Beginning questions
Hi there,
so I received a code for bluesharmonica.com with my Hohner marine band. Checking out the lessons and the website.
I also have a Lee Oskar, Fender delux blues, Hohner blues band.
Just some questions I have thought of.
Why do you teach with a key of A harmonica, not a C like most instructors?
you teach tongue blocking straight off the bat, others introduce it as a more intermediate level techniqu, why so early in the course?
How does one order / obtain the TBT outside the US?
The website says they don't ship outside the US.
Im in Australia.
Thank you
Tom
Get ready for another long answer...
The short answer first…
You want tongue blocking to be your default embouchure… it offers the most options for technique and because the vast majority of the great masters used it (John Lee Williamson, Rice Miller, Little Walter, Walter Horton, George Smith, James Cotton, etc.), as well as the players that followed them (Kim Wilson, Rod Piazza, William Clarke, Rick Estrin, Mark Hummel, Gary Smith, etc.), to play their material, you’ll need to use tongue blocking.
The looong explanation…
When tongue blocking, your mouth is commonly surrounding four holes, with the tongue blocking the three to the left (this is for holes 4 and above, you’ll use less holes to play holes 3 and 2). When your tongue is on the harmonica, you’re playing a single note, just like pucker. With this in mind, the tongue block is the same as the pucker… with both embouchures you’re playing a single note.
The advantage of tongue blocking is in the fact that when your tongue travels off of the harmonica, a chord sounds. This opens up a whole world of sounds that the blues harmonica player utilizes within every lick that they play.
The default way a blues harmonica player presents a note is to start with their tongue off (sounding a chord) and then quickly placing their tongue on the harmonica. This is called a Slap. This quick-sounding chord to single note gives the harmonica a bigger sound. You can also move your tongue in and out quickly (called a Flutter Tongue) and the result is a very cool, organ-like wash of sound on your longer-held notes.
The next most common technique has the tongue traveling off of the harmonica for upbeats (where your foot is off the floor… the opposite of the more predictable downbeat). These Lifts and Pulls (the pull is an articulated version of the lift… you’ll learn this later in your studies) add rhythmic drive to your playing and is a huge part of how blues harmonica players get the amazing swing feel to their playing.
The last most common technique (there are many cool tongue block-specific sounds, but these are the main ones), is the Octave. The octave is where you place your tongue in the middle (commonly blocking two holes), to sound a note to the left (1 blow C on a C Harmonica for example) and a note on the right (4 blow C for example). Playing these two notes together give you a huge sound, commonly used by players to mimic the sound of a horn section.
These main techniques are full in sound (due to the mixture of chords with your single notes) and offer a tremendous variety of sound while playing. Since we play an instrument with limited pitches (the diatonic harmonica does not have all of the pitches available to it that other instruments do), these varieties in sound are hugely important in order to keep our music interesting.
Lastly, all pucker players (if they are skilled players) that you hear talk about puckering in forums, and on YouTube, also use tongue blocking (remember, many techniques are only available in a tongue block). The reason why these players use pucker as their primary embouchure is because they didn’t know about tongue blocking (good lesson material on blues harmonica didn’t start to come out until the mid 90’s) or for some reason discounted it as being strange, and now have to use two different embouchures to get the job done. The main reason why players will commonly use two embouchures instead of just tongue blocking is that they learned how to bend in a pucker. Learning how to bend takes a lot of time, and since they learned how to bend in a pucker, they end up using puckering when they bend and tongue block when they want to use tongue block-exclusive techniques (this commonly means to pucker holes 1 through 3 and tongue block from holes 4 to 10… switching to pucker any time they bend, and then back to tongue block if they’re playing holes 4 and above). I was that player. I took the time to learn how to bend in a tongue block as well (it took a year of diligent daily practice), so now I don’t have to switch embouchures. For you, it’s a no-brainer, just tongue block everything and you don’t have to think about where to switch embouchures or learn how to do the same things in two different embouchures.
Again, I was that player, and at a certain point it just made sense to me to use one embouchure all the time. Tongue blocking can do everything that puckering can do (minus some interesting articulations, since the tongue is free from the face of the harmonica… like the cool Udle-ladle-lalde sounds Junior Wells plays in “Hoodoo Man Blues” for example), so it just made sense to play in a tongue block all the time (like the vast majority of the traditional blues masters).
For all of these reasons, I teach my students to tongue block from the beginning, and this will save you time. Student that learn tongue blocking from the beginning commonly have better tone, have more options in sound to them earlier on, and completely skip the issue that occurs around the four-year mark that mentioned before, where you have to learn tongue block techniques, as well as bending, to play what the masters played.
In regards to the TBT, I will ask Joe Filisko. Here are directions on how to build your own in the mean time https://www.filiskostore.com/files/1900363/uploaded/Tongue%20Block%20Tra...
Fantastic. Thanks for fast replies. Somethings there I thought of or thought might be part of the reason. Well explained thank you.
Are the LOA lessons the same as the lessons in the lessons section?
Differences?
How much does access cost once the free Hohner one month trial ends?
is everything available (videos) for download to work offline or make it portable with devices?
Thank you
My pleasure.
LOA is a suggested lesson plan.
$16.95 a month
Lesson videos cannot be downloaded, but lesson PDFs and MP3s can.
Contact me at https://www.bluesharmonica.com/contact_us and I'll send you info on ordering the TBT.
Hello Tom, welcome to the site. Your first inquiry is a common one, so a while ago I sat down to explain why I chose the A harmonica for my beginning instruction (below). I'll answer your other questions in a moment...
Simply put, we have 12 keys of harmonica… eventually you’ll need to buy all twelve to copy other harmonica players and jam to music, but of course we have to start with one. Which harmonica we use doesn’t really matter (as long as it’s not tuned too low or high… the far extremes of harmonica keys bring their own challenges). I chose the A harmonica, since it’s commonly the most often used harmonica key in the blues (it has a nice warm tone, and the key matches other musicians well). Below is more detailed information if you choose to read on.
Why does BluesHarmonica.com use the A harmonica for the majority of its instruction?
The A harmonica is the most common harmonica used in blues. If you were to go to a jam session or sit in at a buddy’s gig, the harmonica you would throw in your pocket would commonly be the A harmonica.
The harmonica that you first learn will be the key of harmonica you’ll be most comfortable playing for a while, so it’s beneficial to have your “go-to harp” be the common A harmonica.
It’s especially helpful to use the A harmonica when learning the important technique of bending. If students first learn how to bend on a high-keyed harmonica, such as the C harmonica or above, they often struggle when trying to play the more common lower-keyed harmonicas in the blues, like G, A and Bb.
Why does BluesHarmonica.com incorporate the use of other keys of harmonica in its lessons fairly early on?
Instruments are commonly designed to play all twelve tones in music and can thus play in all twelve keys. It takes time for instrumentalists to learn their scales (which notes are, and are not, associated with a given key) and ultimately master the ability to move around on their instrument fluidly within each key. This takes a lot of practice over time, but it’s a common necessity.
Harmonicas are designed to only play in one key, requiring you to purchase twelve keys of harmonica to play the full range of music. G, A, Bb (B-flat), C, D and F (commonly Low-F) harmonicas are the most commonly used and constitute what we consider to be a standard set.
It may seem like a bummer to have to purchase multiple keys to play the harmonica, but here are three reasons why it’s not that bad…
1) Since a harmonica is tuned to the notes of only one key, all of the “wrong” notes have been removed, making it one of the easiest instruments to make music on quickly.
2) To change keys, you just change harmonicas—playing the same blows, draws, movements and techniques. The necessity of memorizing the notes associated with each key no longer becomes pertinent, making it one of the easiest instruments to play music with other musicians.
3) A good quality harmonica (that’s also used by some pros) is the Hohner Special 20 and currently sells for $37, making your set of harmonicas $222. Using the cost of a trumpet for comparison (it’s right in the middle of the cost spectrum for a band instrument), a good quality entry-level trumpet made by Yamaha currently sells for $1,171. Even though you have to buy a set of harmonicas to play music, it’s still a very inexpensive instrument.
There are challenges to playing the different keys of harmonica, and its best to get used to playing these different keys early on. Some songs, and approaches to playing, simply sound better on particular keys of harmonica. The chordal style of solo harmonica playing (Solo Harmonica Study lessons) sounds great on the low keys of harmonica, and thus the G harmonica is a great choice. Lastly, it’s nice to have this common set in order to play along with the various songs you have in your music collection.
Why is the C harmonica most often recommended by music stores and musicians?
Most new musicians start out by learning scales on their instrument, and the first scale that’s commonly taught is the C Major Scale. The C major scale does not contain any sharps or flats (those notes represented by the black keys on the piano). This makes it an easy scale to start with and to remember and understand.
As I pointed out earlier, harmonicas already come in specific keys, and the learning of one key over the other has no merit for us... we play each harmonica the same. 4+ 4 5+ (4 blow, 4 draw and 5 blow) for example creates the first three notes of the C major scale on the C major harmonica. Playing 4+ 4 5+ on the A harmonica creates the first three notes of the A major scale. It’s the same for each key of harmonica; this is why if you can play one harmonica, you can play them all.
Due to the bias that comes from other instruments to start in the key of C, most harmonica companies manufacture their budget-priced introductory harmonicas in the key of C. This is not really a problem for us, the C harmonica is one of the common harmonicas you’ll use anyways, you just wont use it in your earlier lessons.
If you were directed to purchase the C harmonica, and that’s all you have, I provide the C Harmonica Intro Lesson (http://www.bluesharmonica.com/lessons/c_harmonica_intro_lesson) so you can get started now while you wait for your A and G harmonicas to come in the mail.
Summary
Harmonicas come in all twelve keys. To play in a given key, you simply grab the appropriate harmonica and away you go. Each harmonica is approached the same—same blows, draws, bends and techniques—the harmonica does the key change for you. We start with the A Harmonica because it’s the most common harmonica used in blues. The common keys of harmonica are G, A, Bb, C, D and F. To learn this instrument, and play along with the majority of your blues music selections, you’ll need these keys. You can purchase these as you need them, or purchase them now so you have all the keys covered.