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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! > BGT: Help with a repetitive speed lick
BGT: Help with a repetitive speed lick
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Mirco
183 posts
Jul 21, 2014
7:44 PM
I've been listening to a lot of the greats, and I've been analyzing songs. Pulling them apart to see what they play and when.

Sometimes, a player will do this thing where they play a drawn out note (for maybe 2-4 bars at the top of a chorus, like a dirty 4-5 draw or something with some hand vibrato on it), and then contrast it with a repeated speed lick. I'm thinking specifically of Cotton on "All Walks of Life" (about 50 seconds in) or Sonny Boy II on "Little Village" (maybe 2:10). Lots of harp players do this for contrast.

Can anyone tell me what these licks are? Even better, could anyone tell me what sort of licks generally work in this sort of situation?
Oxharp
601 posts
Jul 21, 2014
9:50 PM
This is the famous Sonny Boy lick.

Ronnie explains it really well at 5:20


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Oxharp
Mirco
185 posts
Jul 22, 2014
12:03 AM
Thank you so much!
mlefree
164 posts
Jul 22, 2014
9:41 AM
A helpful technique to develop speed with lick like this is to use "Jaw flicking." Many highly accomplished players use this to minimize the time required to access adjacent holes (Brendan Power does this all the time).
Instead of moving your mouth or the whole harp to access a hole adjacent to the one your are playing at that instant you "flick" your jaw in the direction of the new hole. With slight adjustments to your embouchure as you do this you can make very clean jumps either up or down a hole or both.

Give it a try and with a little practice you will be surprised how quickly and cleanly you can navigate up or down on your harp.

One caution: though I've never heard of this happening, I'd avoid getting too exuberant or using this too frequently to avoid problems with Temporomandibular Joint Disorder (Google it).

Good luck and have fun!

Michelle

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SilverWingLeather.com
email: mlefree@silverwingleather.com

Last Edited by mlefree on Jul 22, 2014 9:42 AM


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