My Grand Mother is unwell. Not a big deal except she’s almost 104 years old. This effects you guys because aside from my usual lack of updates I also have no access to the internet. (well rare access as you can see.) For those of you who have been having trouble downloading the videos in my series, The bottom half of the download page has backup downloads that you can use. They should work just fine. If they don’t, please be patient, as soon as I can get to a place where I can get elbow deep, I will fix the problem and make sure you get access.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

Harmonica Difficulty

I know this is going to sound like a player saying it’s easy because I know how but the reason I took up the harp is because of how EASY it is to learn and play. There are 4 difficult things about playing the harmonica which I will address later. I’m going to start with why harmonica is EASY.

Yes Harmonica Is Easy!

Keys

First things first. Lets get rid of the confusion. You don’t play harmonica, you play HARMONICAS. There are 12 (More in fact) harmonicas. One for each key. While a piano or guitar plays all keys on one instrument harmonicas play one key per instrument.

What does this mean to you? Two things in fact. One is you choose which which harp to play based on the key so you don’t need to figure out which part of the instrument and which combinations to play to sound right. Second, you learn one way to play on harp and it’s good for all songs in all keys. Just switch harps when you get a new song in a different key and play the same way. nothing new to learn. No new scales, no new techniques. It’s like having 12 guitars all tuned to a different key. you just won’t need a panel truck to carry them around.

Positions

The next cool thing that makes harmonica easy is positions. Straight harp, cross harp, slant harp, or first, second and third position. there are more but I will stick with these. In a nutshell, different positions allow you to play the same harmonica in different scales. What does that mean to you? It’s a fancy way of saying start in a different spot if you are playing a different kind of song. If you are playing blues, start in second position, cross harp and if you are doing something in a minor key, start in third position, slant harp.

Why is this easy? You can cheat with your harmonica case. I set mine up so when I get told what key a song is in I find the key, move one to the left, use that harp and start on the 2 hole draw. If it’s minor key blues I find the key, move 2 to the left and start on the 4 hole blow. Doing it that way makes things much easier.

Layout

When you play the harmonica there are certain sweet spots to play in. 2 through 6 for blues and 4 through 9 for minor key blues. You can go outside those holes when you get to know your way around the harp but it’s hard to go wrong when sticking with those sweet spots. It works with nothing fancy.

What Are The Tough Things

One Hole Playing

You can play chords fairly easily but it gets kind of mushy. Learning to play one hole is the first tough thing you need to learn. It will take time to get you mouth to work right but once you get it, one hole just gets easier and easier. It takes practice. There is no way around it.

Bending

Bending is a pain to learn. you just have to mess with it and mess with it until you get it. There are cheats that make it a bit easier to figure out but in the end it is another thing you just need to work at.

Tongue Blocking

Tongue blocking allows you to do advanced chord structures and cool techniques. You need to know it. I don’t but I’m working on it. That being said, I get paid to play harmonica and I don’t know how to do it so take from that what you will.

Overblowing

You can play any song on any harmonica using overblowing and bending. It’s cool. It allows you more variability and gives you some great techniques. You can also be inducted into the Overblowing Snob club. I get it, it’s great for your bag of tricks. Build on the basics first, then expand on the basics. Then work on your style and your repertoire. Then go back to basics. Then get creative with it. Then start worrying about all the cool things you can do with overblowing. Then Buy an amp and a mic and forget you ever heard of overblowing. Then when someone talks about overblowing, pull out your chromatic that you also learned how to play while they were working on their overblowing techniques.

Get to it

Why are you sitting around reading articles on how easy it is to play? Go and practice. Give it a month. I believe anyone can Learn Harmonica In 30 Days!

So Holland K. Smith wandered in to the Caddie and I got to jam with him again.
Oh, and I did my first professional gig today.

The guitarists are all 15 I believe, the drummer was out at the jam for his 13th birthday. They are  Thomas Dawson, Brandon Katona, Alex Dowidchuk & Jonah Salen.

I have noticed a rise in traffic on my site over the past couple of years and I think this may have something to do with it.

For you harp players out there, I know there isn’t any harmonica playing in this video but you can cope. In fact, I encourage you to help a young kid take up harmonica. This band needs a harp player and you will be investing in the next generation.

Merry Christmas

Give a Kid a harmonica

In desperation I found myself wandering around Best Buy and and eyeing with greedy stares the the Same Samson Mic I bought for playing harp. I figured I could hook them up in a pair and get stereo that way. They’ve been doing that for years. Then my sickly wanting gaze fell upon the blue star… er… Samson Zoom H1.

At $99 it was within my budgetary constraints (well not quite), and it fit the bill perfectly. If it was anything like It’s big brother, the Zoom H4n I would be set. I dropped the coin and picked up the last one on the rack.

I prayed that it wouldn’t be the disappointment the pocket memo recorder was (that’s a different story and involves the loss of some nice interviews). I pulled out some cables and my Kodak and headed to the Caddy for the jam.

The Zoom H1 has some really cool things and  some stuff that bugs me but, since I’m the kind of guy that always has a gripe (the lack of aperture control and manual zoom on my Kodak Zi8 for instance.. still love the camera) so, don’t take the negatives as hatred.

The Good

Mic quality is real good and it gets great stereo. The sound is full and cuts room noise. I recorded a band in a room full of people

and got a great recording. This is Kent Woodruff singing and playing harp in that room. It’s a tough room to mic too. The PA system is hung overhead and the band is set up with amps on the ground in behind them on the wall. The drummer isn’t mic’ed so in order to get the best audio, you have to be in the middle of the room… in the middle of the crowd. Once you get the record input set right it works like a charm. There is an issue when you hook it up to the camera but I will get to that later.

I like that it’s not just a stereo mic but also a recorder. It records in mp3 and wav format and has simple yet effective recording controls. This thing is great for recording mp3s for release. Set it up in front of you, hang a few carpets on the walls and record away. If you are shooting video, the record function gives you a great layer of redundancy. If you don’t get the video (like I did, I forgot to check my camera and it didn’t have memory in it) you still get an audio track. If there’s a problem with the audio on your video you can dub in the recording in post and save the video.

It has a headphone jack that I split and run to my camera. I can monitor with my headphones while recording direct sync to video, sweet! The one hitch is you have to control the headphone output to the camera or it might overdrive the cameras mic input and cause distortion. The first videos I shot with it had this problem. I didn’t know about it until I was back at the house checking my videos. the mp3s on the H1 were great quality so if I had really needed to, I could have dubbed in the better quality mp3 on the video.

Something to watch for is the quality you’re recording at on the H1. By default, it records at low quality so bump it up to get the best sound.

It takes 1 AA battery and gives 10 hours worth of recording time. It doesn’t have the ability to run on external power from what I can tell. I will mess with the USB and see what I can find out.

The Bad

There is a mic/line in on the side of the Zoom H1 and it overrides the input from the on board stereo mics. Unless there is a setting I missed that would allow me to mix it in. It isn’t a big gripe but I would lover to be able to mic a singer as well as record the band in stereo. It’s big brother the H4n can do this so why not this little beauty? That’s pretty much the only major gripe I have.

The Ugly

My father always said, “The problem with cheap plastic furniture is it’s cheap and plastic.” Cheap and plastic come to mind when looking at this thing. Will I overcome the pain? Yes, it is a great package and at $99. If it breaks in a drop, it won’t break the bank to replace.

It records to MicroSD. I don’t mind MicroSD but I would have preferred a standard size. Would it have given it that unsightly a bulge? Not a big deal but I like to whine.

Where To From Here?

Wireless. The 3 ways I can set this thing up are: 1) hooked to the camera 2) set up on a tripod in front of the subject with a long cable to the camera and 3) disconnected from the camera to be dubbed in in post.

If I could go wireless and be able to record directly to my camera, I would be a happy man. There was a time, before bluetooth, before wireless headphones when there were adapters you could hook to your headphones and to you home stereo. That would be perfect if I could find one.

The other idea is the mp3 player adapters that broadcast on FM. You know the ones, they allow you to use your mp3 player on your cheap old car stereo. Get one of those and a one of those little FM stereos, broadcast from the Zoom H1 and hook the FM stereo to the camera. I just don’t trust tech that super cheap. It’s worth a try I guess.

Can you guys think of anything?

Back at the caddy for the Christmas jam. Mark Sena and the band are rockin’ a full house.

Awesome night tonight! Met a great harp player, Kent Woodruff. I wasn’t able to grab a video of his performance but I did get an mp3. That’s him singing and playing harp. This is it followed by a pic of him playing.

Kent Woodruff

Kent Jamming out at the Caddy

More coming. Hashbrown, Holland K. Smith and… well you get the idea.

More coming. Hashbrown, Holland K. Smith and… well you get the idea.

Strokers blues jam, awesome night with great music. Nothing with me tonight so far. I might get video before the night is over.

The dangers of spending your birthday at a blues jam.

Here’s some pictures of my time on stage. Thanks Rick for the shots.