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Professor John Shirley has created "BlueDadi Harmonica Recording Software" to help BluesHarmonica.com students do quick recordings of themselves with the best harmonica tone possible. John has provided two videos for you to watch to get to know the software. Please watch these videos, read the provided PDF and spend time experimenting with everything in the program. Since John has created this on his free time and is not doing this for profit, there is no additional support for this program... have fun experimenting and seeing what you can creatively do. Thanks John!

In Ryan's latest lesson he plays the Bending Study 5 song "Half Steppin'" for my review, learns the fine points of blow bending and we finish Accompaniment Study 9, Due playing. In our next lesson we'll dig into 1st Position playing.

How do you tell the listener that what you're playing is important?... you repeat it.

If you're not using repetition, you're telling the listener that what you're playing is not worth remembering.

If it's not worth remembering, then it's forgettable.

Who wants to play music that's forgettable?

In Hob's latest lesson he plays the entire tongue block study song Temperature (focus on slaps) for me and I critique. I teach hob the bending technique of the dip and how to breathe through his nose as a pressure relief valve while playing the harmonica (as well as learning how to close the nose on inhale notes so that he doesn't fill up with air). He learns what the note layout is on the major diatonic harmonica and why the notes were ordered in the way they are. Finally we talk about the difference between 1st and 2nd Positions and we play common accompaniment lines in the 12 Bar Blues. continue reading...