RE: [Harp-L] tabs

["Bill Hines" <billhines4@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Chris,

I was not too long ago where you are. If you just want to learn the
songs, and they are the classic chicago songs from those folks, the get
the tab books by David McKelvy ("Blues Harmonica Collection") and Glenn
Weiser ("Masters of the Blues Harp"). They are note-for-note
transcriptions. Glenn, for one hangs out here. You will need the
matching studio cuts also, they don't come with these books. Or use
google and search on something like '"Help Me" "Harmonica|Harp" tab'.
Mark Purintam here has a great site (http://www.harpinanawhinin.com/)
with all harp tabs and midi cuts, and there's another site that has some
good free stuff and other stuff you pay for (www.harmonicalessons.com I
think).

HOWEVER, when I went this route early in my learning curve, I was pretty
frustrated and the reason was that I really didn't have the techniques
yet required to pull this off, such as precise bending at speed, various
techniques (split intervals, slaps, etc) that require different
embouchures (tongue block, pucker) and so forth. 

Eventually, I would have got it enough to play these challenging cuts.
Someone said here once (a quote I loved) that if you give someone a bag
of clubs and turn them loose on a golf course day after day eventually
they will learn to be a pretty good golfer (if they stick with it and
are persistent). But with good instruction, that path would likely be
*much* faster and more rewarding along the way. So I turned to some of
the great instructional material out there. David Barrett's Classic
Chicago Blues Harp book/cd sets (two separate volumes - one and two) was
a *great* resource. In there, he builds up the skill technique and then
has you apply them in different passages. Then when you are ready, he
has you apply them to some classis songs such as "I'm Ready" and "Baby
Please Don't Go". He gives you the cuts both with his harp on it and
without. I still remember how thrilled I was to be able to play along
with those classic cuts *correctly*, moving to the right chord and
inserting David's killer solo passages. 

Then there's also local instructors who can customize your route, or
some of the great instructors here that will do your lessons over the
internet using skype and webcams, etc. Check your instructor out with a
trial run before getting locked into a long-term agreement. The
instructor may be good but your personalities don't jive. Or as often
happens, they might be a great harp player but not such a good teacher.
They are two very different skills. Jon Gindick has some great material
out there too. Jerry Portnoy's 3-cd set is excellent, more cd than book.
And of course the *ton* of excellent stuff by Adam Gussow where he shows
you how to play some of these cuts as well as his own from Satan & Adam
and cool stuff like Whammer Jammer. Jason Ricci, Barrett, Gindick, and
many others have youtube cuts out there for free. You can have a lot of
fun and comradery at get-togethers like the jam camps and seminars that
folks like Gindick and Barrett hold.

Bill Hines
Hershey, PA

-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Chris Reynolds
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2008 8:14 PM
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Harp-L] tabs


I'm still new to playing, even though I played as a kid I only recently
got back into it. I've been focused on playing blues because it's my
favorite style of music. I've found however that I've already gotten
into a rut of playing the same things each time I practice so I was
wondering where would be a good source of harp tabs for the blues greats
like little walter, big walter, sonny boy 1 and 2, etc. I appreciate the
info. 
 
Chris
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