Help Me by Sonny Boy II ... Dont get more classic than that. Any its easy to "play." The hard part is playin exactly like Sonny Boy. All his intonations. Plus he plays TB. (Tounge Blocked) If your looking for inspiration and your not listening to sonny boy williamson II (rice miller) youll likely find it there. If your interested in learning it check out Will Wylde on you tube. He breaks it down pretty well. Just remember to learn everything in chunks or it will get over whelming.
Good Luck.
Also if you need some good breakdown lessons check out the lessons on this site. Adam is an excellent teacher. I own most of them.
Last Edited by Killa_Hertz on Jan 12, 2016 5:50 PM
Great question. As many things as we've talked to death here, I don't believe we've had a thread like this.
I learned "Turkey in the Straw" on piano, with two equally active hands, when I was a pre-teen. 12 or 13? My mom played Bach on our old piano (Fur Elise) and at some point I felt like finding a song of my own.
On harp, I can't remember. I started when I was 16. I learned a little bit of "Whammer Jammer." Since I started electric guitar at exactly the same time as harp, it might have been a Beatles tune.
When the Saints Go Marching In! It was included in the instruction sheet in the cardboard box my first harmonica came in. The first song I learned by ear: "After the Gold Rush" with the harp in a rack, while I finger-picked guitar. I received the harmonica and rack for Christmas that year, in the early to mid 1980s. Then the novelty wore off, Christmas vacation ended and I put the harp down for about 20 years ...
I think I learned songs in something like this order-
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Home on the Range, Oh Suzanna, When the Saints go Marching In, Love Me Do, some more random kids songs, then some more Beatles melodies, then some original stuff, and then I realized that at least for most stuff I could 'play' anything I could whistle, at least well enough so that people could guess what I was playing.
I know riffs/melodies from lots of songs, but I'm always reluctant to say I 'know' them, since I'm terrible at remembering how many times to play the verse/chorus, even if I know all the riffs.
I took a sort of weird approach to learning harmonica. I started, in part, because I heard it was good for asthma. I had some other music background (played baritone tuba in band, had a couple theory classes and sang a bit in choirs) but really wasn't that familiar with harp playing. I knew that the teaching style I'd run into playing baritone had just about destroyed my love of doing music. I figured it was because the teacher wouldn't let me work ahead in the book (my mother played trumpet and could translate that pretty well into baritone for me) and always made us do songs we weren't interested in. When I started harmonica I told myself that I wasn't going to try to play anything real for 6 months. I was just going to make noises with the harmonica. I wasn't going to look at tab or sheet music, or even try to play along or do scales. I wasn't even going to mention to anyone I had taken it up (I'd tried it once before but hadn't gotten anywhere). My idea was to make it something with intrinsic learning value rather than having external expectations. (Why yes, I did grow up in a family with parents for teachers who discussed educational theory!)
What I was trying to do though, was teach my mouth and my ear to hear different intervals. After that 6 months of playing a lot- I live alone and played it while I was watching TV all the time I finally came out of the harmonica closet. I still wasn't good, but I was sitting in my living room and my friend was there. I'd sung in a band with him. He played bass but never got good. Anyway, I was trying to think of songs to play, so I asked him to start naming nursery songs. I think he said 'London Bridge'. Played it straight through first try. Not a hard song, but at that point I realized I knew in my head where the intervals were.
There are probably other (maybe even faster) ways to get there, and reading tab or better yet, sheet music is great, but being able to hear intervals will get you to that stage where it's really fun to pick it up and play.
On Bass Warhead by the UK Subs about 1980 when i was 13 for my first band called 'Search & Destroy'...very punk.
Blues on harmonica it was SBWII Mighty Long Time and Have You Ever Been I Love I was obsessed by these two songs in the beginning!
I wonder if The Streets Of Laredo would count I learnt that from either those little bits of paper you got in a Marine Band or maybe it was in Tony Glovers Blues Harp book! ----------
"Those British boys want to play the blues real bad, and they do"
Last Edited by marine1896 on Dec 10, 2015 9:12 AM
Still learning and developing, so no bending and nothing too "bluesy' at this point. But at least I can do a couple of things which sound better than noise to the family.
When I picked up the harp in 1972, as a college freshman, I had already been playing the clarinet for about 7 years. I had a strong embouchure and had zero difficulty isolating single notes via the pucker method. I am blessed with a good ear and I quickly figured out the layout of the harp. Let’s see, higher notes are on the right, lower notes on the left – like a piano. Pretty much immediately I could play what many would call “Campfire music”. Red River Valley. Shenandoah. Oh Susannah. Dixie. Battle Hymn of the Republic. Turkey in the Straw. When the Saints Come Marching In. The list is endless. I also learned to play some of the music from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Civil War scene kind of music. As a clarinetist, I was classically trained and figured out how to play Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s 9th and long before Buddy Greene played the William Tell Overture at Carnegie Hall I was “forced” to perform it (not as well as Buddy) at dinner in my fraternity house. The first piece of music resembling a blues lick I learned was the harp solo from The Doobie Brothers’ Long Train Running. I quickly learned to bend notes, not in order to play the blues, but in order to fill in the missing notes on the major scale on holes 1-4. It would be more than 35 years before I discovered the blues harmonica world. Learning to play in second position has been like learning a foreign language to me. After 7-8 years, I’m starting to get it. ---------- Tom Halchak www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com
"Suicide is Painless" ( theme from MASH). Next was "Little Wing". Actually, before I was ever in a band, I would get occasional sideman gigs because I have some talent for improvisation, and the musicians would tell me, "just do what you do". I wasn't required to carry anything. So, I had been playing for a while before I actually learned any real melodies. Go figure...
Last Edited by hvyj on Dec 10, 2015 9:11 AM
Great question! I started on the guitar in the 1950's and the first real song I can remember learning was "Happy Birthday" Then I was determined to learn Little Eyes of Jane from my banjo picking Uncle Pete. All that went south when I heard "You ain't Nothin but a Hound Dog and Johnny be Good in the mid/late '50s. Thereafter my training went classical until 1997 when I lost the digital dexterity in my left hand and couldn't play anymore. In April 2014 I started learning the blues harp & learned, When the Saints go Marching' in. Currently, the two 'real' songs I play are Take it Easy Now and Blues Creepin' Over Me by Dave Barrett; Jon Lawton & Gary Smith. And the one which I am working to learn is the Muddy Waters/James Cotton classic - Crosseyed Cat. I have the intro lick down cold and work my way around the IV and the V chords. It's wonderful to have music in the house again!
Can't pass up what will probably be my one and only chance to correct Adam on anything, ever. Fur Elise was written by Beethoven, not Bach, and is itself thought to be a typo and should be called Fur Therese( For Therese). Streets of Laredo was my first tune as it came tabbed out with the Pocket Pal harmonica (still working well after all these years). It's a useful tune to teach beginners as it can be countrified and bluesed - up.
Last Edited by andysheep8 on Dec 10, 2015 1:34 PM
I'm pretty sure it was "Your Cheatin' Heart" by Hank Sr. on my dads guitar. I was around 11 at the time. He played every night at home just for the pleasure of it. I always had a pretty good ear, so one day I asked him if I could borrow his guitar. Hank Sr. was a long time favorite, and I knew the melodies. So after about 5 minutes of picking it out, I went in the room dad was in and asked how's this? Then I played it. He knew I never played before and asked me when I learned it. Told him just now. He said no way and told me to figure out "On The Bayou". Five or 10 minutes later I went back and played that. This went on for another song or two then he said to put the guitar away and get ready for dinner. I think it made him a little upset that I could do that so quick. Never could get the hang of chords on the guitar though.
First song on the harp? Not sure. I think maybe When The Saints or Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho. I learned both early on. ----------
I'm workin on it. I'm workin on it.
Last Edited by 2chops on Dec 10, 2015 9:25 AM
Hvyj, I forgot that one. Suicide is painless is one of maybe 5 songs I can pick the melody out on on one string on a guitar too (although off the top of my head I can only think of Twinkle Twinkle and When Johnny Comes Marching Home as others). Picked it up on harp real early on. I even bend/slow like it did on the show intro.
I picked out English Country Garden on the piano as a kid. The first thing I "formally" learned on the harp was the harp part in 'What I like about you' by The Romantics. A friend's band would play it at hall parties. They would get me to jump up for the harp part and that was the peak of my performing career for the next 30 years.
andysheep8: Yikes! You're quite right--and that tells you how little I know about classical music. I think I was confused because my mom ALSO played some Bach, although I can't remember which.
Lets see I believe it was --Beetovens 'Fur Elise' only I played it in a diminished ,naturally flatted, octave splitted ,b5, Phyrgian moded-- kind of a feel-----------------NO ON SECOND THOUGHT IT WAS---'DRUM ROLL'----------Deep Purple 'Lazy' ---------I sold records retail back then so I had access to everything and then being the delusional person I was---I actually attempted a Charley Mccoy tune---What a knuckle head ---his stuff is still way above my pay grade today--what was really cool however, was the fact that I was the one who opened the box'x b4 put on shelf--when a record was cut out of the catalog--itwas called a "cut out' they sold for $1 $2 and went in a special bin---i pulled 1 with sonny boy williamson [which one??] playing with the animals, he was so drunk and slurring u couldn't make the words out---Got many L Walter--slim harpo--muddy--james cotten---etc on n on --- all the classics--ONe of the coolest was an old George Benson--He was just breaking out of straight 145 blues -still had that heavy blues feel--but u could tell e wanted to expand his playing from the record--any way Im nauseating --out
Another early one I learned was a little bit of Bach's Little Fugue. I always liked the melody for that. I've seen it done by multiple harps with the counterpoint. I've considered giving it a try in tracks.
I also picked up Mouret's Rondeau, or at least enough of it for people to recognize it. (Masterpiece Theater Theme)
I think that the first song I learned was probably Amazing Grace. I still can't bend in a song or do that many "bluesy" things in my playing, but I still enjoy the harp and can play. One day, I'll make it :)
The first songs I lesrned were off a Good and Plenty box when they use to publish harmonica transcriptions inside the box. Mostly folk songs. The first blues song I learned was "Back at the Chicken Shack" and I played it for years using single notes. When I finally learned to TB, this agian was the first song I learned and realized how wrong I had gotten it for years.
The first material I learned was along the lines of Amazing Grace, Will the Circle, like that. A bit later I got to try and jam along with some friends doing blues stuff. The very first song I sang in front of a mic- in about '71 or '72- was Hendrix' The Wind Cries Mary. A friend was rehearsing with his band and was kind enough to let me give a song a try. It was a false start and I was in my 30's before I began to find my voice for real.
If you're asking what harmonica parts I first learned that above applies. If you mean vocals, it was many years later that I actually stood up and sang a song in public. I honestly don't recall what was first but Stormy Monday was an early one. I'm Ready and Got My Mojo Workin' were two more.
I came up with no music training, and never attempted to play anything or sing until I was pretty much an adult. I did make attempts in my late teens and then stumbled along through my 20's, learning a bit here and there. I could improvise fairly well in 2nd or cross harp and it felt "right" to play that way. I played at my first jam, on a stage, in my late 20's. I was even invited to join that band for a regular Friday evening gig but was too self conscious to accept. I still regret that! Some 8 or 9 years later I was hired into a couple of bands. That to me meant I was doing some things right. I was an am a notorious improviser.
Early on, and many times over many years, I just stuck a harp in my mouth and kind of hypnotized myself with it, basically breathing through it and finding different notes and sounds, bending, trilling, figuring out all the sounds a harp could make. Draw notes were more fun so I played a lot of cross harp.
Some few years ago I revisited first position and really studied Jimmy Reed, Bob Dylan, Raful Neal. 1st or straight harp can be a very awesome way to play as well. I use it on some covers and also in some songs I and wife have written and recorded as well.
I made another breakthrough about 15 years ago, into 3rd or slant position playing. Excellent for swing blues and jazz. Also some cool stuff in hill country style as well.
All these things I mentioned happened in their own time. I pretty much committed to being a harp player long ago and while I took breaks here and there, I always kept harps around and worked on things as I could. With all the great resources available these days between the internet and all the new tech, and many great teachers as well, one can learn a lot in a very short time.
WE have a few dozen videos on youtube, duo stuff. See below.
hmm. I'm nearly 60. As a 33 yr old,the "doe a dear a female deer"..."row row row your boat",and mostly simple nursery rhymes started me out. They got me familiar with my way around the holes. And people liked the ole timey rhymes. Then, I went straight to Born In Chicago(the hard stuff). Then, Blues With A Feelin, then, Help Me, now 27 yrs later I am proficient in most anything I can hear, I can play. With enough shedding... ;-) Which was what freaked me out when I was 12 yrs old(1968). I could NOT make that sound Charlie Musselwhite, Paul Butterfield, or James Cotton, were makin with that thang! So much frustration. I put it down. Never to pick it up again for 31 years. A mistake...I now think. I often wonder how I would have fared if I had someone to make me practice more. When you're a hyper-active horny little surfer, pretty boy, there's little time for alienating neighbors and friends. I urge those who are like minded, keep it up...listen listen and listen some more. Can't read a lick. But my gift of mimmick has me hooked. Originals are next. I copy only for the lessons, styles, phrasing, etc,to be learned. I wish I had the gift of composing originals. Maybe sooner than later, I'm planning. Thanks for asking.. Oh, Paul De Lay is the hardest to cop. (IMHO) Damn! what a monster!!! RIP ---------- Yes, there are blues in Hawaii.
Last Edited by Mojokane on Dec 13, 2015 1:46 PM
Great thread, it brought up not too distant memories. I came from a schooled music background but pretty well rebooted to a completely by ear approach to the harmonica.
My first song was a piece I learned in 4th grade (no name) then the old nursery songs plus Home on the Range… The first “real song” was either Moon River or Charade. Not that some of my prior songs were not real, it’s just that I didn’t play them for real.
The earliest songs were just used for learning the harp by ear. I played them with little regard for rhythm or heart (more like playing scales).
About the same time that I was actually playing musically I was working on a few riffs and chugging… I made up my own song that included some single note melody and chord rhythm, chugging and the all-important train. The song ends with an expressive “All aboard”.
The song is a little corny but it was really helpful because it included several techniques that I needed to work on. I still play different versions of that song and I’ll include other techniques that I want to work on like warbles, splits… It’s kind of cool because the song helps remind me how far I’ve come.
Well, I do know some campfire songs but I never really learned songs. Always seemed boring to me. I'm a jammer. I play along with songs. Songs I know and songs I don't know. Just give me a key and I go. I don't play a song, I just color the music, add another layer. My job is to make the real musicians sound better. According to those guys, I do pretty well...BN
Hey, we're all wired different, right?
Last Edited by Barley Nectar on Jan 12, 2016 5:47 PM
@BN I played a jam the other night that is run by harp player who talked just like that. And he insisted I do a harp dual with him , which I really wasn't into, but it was his gig. Turned out very poorly for him. And it was th last song he played all night. Adding color to the song doesn't help the band play or sound any better. Providing a rhythmn, a pocket and some space is what other player need to play well. Sure learning the blues scale is boring and can be difficult but that is the basic building blocks to any Improvision . Anything else, it sounds like shit. Believe, I hear it all the time from jam participants that have to play with folks who play from their soul or whatever nonsense they spout.
Last Edited by 6SN7 on Jan 13, 2016 6:02 AM
It was 1971, I was in the Air Force stationed in Thailand, living on the economy, partaking of the the Thai Culture, and I picked up a Yamaha Hamrmonica for just a few Baht at a local store. It took me a week, but I learned how to play Moon River really good. The rest is history. ----------
Way back in my hippie/biker days ladies tended to be tad more natural than the fashion today.
We had a friend who played lovely violin but when she raised her arm to crank that fiddle she looked like she had king kong in a head lock so we of course nicknamed her Fur Elise
Actually BN, I was frankly embarrassed and a bit guilty as this was his jam and he was the star. And he made that pretty clear when I signed up to play.I wanted to do the two tunes they allotted me and get off the stage. He was the one who got into the headcutting baloney. He played all over my singing, and proceded to play 24 bars of slop, without taking a single pause. My solo was a structured, call and response, nothing earth shattering and certainly nothing that would blow away any intermediate player. I played within the strengths and the pocket provided by the other musicians and in turn comp and provide some tension for their solos. Your response clearly misses the point all together. I am not "the best" by a effing long shot and I know that. Plenty of times I have been at jams with top players, something that inspires me and is a learning experience for me. There is always another hot shot whose gonna walk into town. As Ray Charles said "there are 5 of me in every town."
Last Edited by 6SN7 on Jan 13, 2016 10:35 AM
@6SN7. I get into that scenario frequently. What I do is let him have the harp mic and I will grab a vocal, and since I carry some double reed plate harps in Low D,G A, and C and I do horn lines and they carry real well, though not loud, through the vocal, especially the G and Lo D. ----------
The hoochie coochie man,i built a lot of lick ammo off that 2beat song and learned a dozen different ways to do the two note warble ,I still love it after 48 yrs.
When I picked up the harmonica first, I told myself I would learn Amazing Grace first. As soon as I barely squeaked the melody out, I learned the melody to Blueberry Hill by Fats Domino.
As far as "real" song (meaning something meaningful that has a clear part for the harp to play, not just a simple melody) that I've come close to memorizing, it was probably Don't Bother None by the Seatbelts. Great song, listen to it now.
To be honest, I have been playing for maybe 4 years now and I still do not completely know a song. I am going to learn a couple Junior Wells songs with my friend.
@harvey That's a great idea, and one I do when others are singing, typically play 3rd postion. I have two double reed plates ,a and g, built by r. Sleigh back in 1994. I didn't think they were around anymore.
