I am embarking on a challenge to learn a new blues harmonica song each month to begin building my repotoire. I listen as widely and deeply as I can. There is so much great stuff out there it's hard to know where to begin. Curious if: 1. People have opinions on first essential songs one ought to have in their pocket, and 2. If anyone else would like to join me in the journey. We could share notes (ha!) and progress (assuming we had a agreed upon list of songs to learn). Looking for songs with harmonica as lead as well as songs with harmonica as sideman. Thanks for your time!
My suggestion would be to check out Adams tradebit lessons.
They are very good and thorough. You can get the tabs for them if you need. I really like em alot And go back to them frequently. (I have them all stored on my phone)
And they go from very easy to pretty darn hard. Quite a few of them are still way out of my league. But there are parts of them i can still use.
But they will give you Alot of the "Required Learning" songs and plenty to work on. Aswell as the Right things to work on. I think progress happens much quicker by practicing the right things and in the right way. You can practice your heart out, but if your not practicing the right stuff your not getting the most of your time.
For Adams Tradebit Lessons - Click **The Store** on the left side of the screen.
BTW ... Be sure to use the "Preview" feature. This will help to ensure that you get a song that is your speed. Aswell as one you are interested in learning. There is a beginner package offered which is well worth buying. You will likely end up buying most of these anyways.
The answer to this really depends on your skill level.
If you are new to harmonica, you're better off avoiding the "essential" blues harp repertoire. Because if you're not ready for it, those songs will end up being beyond your level and just frustrate you. Instead, you should focus on building your technique. I'd recommend Dave Barrett's bluesharmonica.com, where he has a sequence of study songs that focus that progress in a logical way.
If you've been playing for a while, start with Big Walter's "Easy." It's easy enough and uses a lot of repetition. Gussow has a lesson on it, and Dave Barrett has a free tab online: Dave Barrett's Easy
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Last Edited by Mirco on Jul 18, 2016 9:04 AM
1. Help Me -- minor key in second position. Great groove. 2. Big Boss Man -- got to have some Jimmy Reed. 3. Who's Been Talking? -- minor key, rhumba feel. 4. Walking Blues -- straight eighths. Butterfield. 5. Stormy Monday -- you're going to ha be to play this, you may as well learn to do it right. 6. Got My Mojo Working -- traditional set closer. Two beat. 7. Crossroads -- sick to death of this, but every wannabe Clapton wants to do it. 8. Pride and Joy -- sick to death of this but every wannabe SRV wants to do it. 9. Farther On Up The Road -- nice Texas Shuffle. 10. Something with a Bo Diddley beat. 11. Hoochie Coochie Man -- learn it in first position. 12. Easy -- this can be as easy or as difficult as as you want to make it.
it's not necessarily how many you learn (although you have to learn a lot), it's how well you learn what you learn. learning one tune cold fully memorized and embedded in your musical DNA is way better than learning 3 tunes halfway.
second Mirco's suggestion. good technique makes it way easier to learn tunes.
"I fear not the man who has practiced 10000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10000 times." -Bruce Lee
---------- 4' 4+ 3' 2~~~ -Mike Ziemba Harmonica is Life!
Last Edited by slaphappy on Jul 18, 2016 8:36 PM
Thanks all for the great advice, I agree with all points. Thanks to timeistight for the list o' 12!
I am currently working through Dave Barretts course, but at the same time want to begin building my repertoire. With so many good songs out there it is really hard to pick a first (or first 12) and say "I'm committing a month to living and breathing this song". Hence pinging on y'all for insight into what a desert island repertoire looks like...
Well my first full song was Help Me. Check out Will Wilde's youtube lesson on it. I found that one pretty helpful and thorough. Ive played that song countless times. And now that I'm playing Tongue Block Alot more Ive added a bit more nuance to it.
That's what i do with Adams lessons. The way in which you play the songs change with your skill level. So they don't really get old. You just keep adding to them.
But no matter which lesson path you choose, it should be more fun than work. So if it's starting to feel like a chore, you probably need to shake it up a bit.
Not sure how far you are, but in the very beginning the Funky Harp youtube channel was very helpful. Also Jon Gindick, Adam Gussow, Ronnie Shellist, etc. Youtube lessons are very good for getting your skills layed down.
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Last Edited by Killa_Hertz on Jul 18, 2016 9:14 PM
Help Me. I've been playing it at least 6 years and still working on it. The sonny boy of course,is what Adam teaches, but check the Jr wells recording from Chicago the blues today. In A iirc
Ricci played a nice rendition of the JR Wells version when i saw him in georgetown.
Sugar Blues Version is pretty phenomenal aswell.
Ive heard tons of different versions. One that really comes to mind right now is one that Owl did with a real heavy vibrato throughout. Really nice.
I can't help it (no pun intended) but to play it the way SBW II did. But even though i play all his parts, i find it really fun to fill in the inbetweens. And in doing that still hit all the notes he plays aswell. I guess it could be looked at as a practice in timing, but i just think it's fun putting riffs and fills in the song.... and still hitting his parts and making it sound natural. Most of the time i end up pausing the song at the end because I'm on a roll and don't want the next song to kill it. Lol. Anyhow, rambling. But I dont think you would ever be sorry you learned it. Its another one that's as easy or as hard as you want it to be. ----------
Here's two great versions of help me. The first is all help me and the second starts off as please don't go and then finishes as help me. Both great songs to learn too.
I hear help me, played every week, usually several times a week. here are my thoughts. the song is in Aminor "typically" what are the notes to A minor? A B C D E F G A diatonic harmonica has 7 notes... on a C harp the notes are......... A B C D E F G however this song is played on a D harp the notes on a D harp are....... A B C# D E F# G so as you can see there are several land mines to watch out for. the third note of a scale determines if a song is major or minor, and here we have a C#..... this note must be avoided at all cost. you can play 3 draw if you bend the note, but you cannot release it to a 3 draw. we have the same issue on the F#... the 2 blow and 5 blow, only here we cannot bend the note, it must be avoided.
playing in a minor key is not something to be feared, it is harder to explain than it is to do. as we get more experienced,it is easy to forget how hard some of this stuff was to figure out when we were learning. a lot of us did not have anyone to help explain any of this. i hope this helps someone.
the first song i would recommend to learn would be... when the saints go marching in. if my memory serves me, this was one of the songs that came with the little paper that you got when you bought a harmonica. it showed how to block 3 holes with your tongue and play the 4 th hole. most of us tried playing that way and thought to our self's
there has to be an easier way, and who wants to play a silly song like that anyway. i am here to say.... that is a mistake.
if you want to play blues harp at some point you will need to learn tongue blocking, there is no way around it, don't fight it.
also that silly song when the saints go marching in......., listen to little walter's blues with a feeling. he uses it as a direct quote on the 4 chord. no detail is too small to gloss over.
1847, thanks for the notes on "Help Me", appreciate it. My first song was "Somewhere over the Rainbow" then moved on to "What a Wonderful World". Still really enjoy playing things like "We're going to the zoo" for my 2 year old.
I guess that my skill level is probably somewhere above beginner but below intermediate. I *can* lip purse, but only play using tongue blocking, including bends. I can do slaps, pulls, tongue switching, draw bends, blow bends, play a solid single note melody as well as play melodies with chording, use throat vibrato...Whatever. How well I do all of the above listed items is another question :)
Current struggles are getting a nice and steady rhythm on my shakes as well as continuing to push for nice tone from my bends. Oh, and to sound musically delightful and soulful such that listeners look up and say, "oh, it's just that skinny dude playing music on a park bench, not for nothing, but for a moment I thought I was sitting in a musty rowboat in a moss-drenched swamp."
Last Edited by SleepingCat on Jul 19, 2016 10:47 AM
Depending on what you are planning on doing once you learn the songs there are a lot of unusual options. I've found at open mics that a song that people know may do better than a song with a high degree of difficulty.
I do a lot of bluesy stuff, but whipping out something like 'You are my Sunshine' or 'Knockin on Heaven's Door' (both simple songs) for the right crowd may get a better response than Juke. I just had my 80 year old neighbor dancing to Rock Around the Clock (almost a note copy of the version Hakan does, or at least as well as I can do a note for note of what Hakan does).
Or do a blues song melody to a song that doesn't usually have harp, or whatever. (I'd love to figure out how to make a harp version of Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground that at least conveyed the feeling of the original).
All harp players should probably learn one train song or another and a foxchase too.
First position-Saints, oh susanah, Dixie , you are my Sunshine 2nd- Kansas city, Dust My Broom, Low rider, sweet home chicago, Love me do,Im a man 3rd Summertime, st james infirmary
Probably the first 12 or so I learned and still remember
In my opinion, learning something as simple as 'Mary had a little lamb' is actually very beneficial. If a person can't play 'Mary had a little lamb', how do they expect to jump in to something like 'Roadhouse Blues' from The Doors?
"Mary Had a Little Lamb" suggestion is a good one. The problem is that many will roll their eyes and give it a half-assed attempt with the "this is not cool" vibe.
The point is to play the song as music without prejudice - play it like it is the most important song ever. One can learn a lot just by this exercise.
Why not then play it full blown TB style, making it sound like Kim Wilson? A great exercise for the beginner and intermediate. ---------- The Iceman
1847 makes an excellent point. So, if one is going to learn WHO'S BEEN TALKIN. a natural minor, what position does one use? Mr. Burnett does the original in first position (I think) but he only plays the hook/head. What if you want to solo on it? Personally, I like 5th position because it has the minor third, minor sixth and minor seventh built in without having to bend so you can jam/solo through all the chord changes. But there are other approaches. How would anyone else do it? Which position and why?
I won't offer a full list of 12 songs because others have given you some excellent suggestions.
What I will do is offer what I believe, for many reasons, to be the zenith of blues songs, Big Walter's Boogie.
This song is not just a great blues tune. It is a tour de force of blues harmonica playing. Embedded in it are a boat load of killer techniques -- all manner of tongue blocking skills, dynamic runs up and down, subtle little licks and techniques abound and of course, there's always Walter's monster ~tone~.
In the course of learning to play this song ~right~, you have a Masterclass that will render you a true blues harmonica ace. If you can play Walter's Boogie, you can play nigh onto any song, blues or no.
How do I know? I've been working on my version for a decade now. It's my personal Mount Everest in my blues harp arc. I'll probably be working on it for another decade if I live that long. I am completely subservient to anyone who can do it well.
Michelle
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