What do you know now that you wish you would have known when you were just starting to play the harp?
What do you wish you'd have done sooner in your harmonica careers?
I am asking as a beginner myself, playing for 1.5 months now. I'd have posted this in the beginner forum, but it made more sense to do it here, since you aren't beginners anymore! :P
I did not know when I first started not to blow and draw too hard. I have learned from experience that using a lot of breath is not only unnecessary, it is hard on the harmonica as well. It can make a reed go flat. If a note is not sounding, it's probably because of your embouchure. Another thing I do now that I didn't do then is slapping the harp on the palm of my hand lightly when I'm finished playing. This helps remove the saliva which when dried can interfere with the action of the reed. Keep playing and don't give it up. Practice and you will get good. Good luck to you.
2 minor things for me were not using the slow downer app right away and not checking my intonation against a keyboard or tuner app until I was a bit down the road already. I recommend not to wait on either of these.
Another question is what do you know you know but don't really know enough or choose to kind of ignore even though you know it's important? For me, it's recording myself. I know how much it helps and yet still I don't do it enough for some reason.
interested in others responses..
---------- 4' 4+ 3' 2~~~ -Mike Ziemba Harmonica is Life!
Last Edited by slaphappy on Feb 11, 2017 1:17 PM
Taking singing lessons. I hemmed and hawed and it was after three years of harping that I bit the bullet. It will help you in many ways. It is not just a good in itself but will help your harp playing in terms of breath control and tone. I have gotten more gigs because I sing. You also get to call the tunes at a jam if you sing. BronzeWailer's YouTube
Switching from lip pursing to tongue blocking was the most significant change that I made help me develop the sound and style I was looking for.
I had a few Skype lessons with Dennis Gruenling that set me on the right track, it is never too early (or late) to get a few lessons.
Last Edited by belfast_harper on Feb 11, 2017 2:45 PM
1) Play with less force and more finesse. Breathe through the harp, don't suck and blow. Bending is not force, it is technique.
2) You are part of the instrument. Learn to shape your airway to support the tones and bends you want.
3) Don't buy a bunch of expensive harps trying to get better harp sounds. Just get decent mid range harps and develop your own abilities. Once you have acceptable intermediate skills and have learned breath control, then try a custom harp and/or more expensive harps to play at a higher level.
4) Don't buy a bunch of expensive mics and amps trying to get a better harp sound. Once you have acceptable intermediate skills with harp and have learned breath control, then try other people's gear before buying any. When you are ready, buy a modestly priced amp and mic to practice cupping and playing amplified. Once you have maximized using what you have, then consider your amp/mic options to suit your needs. A Shure 57 or 58 will always be useful down the road, even if you come to like a different mic better for playing amplified.
As of now I have learned some childrens songs like Mary had a Little Lamb, Oh Susana, Jingle Bells, Twinkle Twinkle, and some Neil Young solos (which I ultimately want to learn and cover). I have learned to lip purse pretty well and learn to play single and double notes pretty well. I aim to play this instument to cover my favourite classic rock songs and pretty much only that.
Learning what to knock out first is going to be pretty beneficial, so please keep em comin'!
Well in response to the original question I wish that i had realised that 'the sound' doesn't come from gear. ie shit in = shit out. It is an oft repeated Mantra, but had i had taken more notice of it i would be a few grand better off. And what you are doing in learning melodies is (imo) the best way to start out learning how to play the Harmonica,too many of us have started out wanting to play The Blues before we even know where the actual notes are to make a tune. Back when i was in a band and playing out i would occasionally have some eager young acolyte approach me and ask if i could teach them "how to do that"ie play Blues harp" I would say go and buy an Harmonica and when you can play three tunes on it come back and i'll show you you the basics of Blues Harp. The idea behind that was if they weren't prepared to put the time into learning some simple tunes they sure as hell wouldn't be prepared for the hard work in learning the blues. Only one Guy ever came back ...he is now a much better harp player than i'll ever be.
Vibrato is something I waited to long to practice. Use it either from your throat or by chewing on the harmonica as I call it. Here's a video of what I mean by chewing on it. Also tongue blocking is definitely advantageous to learn and even more paramount can be face to face instruction.
Wish I had put my ego aside and listened to experts about gear. I wasted a lot of $$ on gear like a 520DX (because it was a "green bullet" and I didn't know there were many generations of that) and a Blues Jr (because the name suggested it must be good "for blues".)
I havent been playing long enough to have too many hind sight regrets .... But perhaps a few things Im glad i did the way i did.
Dont pay attention to timelines. For instance dont think you have to be playing any certain amount of time to be able to play (or at the very least attempt) a song or to learn a certain skill. This is extending snowmans point just a bit further. Because I was playing things way out of my league. But in attempting to get them right i rrally developed alot of skills much faster. Also always push ahead to see where your skills are. You can fall back into a comfort zone afterward ... But always push yourself.
Record yourself frequently. Listen back to your recordings a few days later and see what you could be doing better. They also help to log your progress. So when you feel like your not getting anywhere ... go back a month or two and you ll see the progress you ve made.
I wish I had known that there was a simple remedy for the many shoddy OOTB Hohner harps I've bought over the years. I was well beyond "Twinkle Twinkle" and an insert about gapping would have saved me a lot of time, money and aggravation.
I used to spend hours trying to "break in" harps. Since I couldn't depend on them I played them sparingly on stage. It never dawned on me to research 'harmonica' on the web. Why bother? I knew it all.
My first clue was when a buddy asked me to drill a sandwich of mismatched harp parts on my drill press. That was abot 6 years ago. I thought he was nuts and was pretty nervous about doing it since I'd only have one try. He was happy with the results but I was still skeptical.
At the time, he told me he got the parts from Rocking Ron. I noted the name but it would still be a while before I visited his site. [Musician's Friend was my go-to place for all things music.] When I finally got around to exploring Ron's website my jaw dropped.
I'm having a lot of fun catching up but I harbor a lingering resentment toward Hohner and a well earned wariness of all their products.
To play solid and authentic-sounding crossharp blues you need to have a handle on the various 3 draw tones. I put the 3 draw into the "too hard basket" for way too long, using the 3 draw as a passing note and hoping for the best.
I think I was pretty lucky about when I started, 8yrs ago I stumbled upon Adam Gussows youtube videos and this forum where many people were also in their first year of playing and discussing everything as they were learning it or as Adam was teaching it. In this time I met online guys like Chris Michalek who I would message via email off forum about all sorts of things. He constantly talked about importance of time, theory, how overbending should be learned alongside other bends, etc. I also quickly found the Philadelphia harmonica club which was also freshly new. There I was surrounded by people who played for years and found my first instructors. The club was also the place that created a comfortable environment for me to start getting up at jams. So I didn't really have a long period of wandering along alone in the dark with harmonica.
I'd say there's two things I wish I started earlier.
The first is SPAH. The first SPAH I heard of came about something like 9mos after I started playing. There was a lot of hype around it but at the time there really wasn't much on youtube just word of mouth. Also conventions, flying on my own, and traveling to another part of the country on my own were all new concepts to me. So, I didn't go but believe me all the youtube videos I had seen coming out of Sacramento 2009 made me wish I had. Since I have gone all but one years after that year. But the first year at SPAH did a lot for me; if nothing else it really opened my eyes to what's out there and how passionate I really was about it so I regret not going in my first year.
The second was harmonica lessons. Being a university graduate I wasn't completely opposed to lessons to learn but for some reason I really wanted to do it on my own or just with Adam's lessons or something. But I'm sure after years of lessons I know and can do many things I wouldn't otherwise.
When I was 8 or 9 years old, my mother asked me if I would like to take piano lessons. I said no, because I knew I didn't have the patience to practice. That was in 1953 or 54. As a result, everything I know now is self-taught. I wish I said yes, especially since today I have very little, if any, knowledge of music theory.
Guess I would have started with a chromatic. Also would have learned bass instead of drums because bass players always can gig and have less crap to drag around ( bass just bored me and there is nothing worse than a " busy" bass player
Last Edited by Goldbrick on Feb 12, 2017 3:30 PM
I really agree with JustFuya's post and think it worth repeating. I know everyones hands on skills arent equal ... But i started learning to tweak harps only a few months after starting to play. I really think that helped me to get alot of techniques quicker.
Now that my chops have gotten a little better the small differences arent as crutial .. But i think having a harp that can more easily perform the techniques your trying to learn really helps ALOT. You dont need a custom harp by any means.... But a well gapped harp with a nice even response from bottom to top Really helps i think. Also doing the work yourself really helps you learn about the instrument. The relationship between the blow and draw reeds ... What each one is physically doing... Etc.
Richard Sleighs Hot Rod Your Harmonica is really worth its weight in gold if you know little about it ... It will really catch you up to speed without alot of weeding through vauge and even false information on youtube.
1) I wish somebody had said, "Listen to the singer. When he or she is singing, you should either not play or play at a lower volume. When he or she is NOT playing--THOSE are the places you should think about playing."
2) I wish I'd known how long it would take for everything to come together. Patience is a virtue.
Throwing away harps with problems. I started out on Marine Bands, and would throw them away when the combs eventually swelled. Then there were the Special 20's and then the Golden Melody's. Back in the 70's and 80's, a reed would break, and I thought that was it. Nobody I knew of fixed or improved harps. Thank God for the internet!
Breath control. Both my harps and my voice suffered for some years before learning to control my wind and access my deep torso. I must have tossed 200 harps over the years that need not have died so young. Mostly SP20s at the time but there were others as well. Even after Lee Oskar fielded his reed plate replaceable harps and I got a repair kit, once I fried a reed it was really fried and any retune I did was a temporary fix at best.
Not that reeds don't still go bad here or there, but the frequency is far less now and for some years.
My voice suffered greatly due to both loud stages and not knowing where my true voice was.
I also had a sort of epiphany some 12 years ago about volume on stage. I refuse to even be in a room when things are too loud. I have paid for ignoring this problem with a percentage of hearing loss. Typically harp players use lower watt amps than other rock/blues instruments, which right away is a disadvantage. But even with an ideal rig- I had a '59 Bassman replica built at one point and used it for a couple of seasons- the damage due to high volumes proved to be just not worth it to me. These days mostly I do duo stuff with low amplification, or if there are more than a couple of players we keep the decibels down. If you have to play and sing at your capacity just to try and hear yourself you will do damage- to your voice, harps, and hearing.
I think also, if I had gotten some music training early on- piano or drums or something- it probably would have benefited me later. At this point I'm well on the way just as things are. At 62 and about 25 years of work as a high function amateur musician, there's no turning aside now. We are about to embark on a "never ending" tour. On the road as long as we can. But more musical training would have saved me much time.
I like Kudzu's 2nd point, "I wish I'd known how long it would take for everything to come together. Patience is a virtue". This drives me to madness some days. I'm still learning all the things that are not directly related to harmonica that matter for everything to come together for performance success it is sometimes disheartening.
What I have “discovered” is the music that comes out of you is the music that is inside you. I was classically trained on the clarinet. When I picked up the harp I was able to play folk music and classical music on it right away. I learned to bend notes to complete the major scale on holes 1 – 4, not because of any sort of bluesy expression. That was in 1972. Fast forward to 2007 or 2008 and I “discovered” blues harmonica. Leaning to play in 2nd or 3rd position is like learning to speak a foreign language. I wish I had listened to more blues music way back then. I would have internalized the music and it would be a lot easier for me to express that voice through the harp today. But I am making progress.
And I absolutely agree with those who have said, in one way or another, learn how to work on your harps. You wouldn’t own a car without knowing how to charge a flat tire. Good harps can last a long log time if they are properly maintained.
My sole regret is that I didn't pick up this amazing little instrument at age 15 instead of age 55 (around three years ago). It gives me a nice blast of joy every day (usually, multiple times per day) no matter what else may be going on.
That may sound corny, but it's true
Last Edited by Rontana on Feb 13, 2017 10:36 AM
Learn what you're doing and what you want to do early on and stick with it. Don't just fiddly-fart around for years, like I did, without actually working toward specifics.
@Nacoran The girls go for the man, not the instrument. If they aren't going for you and you're a harp player, they aren't going to go for you as a guitar player either. Sorry, but that's the truth.
Last Edited by Minor Blues on Feb 13, 2017 1:10 PM
This is a clue to when I started playing: I wish I would've known to NOT soak my Marine Bands. I was a fan of Tony Glover, an' he done steered me wrong> I was a slave to pre-soaking my harps in a glass I hauled with me, and to smacking the crap outa them before I played them, to get all the water out.
If I could talk to my younger self I'd tell him to listen to a lot of Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin Wolf and anyone else you can and listen a lot.
I would also tell him that after you are done with your playing Neil young, Dylan tune years and you start playing cross harp listen to the guy who tells you your holding the harp wrong. Don't be such a stubborn doof and keep holding it wrong for the next 20 years.
Also go see a lot of great blues performers that I didn't get to like Paul Butterfield, watch them up close.
Also I would tell him to invent YouTube so it would be easier to learn. Or at least invent the internet.
Last Edited by ScottK on Feb 13, 2017 8:41 PM
You should employ a strict practice regime from day 1. There are many versions of this, but you should *practice*, not just play. That is the only thing I whish I hade emphasized more in my early days.
If you want to play blues, don't start with chromatic or try to learn diatonic and chromatic simultaneously.
Go see great (or really competent) harp players. After the set ask them to help you with a particular riff or intro you heard them play. You will get a lot more help than you'd expect.
Listen to and start learning horn parts and piano fills. That will give you something interesting and appropriate to play when backing a singer or lead guitarist (listen to B.B. & Albert King, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Junior Parker, Louis Jordan).
And like Martin said, don't just play (along), practice. ---------- BnT
