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David's Tip of the Day: Quick Reference Guide for LOA Levels

Posted Wed, 06/12/2013 - 09:15 by David Barrett Admin
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Here's a quick reference guide for all of the material in the Levels of Achievement program:
http://www.bluesharmonica.com/sites/bluesharmonica.com/files/private/loa...

What's New: Level's of Achievement

Posted Tue, 06/11/2013 - 22:43 by David Barrett Admin
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Just released today... think of it as earning a Black Belt for the Blues Harmonica. Two years of work has gone into this... my focus is to help students of BluesHarmonica navigate the material through the site and motivate you along the way. Best wishes to everyone as you advance through the levels! http://www.bluesharmonica.com/levels-of-achievement

David's Tip of the Day: Super-Bend Practice Harmonicas

Posted Tue, 06/11/2013 - 05:02 by David Barrett Admin
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Grab a C and G Harmonica of the same brand and model. Take their blow reed plates and swap them. The harmonica with the C draw reed plate will bend on all draw notes... the one with the C blow reed plate will bend on all blow notes. These two special harmonicas will help you to focus on similar technique between blow and draw bending.

David's Tip of the Day: Kid Anderson Quote

Posted Mon, 06/10/2013 - 09:00 by David Barrett Admin
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Cool quote from Kid Anderson (producer, recording engineer and guitarist with Rick Estrin, Charlie Musselwhite, etc.) on the Hold The Eyes Images Podcast from 2/9/13.

1:00:50 "There's two types of good musicians. There's the guys who get up there and play what they've learned, and then there's the guys who get up there and play what they feel."

Also listen to 1:02:30 on the issues with players getting up on the bandstand a bit early in their learning process.

Hold The Eyes Images Podcasts
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/hold-the-eye-images/id363484296

David's Tip of the Day: Bending & Real-Time Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Posted Fri, 06/07/2013 - 08:46 by David Barrett Admin
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The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (Volume 133 / Issue 5 / ICA 2013 MONTRÉAL) released the basics of the MRI study we've been doing on the bending process. I'll now start work on a detailed paper of our findings (with VERY cool images of the bending process).
http://asadl.org/jasa/resource/1/jasman/v133/i5/p3590_s1?bypassSSO=1

Peter R. Egbert1, Lewis K. Shin1, David Barrett1, Thomas D. Rossing2, and Andrew Holbrook3
1School of Med., Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA
2School of the Blues, San Jose, CA continue reading...

David's Tip of the Day: Playing Bluesy or Light - Tip #4: Grooves

Posted Thu, 06/06/2013 - 07:06 by David Barrett Admin
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From your list of memorized instrumentals and solos, you wrote down what the grooves were. Within each groove, licks are contained that have a light feel, a dark feel and combinations, depending on what the band is playing to create that groove. Lighter notes tend to be chosen for Swings and Rhumbas (E's and B's), where Box Shuffles and Slow Blues will tend to use more bluesy notes (F's and B-flat's). continue reading...

David's Tip of the Day: Playing Bluesy or Light - Tip #3: Vocabulary

Posted Wed, 06/05/2013 - 06:29 by David Barrett Admin
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Tips #1 and #2 are predicated on two facts... 1) That you have some lick vocabulary... and... 2) You're able to track where you are on the harmonica at all times (know what hole or pitch you're playing), so that you can change a lick dynamically to follow the guidelines we spoke of (E for Light = 2+, 5+ and 8+ and F for Bluesy = 2", 5 and 9). continue reading...

David's Tip of the Day: Playing Bluesy or Light - Tip #2: B or Bb

Posted Tue, 06/04/2013 - 06:18 by David Barrett Admin
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Here is the other way to easily control whether you're playing bluesy or light in 2nd Position. The 3 (B on the C Harmonica) is light and the 3' (Bb) is bluesy. So... if you want your licks to sound bluesy, choose the 3' over the 3. If you want your licks to sound light, use 3 over the 3'.

The ability to play the 3' at ANY SPEED and in ANY DIRECTION (ascending or descending) is paramount for the harmonica player.

David's Tip of the Day: Playing Bluesy or Light - Tip #1: E or F

Posted Mon, 06/03/2013 - 07:23 by David Barrett Admin
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There are two ways to easily control whether you're playing bluesy or light in 2nd Position. Today I'll talk about one of them. The 5+ (E on the C Harmonica) is light and the 5 (F) is bluesy. So... if you want your licks to sound bluesy, choose the 5 over the 5+. If you want your licks to sound light, use 5+ over the 5.

These relationships also occur in different octaves. For playing bluesy choose the 2" F over the 2+ E... and vice-verse... and 9 F over the 8+ E... and vice-verse.

To sum up... use draw for bluesy (F) and blow for light (E).

What's New: Mark Hummel Submission #27 - The Writing of Big Road Blues

Posted Sat, 06/01/2013 - 10:13 by David Barrett Admin
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In this submission I ask Mark to share his experiences writing the book "Big Road Blues."