Re: [Harp-L] Milestones

[Pierre <plavio@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Someone said once "learn
> to play the blues scales". The plurality confused me.

As you know, basic blues are made up of 3 chords the I7, IV7 and the V7 
chords. In the key of G, the band would play the G, C and D chords as part 
of the progression. When they change chords, its like changing scales in a 
sense. So a good thing to do is to switch scale (or arpeggio) to follow the 
progression. Other things you can do is play notes from each of the 3 major 
(or minor) scales. Also you can learn the individual notes of the chords and 
also play or emphasize those notes during each chord. Playing chord notes 
will give a chordal sound to the music, lots of Big Walter's playing is like 
that.

Now without overblows you can't play every note, but you can at least learn 
the notes you can play.

With respect to milestones, I wish there was a definitive list. I tend to 
float around. Based on my experience (do what I say, not what I do), I would 
say decide what your next step/level should be and to select exercises that 
will get you there. For example, you could say: "I want to be able to 
improvise a 12 bar blues in a public jam (or with friends) at a basic level 
and I want to eventually be really good at it".

- That would require good tone and really cool sounds
- Knowing the changes of the progression so you always know exactly what 
chord you are on.
- Know the scales and stuff mentioned above.
- Practice with CDs and jam tracks.
- Learn to be able to emphasize/de-emphasize any note without breaking 
stride. Practice doing scale and moving emphasized note each time up and 
down.
- Learn to swing phrases.
- Boogies, jump blues, train, ...
- Rhythm playing (chordal accompaniment)

You can add some exercises like trills, octaves etc. vibrato

There is a practice exercise on the Abersold site that shows how to prepare 
to improvise over a chord progression of any tune. I think the exercise they 
give is really good (it will make a musician out of you). You can get a free 
booklet that has the info in it. Some of it is online.

http://www.jazzbooks.com/miva/documents/handbook/09_tips_for_new_tunes.pdf

Some milestones:
Master the low half
Master the top half (Popper/sugar blue stuff)
Master the rest (OB/OD)

Hope this is helpful.

Pierre.


More free instruction:

http://www.jazzbooks.com/miva/jazz_handbook.htm




















----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bill Hines" <billhines4@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "'harp-l'" <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 10:57 AM
Subject: [Harp-L] Milestones


> Maybe some of you wizards out there can help to define milestones of
> learning harp, particularly in the blues genre, once one has learned the
> basics (clear single notes with good tone, all bends nailed
> consistently, etc), to get from intermediate to advanced level. What
> milestones would you folks recommend tackling? Someone said once "learn
> to play the blues scales". The plurality confused me. I can play the
> blues scale (with bends) on G using my C harp (and in E on my A harp,
> same holes :-). Does the plurality of that mean to learn all the blues
> scales on one harp, as a way to move toward different position
> playing/familiarity?
>
> Would you recommend as a milestone to be able to play a certain fairly
> challenging song clearly (please don't say Juke :-)? Or to play a
> certain level song in the first three positions on a harp? Overblows? I
> want to move to the next level, and like the idea of tackling and
> achieving exercises to do so. I'm sure others feel the same way, so any
> feedback from the great teachers out there (Dennis? Iceman?) would be
> very welcome.
>
>
>
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