Re: [Harp-L] Harmonica Progress

[Eric Nielsen <ericbarnak@xxxxxxxxx>]

I am trying to progress my playing and get out of a rut. I am wondering if
there is any one thing or multiple things people did (ie. scale exercises,
tone exercise, or general training exercise) that really elevated their
playing?

Any and all answers will help!
Kevin



Hi Kevin

To get out of a rut, climb out and try a different path. For instance, If
one usually plays a lot of blues, then start working on some fiddle tunes
or Eastern European music, or...whatever. Learning new genres of music will
stretch your technique and add to your musical knowledge.

 I'm assuming that you play a diatonic harmonica. If you haven't already,
learn how to play it chromatically. Learn the overbends, or use one of the
newer blues harps that give you all the notes. This wil give you a larger
playground to run around.

Learn from other instruments. I often translate jazz guitar tab into
harmonica tab and try to play the same lines. It's challenging, and forces
me to play things I would never invent on my own. I probably got the
inspiration for this approach from Richard Hunter's book, *Jazz Harp*. If I
remember correctly, he tabbed out some King Curtis saxophone solos for
harmonica

You can even learn a lot from chromatic harmonica. I've tabbed out the
exercises from Cham  Ber Huang's* Blues and All That Jazz *to play them on
the diatonic harp.

Keep challenging yourself. There's lots to learn. But above all, enjoy and
have fun doing it.

Eric N