I’m just starting out. What harmonica should I buy? And what key? Actually, what make and model of harp do YOU use, Adam?
Short answer: Hohner Marine Band Model 1896, 10-hole diatonic, keys of C and/or D.
Long answer: If I were in your position, I’d do pretty much the same thing I did in 1974 when, at the age of 16, I decided to drive over to the Nanuet Mall (suburban NY) and buy my first harmonica. I’d buy a Hohner Marine Band Model 1896 in the key of C.
The Marine Band—and here I’m talking about the basic 10-hole diatonic harp, not the 14-hole version or the “super” version—has been around for a long time. Many of the foundational blues players, the Little Walters and Big Walters and Sonny Boy Williamsons, played and recorded with the Hohner Marine Band. Why not go with the classic?
The truth is, in the course of my 33-year career, I’ve sampled a number of other Hohner harps, including the Special 20, Golden Melody, Blues Harp, Pro Harp, and Big River Harp. I’ve also tried a few Lee Oskars. There’s nothing wrong with any of them. Many players swear by one or more of them. The only one that I occasionally use is the Big River Harp--a loud brassy D-flat. Recently I've tried Seydel and Bushman harps, and both of them seem like excellent instruments, very much the equal of Hohner's best. Still, when push comes to shove, I always come back to the Marine Band.
Why? It’s not necessarily the easiest harp to play, and although quality control is better now than it was during the mid-1990s, I still occasionally get a dry, tough Marine Band harp that just won’t do anything right. If you play one particular harp for an hour or so, the spit you blow into it may cause the wooden comb to swell up so much that the protruding nibs rub your lips raw. (When this happens, I take a single-edge razor or the small blade on a Swiss Army Knife and carefully pare down each swollen tooth of the comb until it’s even with the cover-plates.)
Still, the Hohner Marine Band remains my harp of choice, thirty-three years after I first picked one up. Here’s why: no other harp has the same rich throaty tone on the low notes, or the same “crunch” feel when you bear down hard on bent low notes. This is particularly true for the lower keys: G, A, B-flat. It has something to do with the pear-wood comb, which grows slightly more brittle and resonant as it ages. Maybe it’s all about the wood. I don’t know.
I just know that I’ve recorded three albums with Mr. Satan and I played a Hohner Marine Band on every single track.
This is a long-winded answer. The truth is, I can’t tell you what harp is right for you. Nor will I tell you that players who prefer other sorts of harps are wrong. I can only give you an honest answer about which harp I prefer, and why.
A final word about keys: although the key of C seems to be the reference standard for beginning blues players, D might be a better choice. Here’s why: beginning harp players often have a very hard time sounding the 2 draw on a C harp. I can’t tell you how many beginning students have sworn to me that the 2 draw on their C harp is broken. It’s not. It’s just a tricky hole for a beginner to sound. But when they pick up a D harp, they have no trouble. [See below for a longer version of this answer.]
So maybe you should buy a Hohner Marine Band harp in the key of D. That’s what I’d do, if I had to do it all over again. A D and/or a C.
I can't get a good sound out of the 2 hole draw on my C harp. I'm sure it's broken. Help!
It's not broken. The problem is your embouchure--the way in which you're holding your lips relative to the harp, and/or the way in which you've shaped the inside of your mouth, and/or the way you've oriented your tongue relative to the harp.
Beginning players have this problem so frequently that it deserves to be called THE big hurdle. When I used to teach courses in Beginning Blues Harmonica at a music school in New York City, I saw dozens of beginners, literally, struggling to make the 2 hole draw sound on their new C harp. On EVERY SINGLE OCCASION when one of them SWORE that the problem was the harp, I took the harp from them--if they were willing--and immediately produced a beautiful sound. The problem was not the harp. The harp was working just fine.
How can you remedy this problem? Two ways. First, you can realize that the problem is NOT the harp, but the shape of your mouth, the location of your tongue, and the connection between your lips and the harp. You can try again, and again, and become conscious of all the variables. You can make your lips thick and bunched, and push the harp harder against them. You can try positioning your tongue in a variety of ways within your mouth. You can keep on trying until you make a good sound.
Or you can purchase a D harp. Beginners find it much easier to sound the 2 hole draw on a D harp.
Which players should I listen to if I want to learn real blues harp?
Here I tend to dovetail with my fellow professionals. Most of us would agree on seven or eight of the names that should go on any top-ten list. Here’s my list, in no particular order:
Little Walter (Jacobs)
Big Walter (Horton)
James Cotton
John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson (aka, Sonny Boy I)
Rice Miller (aka Sonny Boy Williamson, Sonny Boy II)
Sonny Terry
Junior Wells
Howlin’ Wolf
Carey Bell
Paul Butterfield
If asked to suggest another ten players—each one a classic and an original, if not quite in the Top 10--I’d venture the following
George “Harmonica” Smith
Sugar Blue
Kim Wilson
William Clarke
Magic Dick
Paul Delay
DeFord Bailey
Charlie Musselwhite
Rev. Dan Smith
Billy Branch
And I’d add an eleventh: all of the old-school players who show up on a Yazoo album entitled “Harmonica Players of the 1920s and 1930s,” including Freeman Stowers, Blues Birdhead, and Noah Lewis.
Is that enough harp players for you? Please don’t tell me I’ve left your favorite harp player off the list. Of course I have! I admire the playing of Phil Wiggins, Gary Primich, Jerry Portnoy, Dr. Isaiah Ross, Jason Ricci, Rod Piazza, Little Annie Raines, John Popper, Lee Oskar, Carlos del Junco, Paul Oscher, Rick Estrin, John Mayall, Steve Guyger, Dennis Gruenling, and Matthew Skoller, too. Do one or more of them belong in the all-time Top 20? Which is another way of asking: Do they have an original voice on the instrument—one you can recognize the moment you hear it on the radio? Have they, in turn, influenced other blues harmonica players? Make a case; I’m sure there’s one to be made. There’s plenty of elbow-room in that third tier, and anybody who has earned himself (or herself) a place there is one heck of a good player.
What I can guarantee, though, is that if you invest in a CD by each player in my Top 10 list, you will come into contact with the heart of the blues harmonica tradition.
What harp keys should I buy?
I talk about this in my new book, Journeyman's Road. It depends in part on who you're going to be playing with. If you're jamming along with blues records, you'll probably be able to get by with harps in the keys of A, C, D, and F. Those will enable you to play cross harp in the keys of E, G, A, and C. Many classic blues harmonica cuts are recorded in those keys.
The next three keys you get should be G, B-flat, and E-flat. G is the lowest standard harp; except for Dennis Gruenling, almost no harp players record on the low F, low E-flat, and low D harps. B-flat and E-flat show up with some frequency in the harp repertoire—Sonny Terry, Little Walter, Paul Butterfield, and Mark Wenner use them—and they’re particularly important if you’re going to be jamming with horn players, since horn players love the keys of F and B-flat. B-flat harps play cross in F; E-flat harps play cross in B-flat.)
Once you’ve accumulated G, A, B-flat, C, D, E-flat, and F, you’re ready to rumble. What about the remaining harps?
A-flat: rarely used. Stevie Wonder plays the solo on “Boogie On Reggae Woman” on an A-flat harp, blowing the high notes in first position.
B: I’ve only come across two cuts in this key harp: Big Walter plays “Tighten Up on It” with Johnny Young on a B harp, and Sonny Terry plays “Poor Boy” on an obscure recording with Brownie McGhee
D-flat: A favorite harp of mine for a particular song, “Gone to Main Street,” but I’ll be damned if I know anybody else who uses it--except for Nat Riddles, blowing harp with Larry Johnson on an impossible-to-find album on the Spivey Records label entitled Basin Free.
E: This harp shows up from time to time. Sugar Blue plays “Miss You” with the Stones on an E, if I’m not wrong, and “Midnight Rambler” also uses it. James Cotton uses an E-harp on 100% Cotton.
F-sharp: Very rare. Mickey Raphael plays his solo in Willie Nelson’s “Georgia on My Mind” on an F-sharp harp.
The only other key you might consider is a high G harp. In amplified contexts, a low G has trouble cutting through, but a high G is right out front.
I'd like to know more about different brands and models of harmonica--and harp mikes, too.
Well, I've recently come across just the site for you: www.ianchadwick.com/essays/harmonicas.htm Ian Chadwick has done a lot of hard work for you; please be sure to thank him, after you've emerged from his encyclopedic survey of harmonica hardware.
I want to learn how to bend notes. Help me!
You're in luck. As of mid-February 2008, I've begun to upload a series of videos entitled "Basic Blues Harp" that deal with this issue:
Video: www.tradebit.com/filedetail.php/2724535-Documents-eBooks-Music-Tutorials
Tab: www.tradebit.com/filedetail.php/2724536-Documents-eBooks-Music-Tutorials
If you'd like additional tips, check out the following website: www.hoerl.com/Music/harmon5.html
I'd really like to play along with some jam tracks. Where can I get some?
Well, in the near future you'll be able to purchase some guitar-only jam tracks right here at MBH: my buddy Charlie Hilbert is in the process of recording a whole bunch. But it's also important for developing players to play along with full bands, and the next best thing to a jam session can be found right at a fantastic website called "Harmonica Boogie": www.harmonicaboogie.com/ The members of HB submit all sorts of different jam tracks, which anybody can download. Members then record themselves playing along with particular tracks and submit them to the collective membership, which votes on them and offers supportive critique. At the end of a weeks-long cycle, the Top 20 tracks (or something like that) are announced, and a new cycle of jam tracks and member submissions begins. Guys in my generation never had anything like this; you've got it now, and you'd be crazy not to make us of it.
My real dream is to be able to get up at the local jam session and kick some ass on a shuffle blues. I need to learn how to improvise. Help!
You're in luck. David Barrett, one of the best known harp teachers around, has just published a volume entitled IMPROVISING BLUES HARMONICA. I don't recommend many books, because I believe that blues harmonica doesn't translate that well to the page, but Barrett has actually managed to crack the code and make the underlying principles of improvisation available to all players. I recommend his book highly. (And no, he hasn't paid me to say this. I just happen to think he's done a terrific job.) Here's a link: www.harmonicamasterclass.com/improvising.htm
I don't know ANY theory. But I know that I'd be a better blues harp player if I had a little harmonic knowledge. Help!
Just recently I came across a brief and surprisingly helpful video, a free download offered by the Berklee College of Music in Boston. I actually spent seven weeks there in the summer of 1978, studying jazz guitar, and the guy in this video is speaking the language that they taught me back then. Please watch this video, and take notes! He's talking guitar, not harp, but if you're a serious music student, you'll figure out which notes on the harp correspond to the ninth, third, fourth, fifth, and thirteenth..... akamai.www.berkleemusic.com/assets/display/768367/berklee_jazz_voicings_for_guitar.mov
Recently a YouTube subscriber has directed me towards another free theory resource. I haven't inspected it myself, but he swears by it:
www.lotusmusic.com/freeguide.htm
But I have so many OTHER questions! I'm sorry to keep pestering you by email, but you've put yourself out there as an expert and I don't know any other harmonica experts. Please answer ALL MY QUESTIONS, right NOW!!!
Okay, you win. Here are the answers: they're all posted at an amazing website called "Diatonic Harmonica Reference." The webmaster, god bless him, knows far more about the instrument than I ever will: www.angelfire.com/tx/myquill/
