I found an old Augustus Pablo CD that I hadn't listened to since I started playing the harmonica. After listening to it again I realised that he plays a lot of stuff on the melodica that might work on the harmonica.
Are there any reggae harmonica players out there that are worth listening to? Or does anyone know of any good examples of harmonica used in any reggae music?
If you can find my old band Mr. Brown's CD Boderation, I play on a few tracks. I was a full member of the live stage show, but the producer only wanted me on a couple of tracks. We had the sax player from Burning Spear in the band.
Errol Linton is an excellent harp player who plays reggae and blues and a lot of other stuff. This is the first vid I came across on youtube but there are better ones there if you have a search Ryan. I found out about him through my old teacher who had a few lessons with him.
Checkoot Bad Manners. They had a harp player on a lot ot their earlier stuff. I think his name was Ken Saydak. He plays some guid stuff. ---------- http://www.reverbnation.com/#!/alprice
Oisin, I thought of Errol Linton last night but when I did a search everything I came up with was blues. I did another search today and found this clip, it is getting closer to the sound I am looking for.
That clip you posted of Pablo, just try to transcribe that. If you already transcribe a bit of stuff, this should be really straight forward.
If not, then this is a great place to start. I transcribe plenty of stuff like that for harp. The harp is capable of a lot of things, but there's still lots of things to explore.
This may be overstating the obvious, but FWIW, since so many reggae tunes are just 2 chords and the rhythm or groove is so stretched out, it's real easy to overplay if you are not careful.
I have ordinarily used 5th position for minor reggae tunes and 2nd for major reggae tunes. Blues scale and minor pentatonic scale seem to work on a lot of reggae material, both minor and major, but there are always exceptions. Effects pedals can sound good if used with discretion.
I'm no expert, but in my experience, playing reggae is definitely a less is more thing. Leaving space is real important--what you DON'T play is more important that what you do play. And you've got to cop that groove. FWIW, simple repeating licks can be very effective, and you can build and elaborate on that sort of foundation as the tune stretches out. But that's not the Augustus Pablo sound you are after. One way or the other, it's interesting stuff to play harp on.
Last Edited by on Jun 10, 2012 3:41 PM
Something else to consider: I think Augustus Pablo is working off of some sort of Asian or Oriental scale in the vid you posted, which would be consistent with his "East of the Nile" theme.
Just going by ear, I think the scale he's using has a flat 2nd and maybe a major 6th, but I could be wrong. However, it doesn't sound like a standard Western scale or mode to me.
@belfast_harper: I've been playing reggae and ska on the harp for a few years now. You can easily do the one or two chord type reggae songs, but it gets much harder when there are a lot of chord changes, because you start to get away from the "built in" chords of a standard Richter harp. You can get some more mileage by also using natural minor harps, and eventually combining the two and doing some fancy harp-switching riffs. There are also special "reggae-tuned" harps (sometimes called "easy-third" tuning) that'll give you a novel set of major to minor blow and draw chords:
Personally, I actually just bought a melodica (Hohner student 32), and that just gives you a really great way to lay down the chords (into a looper, for example), and then you can solo over the chord progression with harp. ---------- == I S A A C ==
"but it gets much harder when there are a lot of chord changes, because you start to get away from the "built in" chords of a standard Richter harp"
Yeah...but if you don't feel the need to blow chords, you can handle a lot of different chord progressions by playing single notes that ARE available on a Richter harp. Playing chords drastically limits what you do musically on a harmonica. If you DON'T play chords, you can fit harp effectively to a MUCH wider variety of material.
For example, you can do what the guy playing the "easy third" harp is doing simply by playing single notes in 5th position. You have all the necessary notes. You don't get chords, but so what--the guitar player and/or keyboard player will cover that and by playing single notes you won't be intruding into their harmonic space = cleaner overall band sound, IMHO.
If you want a really nice Melodica, the Suzuki Hammond 44 electric/acoustic Melodion is terrific and it has a pick up, output jack for a guitar cord and a volume control. Problem is, I'm not a keyboard player, so I can't play the damn thing without looking at the keys.
Last Edited by on Jun 11, 2012 2:33 PM
@hvjy: Sure. But if you are playing solo (I'm not sure if this is what Belfast_harper has in mind, but it's what I do), you HAVE to play chords too. Otherwise it just ain't reggae, it's just a little ditty with a bit of emphasis on the offbeat. To get a real "reggae" feel, you have to have those offbeat chords going (either tongue block slapping them or "lip slapping" them), and play the melody over them. So, if you are doing it solo, you are stuck using those positions that still leave chords accessible (mainly 1st, 2nd, and 3rd), and thus need alternative tunings or multiple harmonicas if you want to have different 0r more elaborate chord progressions. If he's playing in a band context, then yeah, position playing will allow single note melody and hooks to be played on a standard richter harp over many different chord progressions. ---------- == I S A A C ==
Oh, yeah, I also can't play the darn melodica without looking at the keys! :) But since I'm just sort of using it to set a chord progression into the looper, it work out okay. But still needs a lot of practice (I've only had it for a month). I've heard that those Suzuki melodicas are really really nice to play... Sadly, they were a bit out of my price range. That S32 works pretty darn well, though, for what it costs. And I've gotten really good results amping it with a simple stick-on piezo pickup... ---------- == I S A A C ==
Well, if you are playing by yourself, it doesn't make any difference. You can play whatever chords you think might sound good.
BUT, one of the cool things about playing harp with other musicians is you can play notes IN RELATION TO the chords the other musicians are playing that can sound very musical played against those chords, but which wouldn't convey the same musicality played standing alone. In other words, if you let the other instruments play the chords, there's all sorts of note selections available on the harp that work and will sound very musical, but which may not sound very musical if played solo. i always play with other musicians so that affects how i look at this stuff.
I was struck by how similar what the guy in the "easy third" vid was playing is to my basic approach to reggae, but without the wanking on the chords--which is called skank by reggae players and is usually played by the guitar. I wouldn't be invited back to sit in with reggae bands if I kept stepping on the skank guitar parts when i played. But if you don't have other musicians, yeah i guess the "easy third" harp facilitates skanking on one's own if that's what you're into.
Last Edited by on Jun 11, 2012 3:10 PM
it's always interesting to me to see how different you have to be to make solo harp sound interesting. Listening to Dan Kaplan's "Vera Hall" album, he has a lot of stuff going on that you would never hear in a band context. Vice versa, is, of course, also true. There are a lot of harmonica riffs that sound great in a band context, but that sound totally boring when played on their own. For example, a lot of the stuff Johnny Marr played on Smiths and The The albums, sounds great in context, but falls totally flat if you try to play it solo. That's your point about the connection between the solo and the background chords.
If there already is a rythm guitar or organ/keys player in the band, then yeah, chording on the harp would likely be redundant and I could easily see them getting upset by you "taking" their job away from them. There ARE some examples of the harmonica being used purely as chording instrument in roots music. There a few examples in that excellent podcast MrVLUN linked to at the end of his post (which I've had on my MP3 player for years now). I think that application has largely gone by the wayside now, and if you do hear harp in newer reggae, it's almost always as a solo instrument.
My goal in solo harp playing (and what guys like Dan Kaplan are doing), however, is to get that interplay in a solo harp context. For me, for solo harp reggae/ska music, alternate tunings and multiple harps can get me that for "true" solo playing (i.e., no looping), by setting the skank with one part of my mouth, and hitting the melody with another. It's tricky business, so it's always an uphill battle. But I know it can be done! :) ---------- == I S A A C ==
I thought about buying a melodica to learn some of the Agustust Pablo stuff, but I have decided that it will be a lot more beneficial to try and figure it out at the harmonica. I think I need to learn to sing, and then learn to play the guitar before I get distracted by any other instruments.
The easy third harp looks like it would be good for solo playing, but I am a traditionalist when it comes to harmonicas, I decided early on that alternate tunings and minor harps weren't for me.
The initial goal is to be able to play something with a band, but I think I will work on a solo piece as well, most of the time I don't have other musicians to play with.
That's awesome Bertram (the special-tuned 1847 video) is making videos. I'll have to check them out.
MInd you, we probably don't sit around playing a lot of Reggae in West Virginia, but I do enjoy all good music. I think these guys are the greatest cover band of all time, and it seems to be that what makes Reggae is the beat and that sense of Reggae time would be as important or not more important than the choice of notes played:
