OK folks heres a question for ya i have been messin around with the harp for a few years now and i'm not really where i hoped i would be by now so how do i get there. How do i get that bluesy sound that i here from the greats like Kim Wilson or Rod Piazza or a hundred other great players i want that chicago blues sound to come out of my harp but i don't know how to teach myself to make it. Who should i study? how should i study? how often? how long? please someone show me the way cos i'm just going round in ever decreasing circles here and getting more and more pissed off!
- Just listen to Chicago Blues guys and do what they do.
...... I'm sure there's not much we can do without understanding Exactly what you mean. Post an example clip of what sound or playing style you are going for.
In my humble opinion you are in need of a good face to face teacher at this point. Find somebody who's playing you like a lot and see if he or she gives Skype lessons--that way you can study with anybody in the world without leaving home.
I know that in my life as a musician, there have been many times when I felt like I was boxed into the same old shit--different day. The way I have always come through that was to get with a teacher and learn new stuff. . . ----------
i relate to what you describe. if they can do it, why can't i? but it's not a question of want, or even so much mechanical study. you have to gain a FEEL for the music you like. this comes from repetition and time with harp in face. lessons are good. books/cd's, skype/youtube are all good. but be prepared for a learning curve that is bigger then you anticipated! at least that has been the case for me. i wanted to play like dylan and neil young at first. seemed like that was no big deal until i revisited dylan's style a few years ago. it was so much harder than i had remembered to get just what he was going after. later it became sonny terry, james cotton, magic dick, wolf, and every one of muddy's harpmen. which i admit, it still is those guys. it's a bit different these days though. a turning point for me was realizing that i needed to develop my own sound and not merely copy my heroes. do them respect yes, but put my own thing together. and believe it or not, working on jazz/swing/jump with a harp really helped me find the chicago thing. so did working with country guys here and there. learning 3rd position stuff ala little walter, carey bell, william clarke and others improved my 2nd position chops. revisiting 1st position ala jimmy reed improved my style and chops as well.
short version, learn all you can about how to make a harp work. along the way you make discoveries along the lines of what you wanted all along. my style encompasses a lot of different genres and subgenres, and i can play to a lot of different styles of music, but blues and jazz, and some country, are where i like to be. but i got there by working with motown stuff, delta and hill country, folk, chicago, texas, west coast, piedmont, swamp, and other genres as well. it all reaches a sort of critical mass after you've done enough. then things start to really happen. ---------- http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
you need to alow the harp tone to go deeper than just your mouth,alow it to viberate down to your back throat.and allow the vocal chords and those muscles in that area to develope a viberato.draw in easy on 2-hole and let your vocal chord to pronounce it-it-it-it....you will sooner or later connect and get a fatter sound also the viberato will give you a singing sound.just a little info that ma help you...
I would highly recommend David barretts web site www.bluesharmonica.com practice half an hour to a hour a day. I would also recommend using the amazing slowdowner you can brake the songs down that you like using this software & learn them bit by bit. I would stick with 2nd position then when you are happy with that branch out to 3rd & 1st position blues. eventually it will all come together. everybody gets frustrated but keep at & you WILL get better & be where you want to be. don't quit, all the info is out there
If it's that Chicago Blues sound you want that comes from using the right amp & mic .
Last Edited by on Jul 31, 2011 11:21 AM
I learnt a lot from one of Barretts earlier books Chicago Blues It teaches all the techniques needed for Chicago style.I would imagine his web site would be great too. Bottom line is you'll need to tongue block at least some of the time.
As Colman hints at above breathing from the diaphragm is the most important factor in getting good tone and control.
If you like I could give you a few pointers via Skype. Only on an informal basis, gratis of course :o) Cheers Cameron ----------.The Pentatonics Myspace Youtube
"Why don't you leave some holes when you play, and maybe some music will fall out".
To my ears the biggest difference between a player who sounds bluesy versus one that doesn't is the mastery of the blue third. Getting the right intonation and expressiveness takes a lot of effort - at least it did for me (and still does).
Try varying the volume from phrase to phrase, from note to noe, within the notes. Listen to Jimmy Page's solos and Janis Joplin's singing, for example. (I'm thinking mainly of their earlier works.)
Last Edited by on Jul 31, 2011 6:47 PM
"How do i get that bluesy sound that i here from the greats like Kim Wilson or Rod Piazza or a hundred other great players i want that chicago blues sound to come out of my harp but i don't know how to teach myself to make it."
You've gotten some good advice and some advice that is pure crap. If you want to sound like those guys, you're going to have to listen to what they listened to. You're going to have to learn their patterns. You have to learn how they phrase their notes. You have to learn where they use the combinations of notes. You have to do a lot of listening. If you have good harp players around, go and watch them as often as you can. You may have to spend a bunch of time doing some really boring and repetitive shit until you get the tonal variations correct. Getting the right notes is only part of the challenge. You've got to get the tone and the stuff has to fit in the right context.
Q. Who should i study?
A. I asked James Cotton this question in 1982. He said, everyone you can. Listen to everyone. I listen and steal from a variety of players. If you want to sound like someone from postwar Chicago, you had better start digging into post war Chicago players and their influences.
Q. how should i study? how often? how long?
A. Start with everyone that played harp with Muddy Waters. Its a long list. Buy a bunch of CDs and start listening. It's a lifelong process. If you keep listening, you'll keep learning. When you stop learning, you stop growing as an artist. I listen to music as frequently as I can. If you love it, it's not work.
About a decade ago, I asked Steve Freund how he adjusted to playing with Sunnyland Slim. He followed Eddie Taylor, Hubert Sumlin and Lee Jackson, who had worked with Sunnyland for years. He told me the he had to dig deep to understand who influenced Sunnyland. He spent a lot of time listening to artists like Memphis Slim, Little Brother Montgomery and Leroy Carr. That turned him on to guitarists like Big Bill Broonzy, Robert Nighthawk and Tampa Red.
I've had the opportunity to play with him several times. What's he looking for? He's got some tunes with arrangements from his days backing James Cotton and Big Walter. He wants a person to play those styles. Rick Estrin said in his video, "if you cant hear it, you wont be able to play it." He is right. If you haven't heard it and studied it, you won't be able to play it. Sometimes, you'll have to hunt for the sounds, but you'll learn other things along the way.
Every now and then, I play with Kenny Blue Ray. He has played with damn near every great harp player in the area. He is a fantastic guitarist. He loves to play all sorts of styles. He really digs Robert Jr's work backing Sonny Boy Williamson. We've played whole sets of Sonny Boy tunes. He thinks I do it well. For a while, he was calling me Sonny Boy III.
That just didn't happen? I studied that stuff for years. I wore out several Sonny Boy Williamson albums. Here is the funny thing. I don't think I play that stuff very well. I know what subtle things that I'm not quite getting right. I work around things that I can't do. I wore out several records. I can almost hear those tunes note for note. Quite often, when I listen to those CDs today, I may pick up something that I hadn't heard before.
Finally, equipment is almost meaningless. When I started out, my first amp was a 50 watt Yamaha solid state amp. I used that amp for six years working on amplified technique and microphone handling technique. I took it to jams. I played gigs with it. I worked with it in an attempt to recreate the sounds I was hearing in bars around Chicago and on records. It wasn't the best amp, but it got me working on techniques that would be helpful when playing through the PA or through a better sounding amp.
To make a long story, short. You have got to listen a lot. You have to to absorb the music. You've got to play a lot. Accept mistakes. Ignore them Start with simple stuff and get more complicated as you improve. Jimmy Reed wasn't a great technical player. Playing blues isn't about being a great technical player. It's mostly about tone, phrasing and feel. It's about telling a story and playing things that help deliver the emotion of the tune.
The key is to enjoy the journey. Celebrate your successes. Don't beat yourself up.
When I run across a topic of interest to me, such as this one, there are certain members on this forum that I immediately look to see if they have responded. Joe L is one of them. Always great advice and insight into whatever topic he weighs in on. Thanks Joe
I was at this very crossroads myself over a year ago. I realised that I really loved that massive Chicago sound but just couldn't figure it out, I didn't have a clue what I was doing wrong.
Then I discovered Dave Barretts website and discovered that what i really really needed to do was to learn How to Tongue Block.
If your willing to give it 6 months you will see a massive difference. It will drive you insane if you've been used lip pursing but it's well worth it. Just practice it for 10 mins at the end of your practice session and incorporate it slowly,that's all I did and a year or so later and I TB 95%
Bluesharmonica.com will definatly help, the wealth of lessons that are broken down with tab and a video lesson. It's only a tenner a month and you can quit and restart whenever you like so your not tied to it. ----------
Plus they're running a deal with Hohner, buy a harp and get 3 weeks free. It's a Hohner USA deal, but I managed to make it work in the UK. Just type the number under the barcode into a page on the Hohner USA website - they verify that it is a genuiner Hohner qualifying product and give you a code for the special offer. Sign up with bluesharmonica.com type in the code and you get three weeks for nowt. Sorted. If you've bought any hohner harps this year, dig out that code and give it a try.
When I had tried to learn in the past I just gave up after a few goes. I didn't have a clue as to what slaps and pulls were so when got that eureka moment and decided to really give it a go I found it really hard.
To ease myself in I just tried to play the Boogie Woogie riff for 10 mins at the end of my practice sessions. To be honest not much happened for a month or so. I kept trying to play this damn riff Tongue Blocked and I kept messing it. Then after a while of chipping away all of a sudden I could play it TB'd
After that I just tried learn more of my riffs TBed and slowly you worked it more and more into my playing.
It's just relearning your muscle memory which sucks but its time worth spending in the long run.
( For the record i think it's equally important to be able to Lip purse but if your looking for Chicago tone TBing will play a big big part esspcially amplified:o) ----------
I recommend my personal Mt. Rushmore: Little Walter, Big Walter Horton, John Lee Williamson, Rice Miller, George Smith, Jimmy Reed and Sonny Terry. In my opinion, they created modern blues harp.
I love many other players as much or more: Butterfield, Cotton, Musselwhite, Wells, Estrin, Wilson, Clarke, Piazza, Delay. But in my opinion, all those guys couldn't have happened without the first seven (Except maybe Delay, he is very unique).
If you do not own a CD of each of the Mt Rushmore guys, get it. Do not just buy one song on Itunes. Get a whole album. Or buy everything available by each of those guys.
Then go about learning every lick they played. Do not just learn a lick by itself, learn everything in a 12 bar verse. Here is my method: Listen once. Play without the CD once. Play with the CD once. Repeat until you can play in time along with the CD.
The first 20 songs or so will take you a couple of years. Then you will improve drastically until you can do a 12 bar solo in about a half an hour. Do not stop there, learn hundreds of solos.
There are 5 major styles of playing blues:
Cross harp in holes 1 through 6 1st position in holes 1 through 4 1st position in holes 7 through 10 3rd position chromatic third position
I seem to find that after a student has learned 10 solos in each of those styles (and by learned I mean can play in time with the record) he is a pro level harp player. That does not mean he is a world class player. It means pro.
After that it is your decision how good you want to get at the blues.
For me, I learned hundreds of songs but ultimately fell in love with a wide variety of music and fell out of practicing blues. I still do with my students, but it is not the same and it shows in my playing.
On top of all this, go out and play with blues players. Jams, sit in with bands, form a band. Always try and play with people better than you.
Joe L sez ....Rick Estrin said in his video, "if you cant hear it, you wont be able to play it."....
So many students seem to approach this problem as if the harmonica will do the work for them. It is an illusion that stems from the layout of the notes - especially in 2nd position. If you inhale and slide the harmonica up and down the lower end, it starts to sound "cool". The harmonica "gives you" a sense of playing blues. The next step is learning an inhale/exhale "pattern" while sliding the harmonica. Hey, instant blues. Unfortunately, this will side track the issue. Water seeks its path of least resistance, as do so many students. This approach leads to students having trouble "finding the right notes that the pros use", as it is not a matter of sequencing your breathing and having the harmonica "give you" the ideas, but rather a combination of really learning "where all the notes live in the harmonica" and getting valid ideas (musical lines) in your head first before you pick up the harmonica. The harmonica is a dumb, inert entity that says "whatever" based on what you tell it to do. Consider it a little genie that says "Yes, Master". You have to become responsible enough to tell it what to do.
---------- The Iceman
Last Edited by on Aug 02, 2011 6:31 AM
Hey guys i've been away from the pc for a few days and have just got in and have quickley scanned all of the above, i will have a proper read through all the advice tomorrow but in the meantime thanks so much to everyone who took the time to give pointers and advice it means a lot, i just found a message on my house phone from Oxharp asking me to ring him for a chat and some advice so i will do that tomorrow as well, what a great community we have here i feel so lucky i found this site.
