Re: [Harp-L] Bluegrass Harmonica



I became serious about bluegrass harmonica around 17 years ago. I'd started attending Australian bluegrass festivals, wanted to join in, but could not. The reason: I didn't know the tunes.

The bluegrass fiddle tune repertoire, or part thereof, is the pass key to bluegrass sessions, in my view. We have some wonderful bluegrass fiddle tune exponents on the list, Cara Cooke and Trip Henderson come to mind (I've met and played with both of them).

Anyway, around 1995 I started learning the tunes, after several years I could play a good selection, more or less. Everyone has their own journey through bluegrass tunes, mine was via retuned harmonicas.

It's easier now, through good online advice. At the risk of self promotion (...who? me?), here are some of my pointers on getting started with bluegrass fiddle tunes for harmonica

- http://www.harmonicatunes.com/traditional - articles on the basic bluegrass fiddle tune repertoire, how to approach learning, tempos etc

- http://www.HarmonicaAcademy.com - my teaching site, which, as far as I know, has the most detailed outline of how to play fiddle tunes in 1st, 2nd and 3rd position, with exercises, repertoire, backing tracks etc. Happy to be corrected on this, but nonetheless a good resource, I think.

Tony Eyers
Australia
www.HarmonicaAcademy.com
...everyone plays



This archive was generated by a fusion of Pipermail 0.09 (Mailman edition) and MHonArc 2.6.8.