SonnyD4885
123 posts
Sep 19, 2011
10:16 AM
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???
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arzajac
660 posts
Sep 19, 2011
10:23 AM
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The first few months when you bought a harp and don't know if it's any good. You have to learn how to bend but you don't know if the harp is properly gapped or leaky or otherwise defective.
It would be a lot easier if everybody could start off with one harp that has been perfectly adjusted and learn the basics. After that, the learner could tell if another harp if not properly set up as opposed to wondering if it's their technique that's the problem.
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LSC
87 posts
Sep 19, 2011
10:23 AM
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Judging by most harp players, when not to play.
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LSC
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SonnyD4885
125 posts
Sep 19, 2011
10:27 AM
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i though it was keeping time thats for me but im getting it now.
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HawkeyeKane
201 posts
Sep 19, 2011
10:36 AM
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Tongue blocking for me. Just can't seem to get it.
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Hawkeye Kane
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bluemoose
609 posts
Sep 19, 2011
11:08 AM
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I'll second LSC. It's kind of like knowing when not to post a reply. Oh...damn.
MBH Webbrain - a GUI guide to Adam's Youtube vids
FerretCat Webbrain - Jason Ricci's vids (by hair colour!)
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Kingley
1652 posts
Sep 19, 2011
11:15 AM
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Learning harmonica gets harder the more you go into it. The more you learn, the more you realise there is to learn.
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Joe_L
1460 posts
Sep 19, 2011
11:26 AM
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Learning how to listen.
You can learn a lot from the old school players by listening to what and where they play and where and when they don't play. People rarely dig deeply into the old school music anymore. It's too bad because you can learn a lot by listening and being attentive.
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The Blues Photo Gallery
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Stevelegh
295 posts
Sep 19, 2011
11:27 AM
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Accurate bends on 2 and 3 draw. Far harder than overblows IMHO
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earlounge
358 posts
Sep 19, 2011
11:32 AM
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It is very difficult to come to terms with the fact that the instrument does not have all the notes chromatically without customizing, valves, or alt tunings. So I guess customizing is the hardest thing for me.
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groyster1
1412 posts
Sep 19, 2011
11:32 AM
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throat vibrato Im struggling with it will not quit till I get it
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harpdude61
1050 posts
Sep 19, 2011
12:11 PM
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Learning to throat bend and picking out the proper Fedora and Sunglasses.
Last Edited by on Sep 19, 2011 12:12 PM
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gene
920 posts
Sep 19, 2011
12:57 PM
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Overblows and overdraws. Those are things that not everybody even cares to mess with.
Second on my list is getting a good warble, believe it or not.
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SonnyD4885
128 posts
Sep 19, 2011
2:56 PM
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sunglasses are good for sunny days and a fadora is good on the blues brothers but a derby is better. imo
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DanP
210 posts
Sep 19, 2011
3:17 PM
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Bending notes using the tongue blocking method is what's been hardest for me to learn.
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Honkin On Bobo
779 posts
Sep 19, 2011
3:46 PM
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That if you're a beginner, chances are, 99% of any problems you're having are because of YOU, not the harp, the mic, the amp, the effects pedals, the cables, the other musicians on the bandstand, the full moon or the way the fedora you are wearing looks.
Though it's possible that not enough beer in the woodshed refrigerator IS a problem.
Last Edited by on Sep 19, 2011 3:47 PM
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Tommy the Hat
314 posts
Sep 19, 2011
3:48 PM
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Theory
(does that count?)
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Tommy
Bronx Mojo
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oldwailer
1719 posts
Sep 19, 2011
4:19 PM
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That it really isn't an inexpensive hobby. . .
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Oldwailer's Web Site
Always be yourself--unless you suck. . .
-Joss Whedon
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hvyj
1784 posts
Sep 19, 2011
4:22 PM
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Bending accurately to pitch on the three 3 hole draw bends and the two 10 hole blow bends.
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kudzurunner
2698 posts
Sep 19, 2011
5:12 PM
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It takes a long time to be able to improvise your way through 12-bar changes in a way that balances discipline (all the bends hit properly, chord tones and color tones hit at the right moment, idiomatic tone, a sure sense of groove, etc.) with real creative freedom (letting your phrasing breathe, creating musical meaning partly through the length of the spaces you salt into your solo, swinging slightly ahead or behind the beat in a meaningful and expressive way, signifying on the tradition by quoting and one-upping great players who have come before you).
These are the challenges that any jazz or blues improviser faces. If you view harmonica as a horn--which it is, although it's also a chord instrument--then these challenges are your challenges, too.
The foundation, though, is completely internalizing the 12-bar changes--so completely that you always, at every moment, FEEL exactly where you are relative to the 12-bar structure.
Speaking personally, I've got the discipline and creative freedom that I've just evoked--but only on 12-bar and 8-bar blues, and only in second position. I'm not nearly as disciplined and free in 3rd and 1st position, and I really should make a point of playing in those positions all the time, for a while, as a way of accruing somewhat more of both qualities.
I'm pretty adept at faking my way through various sorts of other blues-based and common-stock folk changes. (Heck, I do an updated version of "Old McDonald Had a Farm" on my next album, and I'm creatively free on that.) But I could do better. I still can't think like a jazz player, much less execute like one.
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hvyj
1786 posts
Sep 19, 2011
6:42 PM
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Adam,
I really admire your playing, but IMHO, the challenge of being MUSICAL is not unique to harp, and not limited to 12 and 8 bar chord structures. As I interpreted it, the OP was asking a harmonica specific question.
Like most players i do most of my playing in 2nd position. But, personally, I think I do my most creative playing in 5th position on minor key material. I find playing minor to be a different expression than major key blues, and because so little has been recorded in 5th position i sort of feel that what i come up with is uniquely my own. I'll use 4th position, too, sometimes. But 5th is so flexible that I'll even use it for Dorian minors over 3rd position. Although for certain tunes 3rd is the right fit.
BUT the TECHNIQUE used for playing in 5th is IDENTICAL to the techniques used playing in 2nd. Once a player masters the applicable techniques, then the challenge is as you describe it--being musical. But, IMHO, TECHNIQUE is the foundation, not necessarily internalizing a specific set of changes, although that is also unquestionably important.
Btw, I agree that it's difficult to play well in 1st position. I'm blown away by what some of the old Chicago guys did in 1st. Kim Wilson nails that 1st position blues stuff, too and Sugar Blue does as well--those guys are so fluent playing in 1st that you assume they are playing in 2nd if you don't listen carefully.
Last Edited by on Sep 19, 2011 6:58 PM
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Jehosaphat
95 posts
Sep 19, 2011
6:57 PM
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@oldwailer "its not as inexpensive as you think"
LOL
along with its not as easy as you think.Most of us could be eg very good guitar players if we had put the same time into it.(Tell that to your average Bar Band geetarist!)
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hvyj
1787 posts
Sep 19, 2011
7:00 PM
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I think guitars are very complicated.
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Rhartt1234
23 posts
Sep 19, 2011
7:18 PM
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I agree with knowing when to shut the hell up. Harp players need to be comfortable just standing there doing nothing.
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walterharp
701 posts
Sep 19, 2011
7:53 PM
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the hardest thing is whatever you are working on right now!
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boris_plotnikov
614 posts
Sep 19, 2011
9:13 PM
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Main problem for me is to avoid reed choking and control attack while I hardly hear myself.
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Excuse my bad English. Click on my photo or my username for my music.
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kudzurunner
2699 posts
Sep 20, 2011
5:34 AM
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@hvyj: The beautiful thing about interpretations is that each of us has a different one.
If you'll go back a reread what I wrote, you'll notice that your key point--"the challenge of being MUSICAL is not unique to harp"--is my key point: "These are the challenges that any jazz or blues improviser faces." Nevertheless, I thought the OP deserved a serious answer in that direction. So I took the time to give him one. Why not just give him a serious answer of your own, instead of pausing to critique my serious answer?
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SonnyD4885
130 posts
Sep 20, 2011
5:43 AM
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thanks adam and everyone this is really helping me alot.
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MrVerylongusername
1950 posts
Sep 20, 2011
7:35 AM
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Getting the ABBA factor.
You know how you can tell a tune is by ABBA the instant you hear it? Probably the most instantly recognisable band-sound in popular music.
There are a handful of players that I can recognise the instant I hear them play. Not many.
That's something to work for.
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Chickenthief
138 posts
Sep 20, 2011
12:56 PM
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I don't know what the hardest thing is but anyone who has learned to consistantly play the 10 half step bend on harps D through F with correct intonation gets my instant respect.
I'm not averse to a challenge only that an order of priorities would have that one a little lower on my own to do list for now. File that under - Later Fo That Shit.
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JInx
60 posts
Sep 20, 2011
9:47 PM
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The way I hear it, that hardest thing to learn about harp is; accepting the fact that 2nd position blues playing has jumped the shark.
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hvyj
1788 posts
Sep 21, 2011
6:47 AM
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@Adam: "Why not just give him a serious answer of your own, instead of pausing to critique my serious answer?"
I found your answer interesting and stimulating. Not actually trying to be critical, and I'm sorry if I came off that way. Just trying to engage in dialogue.
Btw, I did post an answer of my own. It was pretty simplistic: "Bending accurately to pitch on the three 3 hole draw bends and the two 10 hole blow bends." For better or for worse, that was the totality of my accumulated wisdom on the subject of the OP. Certainly not as detailed or stimulating as your answer.
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Andrew
1439 posts
Sep 21, 2011
8:32 AM
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Those of you struggling with throat vibrato, are you really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really sure that it's a genuine technique and not some crappy f****d-up bastard technique invented by someone who simply didn't know how to do proper vibrato?
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Andrew.
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Those who are tardy do not get fruit cup.
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Michael Rubin
252 posts
Sep 21, 2011
9:28 AM
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Andrew, your message confuses me. Are you saying all throat vibrato is invlalid? Or are you saying some do it correctly and others do not? How can it not be a genuine technique if it produces a different sound then when you do not utilize it? How can it not be an actual vibrato if the pitch raises and lowers quickly? What is the proper way to do vibrato? Do you have an audio clip where you can point to you or someone else doing an actual, non throat vibrato?
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