slow

Since the art of harmonica playing is mostly hidden from view, we spend the majority of our time listening when studying. To make this more convenient, you can take the same YouTube video and convert it to an audio file to use in your preferred audio program. Copy the URL from the YouTube video and Paste it into Media Human's YouTube to MP3 Converter software (http://www.mediahuman.com/youtube-to-mp3-converter/). Click on the download arrow and it downloads the video's audio into your iTunes library. continue reading...

Go to a favorite YouTube performance you've been interested in learning and click on Settings (gear icon at bottom right-hand side of screen), click on Speed and then select .5 (half speed) or .25 (one quarter the original speed). Pitch will remain the same when slowed down. This is a great tool to study songs from YouTube.

In this video you hear Gary Smith rehearse the band and record his slow blues vocal tune "Up All Night With The Blues."

In these two videos we record the slow blues instrumental heavily influenced by George "Harmonica" Smith titled "Dark Night." Pianist Steve Lucky joins the recording crew for this and two more songs.

I was playing to a slow blues jam track many years ago and was frustrated at the way I sounded.

I went to my well of inspiration and listened to slow blues solos performed by Gary Smith. I noticed that the last note of each of his phrases was held (with a vibrato commonly) and the volume decayed slowly until the next phrase. It didn’t sound as if he actually stopped any of his last notes… they either disappeared into the mist of the noise floor of the band (maybe he was still playing, but I couldn’t hear it?) or he decayed to the point of almost stopping and he started his next phrase. continue reading...

Take a listen at 25 minutes where they speak of our tendency to speed up for slower tempos and slow down for faster tempos.

The Power of Music
http://www.wnyc.org/radio/#/ondemand/332637