Any Recommendations on a Rock Songbook for diatonic harp
Hello everyone,
I have been learning to play the blues harp for 3 years now on this website. Now, I started playing along with some friends that play the guitar and we were wondering if there is any good rock classics songbook for harp so that we have some variety apart from playing blues.Is there any good recommendation?
Thank you for your help!
Many greetings from Germany,
Adriana
The problem with songbooks is that the publisher has to pay royalties to many different copyright holders, so it gets expensive, and publishers aren't eager to spend that kind of money.
One book that was published several years ago is the songbook to the Blues Traveler album "four." I transcribed all of John Popper's solos om that album for that book, but it's ben out of print for a long time and may be hard to find (no, I can't provide a copy).
What I might suggest is that you seek out records made by rock bands that use blues-based harmonica, very often played in second position using basic blues technique and vocabulary. Bands and artists include the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Huey Lewis and the News, Bruce Willis (yes, the actor, who's a pretty good harp player), Cyndi Lauper, who in recent years has featured Charlie Musselwhite, the Allman Brothers, the Doobie Brothers, and Ozzy Osbourne. There are probably other major acts I'm forgetting or don't know about, along with various younger bands that play blues-rock.
Winslow: Might Lee Oskar (with War or The Lowrider Band) also qualify as suitable rock harp listening?
These options work if you live in the USA. If you're in Europe things will be different and the library option might not be so simple. But anyway...
If you are looking for a long-out-of-print book (like some of the transcription books David got published which no longer are on sale), there are two things you can do if you want to get a copy. The first one, check second hand booksellers and sometimes you will find the book you want, although the state of the book and the price will vary a LOT. For example, I found Winslow's book at https://www.stevensbooks.com/products/blues-traveler-four?variant_id=8943202 for $71 and https://library.alibris.com/booksearch?wtit=9780897245845 at prices varying from $195 to $18 (?), I assume depending on the condition.
The second one is, use your local public library.
What? Your library doesn't have that book? No problem. There's something called Interlibrary Loans (ILL) which most libraries support one way or another (and, you can always try another library nearby), with which you can, if you find a copy of the book you want in a remote library (using https://www.worldcat.org), ask your library to temporarily get it for you. There might be a small fee, but you can many books that way.Once you have them, given we are in the 21st century and the publish is no longer interested in putting more prints in the market, my philosophy is that it's OK to preserve them for yourself, and it's not like we don't carry tools in our own pockets which can be used for that, or things we print with that also have the inverse function, if you know what I mean (now, if you do that, please be nice and do not harm a book which is already old and scarce).
Eg: the book Winslow refers to is this one https://www.worldcat.org/title/33988178. I can see that there are some copies in UCAL, Chicago and New York. You could borrow the book and preserve it yourself.
Hal Leonard publishes their play-along books and at least one of them I have seen is for rock harmonica.
https://www.halleonard.com/product/478/pop-rock
https://www.halleonard.com/product/479/rock-hits
It's not too many songs (check the song list) and I can't comment on the content, you'll need to read some online reviews and make your decision. But it's something.
They also have this which is not harmonica specific, but has the melodies so I guess you could use to jumpstart your own arrangements?
https://www.halleonard.com/product/240310/the-ultimate-rock-pop-fake-book
I suppose you could include Lee under the general heading of popular music. I don't really think of WAR as rock in the same way as, say, Aerosmith. But yeah, he's an iconic player.
Thank you for all your aswers! I checked them out. The books are not available in Europe but I found some cool instruction videos in YouTube of the songs you recommend. And I found the book " The Ultimate Harmonica Songbook" from halleonard, that you have mentioned!!! Thank you very much! This book offers 114 songs and riffs for harps, almost exactly what I was looking for.
Greets from Germany,
Adriana
is the book any good ? could be exactly what I need
Adriana: I recently watched a video interview of Adam Gussow by Dennis Gruenling. When asked about his favorite current rock harp players, Gussow struggled a bit, as the harmonica isn't currently known that much as a rock instrument, and that some rock artists who do play harp in shows are really better known for vocals or other instruments. But then Will Wylde's name came up. He is definitely a rocker. You may very well already be following him, but if not, check out his YouTube stuff, some of which is intended to be instructional. You may also know about the tuning system he developed that Seydel is offering on some it its models, where he's tinkered with the tuning on the upper octave. Interesting stuff.
Adriana:
I don't know about the book itself, tho' I know Jon Gindick. His book Rock n' Blues Harmonica: A World of Harp Knowledge, Songs, Stories, Lessons, Riffs, Techniques and Audio Index for a New Generation of Harp Players, might be the kind of thing you're looking for. It's available via Jon's website at https://gindick.com/jons-shop/jon-gindicks-downloads/, and also available on Amazon. Jon's a good teacher, so this book might point you in the right direction.
Other than that, it's difficult to suggest anything, as "rock classics" covers a lot of ground, and there aren't a lot of classic rock songs that feature harmonica the way a lot of blues styles do. It's fairly easy to find chord tabs on line for most well-known rock songs (or just ask your guitarist what chords he or she is playing), and from there you should be able to improvise melodies and riffs that work. E.g., review David's lessons that deal with scales, and you can figure out whether the song is in a three-chord blues style (e.g., the Beatles' "She's a Woman," wonderfully covered blues-style by Big Harp George on his new CD), or uses a four-chord doo-wap style, e.g., the Penguins' 1950s classic "Earth Angel," which uses the popular I-vi-IV-V sequence.
Re "... apart from blues," don't forget that "The blues had a baby, and they called it rock n' roll"!
Good luck!