It was my goal to avoid theory as much as possible while still providing a good foundation for the basics. I hate when learning gets in the way of doing. I also hate getting pigeon holed into some other limiting thing like just learning to play a song. I wanted to provide the basics so people could understand how to play without ending up only knowing one song and without inundating them with theory.
Harmonica is especially good for this the basics work across the board. With a full set and these basics, you can play along with any bluesy song in any key. Try playing along with Freebird. It’s key of G.
It was also my plan to give everyone the basics so people could pick Gussows lessons and build on what they learned here. I love Gussow and Riccis videos it’s just that Gussow can get a little distracted in what he’s doing and Ricci can get disheartening with how well he plays when he’s playing what he just showed you. I owe them both a ton for what they taught on their videos, I just wanted to something a little more from “one of us” the new guy just getting started.
why is it that my harp seems to sound different to everyone else’s? is it because i am playing so it sounds different to me than it does to others its making me disheartened
If it sounds different, it could be for a few reasons. Things you need to check are, Is it key of C, is it standard tuned harp, is it a diatonic harp, and what’s the quality? If it doesn’t have 10 holes in a single stack, it’s thre wrong kind of harp. If it’s not a standard tuning it will say it on the packaging. If it isn’t in the right key, it will say it on the harp (it needs to be in the key of C, not G).
IF it is the right kind of harmonica, then the issue might be how you hold your mouth and breath through it.
take a few pictures of it from different angles, post it on flickr and post up a link here and we’ll look at it to make sure it’s the right kind. If it’s a technical issue, I would need to see a video of you playing. if you can make one, post it on youtube and give us a link so we can see you play it.
hey Eric
Its a suzuki folk master in the key of C. Just looked at the paper that comes with it and can’t see anything about tuning, I’m guessing by your response that this is not common and there is a problem.
Are you familiar with this harp?
cheers G
p.s looking forwards to tomorrows lesson
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hey Eric
really quite excited today as i have been sat in my bathroom practising and i have managed to get the sound just about right, i think its just the way i way playing but my tone is now improving, i think the echoing of the room has help hence the reason i was sat in there and also making sure the harp was nice and warmed up, hope this helps anyone else.
G
That’s awesome to hear! Keep practicing!
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hey man
thanks a lot for your awesome lessons and videos!
i bought my first hohner “big river harp” harmonica on amazon. and a big weird harmonica book, which name i don’t remember at this time….
the book is alright…but it misses something… the very basic stuff told by a person, by a musician… you’re bringing your knowledge to every harmonica newbie across the world.
thanks a lot!
all the best from luxembourg, europe.
cheers
frank
Thanks for the kind words. I went through a lot of books and they just didn’t do it for me. They don’t have a human element necessary for harmonica. I’m glad the videos are helping.