Greetings! I recorded my playing again to take note of my progress I realize there are few who actually care about the whole harmonica beatbox combo but I am asking for some tips anyways ;)
first of all what do you think? and secondly does anyone know of a better way to play single holes while beatboxing other than alternating between blow and draw or drawing on several holes?
I just cant seem to get a decent melody going other than one as shown in the recording
I am interested in this combo, although I haven't listened to as much as other guys on the Forum. In my view, harpboxing is 95% the groove and just 5% melody, so don't worry too much about the melody.
Of the stuff that I have heard, the simpler beats sound better, to my ear. I would rather hear two or three phrases repeated with a bit of variation, like you did in the first 20 seconds or so. That keeps the whole unified. I think the human brain likes to anticipate what's coming next and then take delight in little surprises aka variations.
Getting better! But you really loose your harp tone here... What's your single note tone like when you AREN"T beatboxing? Sounds to me like you are keeping your embouchure much too tight, which makes sense because you are doing the lip pops for the kick sounds. The trick is to be able to switch between lip pops, to an open and natural embouchure for harp. Try practicing the lip pops with less tension in the lips. the sound may be different than what you get here, but it can be done. Are you doing your K's inward or out? Sounds like out to me. So what I hear are alternating lip pops and K's on the out breaths, and single note licks on the in. This is cool, but it will also be nice to vary from that a little bit to provide some rhythmic contrast. It is NOT easy, but by carefully selecting some blow notes, and then also taking advantage of inward K's (or even inward lip pops), it's possible to come up with some very cool beats that surprise the listener...
BTW, you are doing very well, and I encourage you to keep with this!!!! ----------
