Chromatonic

4 of 101+

I have a page on this site entitled 101+ ways to sound better playing harmonica which was inspired by a Guitar Player Magazine article similarly titled. For the next 100 or so posts, I'm going to go through the ways, and elaborate.

4. Learn to play with facility at a whisper as well as a wail. Vary your dynamics - it adds drama, and drama is good for your musical performance.

Dynamics make your performance more interesting. Too many players just go balls-out from downbeat to the last note. Don't do it. Make your performance a story. Whisper some of the story - how powerful a thing is a whisper!

Sometimes, even try silence to say something more important than the notes you know how to play.

More important, make every song a story, and every solo a story within a story. Think about the song - is it ironic? Uplifting? Courageous? Broken? Incorporate those elements into your solo.

Alec Rice Miller (Sonny Boy Williamson II) sings a song that goes: "Don't start me to talking, I'll tell everything I know". While I dig the song, and most everything I ever heard the man play: Don't approach playing music like that.

To take the thought another step farther:
Try working on only one idea at a time.
Try to not reveal all you have in this solo. Or this song. Or even in this show. Leave a little for next time.

Not overplaying shows you to be humble, gracious, and respectful of the musicians your are so fortunate to play with and the audience you're even more fortunate to play for.

3 of 101+

3. Clap your hands, shake a shaker, stomp your feet, move your butt! Get intimately familiar with the rhythm of the music you're playing. Rhythm is PARAMOUNT. Even melody is meaningless without rhythm.

Don't believe it? Try this: Clap "Happy Birthday" for someone - no words, no melody, just clap "Hap-py Birth-day to you", and see if they can guess the song. Yeah.

So, become an amatuer percussionist. Get into the rhythm of what you're playing, try different tempos, rhythms (Rhumba, Cha-cha, Swing).

Most important, USE A METRONOME IN THE WOODSHED, HABITUALLY. Having a crazy good sense of time will not only make you a better player, it will get you invited to play more often.

2 of 101+

2. Even if you don't sing well, sing anyway - at least in the woodshed. Sing the melody, sing your riffs, sing everything. It will make you so much more familiar with the music you're trying to play, and singing is it's own reward.

You need to be able to sing the Melody to learn it. Too many harmonica players focus on riffing. Learn to play melodies and you'll set yourself apart from the rest.

In your singing, make sure you're singing the Melody, not a line that shifts from Melody to Harmony and back. When you're singing (yes OUT LOUD), imagine you're playing the note on your harmonica. It'll help you when you try to play it to imagine yourself singing the note, too.

Top Secret Tip: as you play, you're manipulating your embouchure to resonate with the note you're playing. How well you do this affects your tone...

1 of 101+

I have a page on this site entitled 101+ ways to sound better playing harmonica which was inspired by a Guitar Player Magazine article similarly titled. For the next 100 or so posts, I'm going to go through the ways, and elaborate.

1. Even if you haven't 'mastered' all the tunes and tricks you want to, shuffle new tunes, licks and techniques into your practice routine to keep it fresh - you might pick up something that will help you break down some of the barriers in your regular routine.

Keep it fresh! If you play mostly Blues, work on a Polka (seriously). Or a Waltz. Try some Jellyroll Morton. Learn a counterpoint piece. If you haven't developed a great train piece, work on that.

One of the commonest mistakes I see among harmonica players is not learning complete songs. Learn to play melodies. Learn to play Rhythm, Bass-lines, Comp with the band.

There's NO REASON you can't do everything a guitar player does, or a horn player.

It's important to keep variety in your practice to keep your playing diverse and interesting, to keep you engaged and most important, to keep you challenged. While it's very important for you to find your own voice, your own style and approach, it's just as important to be sure that approach is well-founded in the fundamentals.

20 Things Every Improviser should know

Got this from the Jazz Advice blog

Item #10 of 20: Practicing is about notes and rhythms, improvising is about life

The things you do in the practice room are important for your playing. Everyone tells you to listen and to transcribe and this is definitely the path to getting better. These practice habits will give you technique and knowledge, but you still need to have something personal to say when you improvise. To do this, get out of the practice room and live. Experience everything that you can and then bring this into your playing, communicate this with your audience.

After you get through with that 20 item list, you might enjoy my page: 101+ ways to sound better playing harmonica (right now).

Study advice

I'm working more on theory, and practicing my chromatic harmonica more lately.

I was recently turned on to this website, and the first post I read was on How to be MORE Mediocre - obviously a "What NOT To Do" article, and very insightful.

William Clarke

A master at his craft. No finer Blues music in the world, ever, for my money. Clarke and Alex Schultz tear it up on this song. Both of them had such great improvisational ideas!

Dosey-doe

Ask me about this if you see me with it...

Harmonica Mastery Tools

Harmonica Mastery Tools is the sub-title of Richard Sleigh's website. If you play harmonica and haven't heard of Richard: where have you been?

Richard is an expert harmonica technician, producing some of the most coveted customized diatonic harmonicas anywhere. He's an amazing musician, playing both harmonica and guitar - and his harmonica skills are incredible - awesome tone, flawless technique, excellent feel and emotion. And Richard is a teacher, freely giving away his knowledge, and offering fee-based tutoring as well.

Please have a look at his website if you're even remotely interested in harmonica.

William Clarke LIVE

'Nuff said:

Woodshed apps for iPhone

What do iPhone apps have to do with harmonicas? Well, they're both hand-held, compact...OK seriously, I've found these apps to be pretty handy & thought you might, too.
Let me preface this by saying first: I'm not going to give you a thorough review of these apps. They're all in the app store. Read the reviews, try the free ones, decide for yourself. I just want to make you aware of some of the real, serious tools available to enhance your music experience.

Magic Stave
There's a free version of this you can try. This is a good one for those of us who struggle a little with reading. You play a note, MagicStave shows you where it is on the staff. Nice writing aid!

Cleartune
A real chromatic tuner! You don't have to use a Guitar tuner any more! There are lots of these in the app store - I like this one.

Beat Counter Pro
This one has a pretty simple user interface, a metronome with a variety of sounds, etc. Useful.

GigBaby Free
This is one of those multi-channel studio recorder apps. I haven't figured any of them out yet, I have this one, StudioApp and Studio Free. Honestly, I usually just capture something with iTalk until I can get home and use Audacity. But a lot of folks can get good results with one of the ones I mentionsd.

iRealBook
OK, true confession time: THIS is the app that motivated me to post today. This might be the coolest thing on my iPhone next to Safari (or FaceBook!).
The app comes with 900 songs. Now wait - you don't get the lead sheets like you do in a real RealBook - you get charts like the one at left. BUT... you also get an editor where you can create your own charts, a web-based editor (for PC-users), a MacOS editor (downloaded from their site), a help-forum, and a place (accessible from your phone) where you can DL MANY more songs. Did I mention that the app transposes for you? Did I mention that the transpositions are available written for a C, Bb, Eb, F and G based instruments???

But best of all, you now get accompaniment! That's right, the app PLAYS the accompaniment (per the chart). You get a decent-sounding Piano, Bass and Drums to play along with.

Is iRealBook the ultimate iPhone-based woodshedding tool?

For the price of an iTunes album ($9.99) plus an upgrade to the "Jazz Styles Pack" (more rhythm motifs for your player for $5.99), this is the most powerful tool I can think of in it's price range. If you're a musician and you own an iPhone, iTouch, or iPad, I can't say it strongly enough: you need this app! (iRealBook is available for ANDROID too)

The Price of Gasoline

So Many Videos

...so little space!

If you don't know who Kim Wilson is, you need to change your temporal address to the current millennium. If you don't know who Nathan James is, take notes, because he's the best damn traditional blues guitar player above ground, period.

These videos will be precious historic documents someday, showing Nathan as he is today - a great talent and still with more growing to do (he's going to be very big for a very long time)!

Yesterday Morning

Here's a very cool duet arrangement of Hazmat Modine's "Yesterday Morning" by Bill Barrett & Kevin Marin. I'd never heard of Kevin before seeing this video (& I thought I knew who most ALL of the good harmonica players were!). Kevin does a great job on this and another piece with Barrett. I'm going to be watching this dude to steal what I can from him! ;-)

Hazmat Modine is the coolest little big band you never heard of, lead by Wade Schuman. It may be the only "Blues & Roots-based" band that performs with TWO harmonicists, currently Schuman and Barrett (and formerly Schuman and Jazz master, author and teacher Randy Weinstein). Their unabashed enthusiasm for harmonica (using it as a primary lead voice x2), combined with very cool arrangements (including using a TUBA instead of string bass!) are a few of the reasons HazMO is my favorite band.
All of the musicians in this band are outstanding, but it's very rare to hear TWO harmonicists with the level of skill & creativity as Barrett/Schuman or Weinstein/Schuman. Hell, you rarely hear two harmonicists of this caliber in the same WEEK, let alone the same BAND! So click through after the video to find more stuff featuring:

Bill Barrett

Hazmat Modine

Randy Weinstein

Kevin Marin

Bill Barrett

If you don't know about Bill Barrett, watch this video and then go and research about him on YouTube and his website. Bill plays Avant-Punk-Jazz music on a specially tuned Chromatic harmonica (Tenor/Bebop for you harmonica geeks).
The man is an absolute virtuoso.

Learn all you can about his music - it'll make you a better player, I bet.

Update

I made a couple of adds & edits to the site recently; a new Friends listing over on the right includes some of my favorite local musicians and/or bands. Good listening material over there for you San Diegans (& others, too!).

Also updated is the Recommended Harmonica list of harmonica players you might not know about (but should).

Son o' Dave

Dude is just plain BONKERS...

Madcat!

Wow. 'Nuff said.

Pages

I just reworked my sites a little because Blogger has added the ability to create PAGES in a blog. Pages are static pages that always feature the same content rather than updating with the latest post. Pretty cool for longer articles, "about" pages, etc. Anyway, there's a widget over yonder on the right linking to my pages, AND I'll link them here for you as well:

101+ ways to sound better playing harmonica (right away)

Some interesting Harmonica-Related Links

Harmonica Lore

Harmonica Lessons available

Press about Dane Terry