shake trill warble harmonica harp blues technique

Now that you've practiced having your nose centered between the two holes you're performing the shake on, we can use this as a tool to get better at doing shakes across the range of the harmonica. Let's first focus on general movement on the harmonica. continue reading...

The Shake (also known as a Warble or Trill) is one of the all-time great sounds on the harmonica. The shake is used as a substitution for a single note. Using the 4 draw for example... play the 4 draw first, and then move to the 5, and then back to the 4, repeating the process (4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 etc.). The speed of the shake is up to you, but generally floats in rhythm somewhere between that of a triplet and sixteenth-note triplet. You can move your head, hands or both for the shake... this is up to you... but you may find choosing one (head or hands) and sticking to it best. continue reading...

Okay, here were are... sorry about missing yesterday... blues harmonica land has been very busy! I analyzed the wave forms in "My Blues" with Pro Tools and found that the most common rhythm was 5 tremolo or flutter pieces per beat... a couple examples were 4.5... so this confirms that they are NOT fixed to a basic triplet rhythm. The shake was 6 pieces (6 combinations of 4 and 5) so this DOES confirm that the shake is fixed to the triplet (in this case sixteenth note triplet) rhythm. This was a fun project!

Listen to "My Blues" in the Bending Study 4. Included in this song are Shakes, Flutters, Tremolo and Vibrato. Listen to the speed/frequency of each one of these and we'll discuss this on Monday. Have a great weekend!

One of the great signature sounds of the harmonica is the shake (also known as warble or in classical terms a trill). This is where you play the 4 draw for example and move up to the 5 draw, alternating between the two, either fast or slow, depending on the affect you're going for (usually fast).

A clean shake is where you move from one to the other, never both at the same time... this is generally the primary shake used by players. continue reading...