time

A common question I get asked is how fast 4/4 time is. The 4/4 at the beginning of a line of music doesn't indicate the tempo of a song, it indicates how many beats are in a bar (4 in this case) and which note value receives the beat (quarter note in this case). This 4/4 is what's known as the Time Signature.

Tempo is up to the player, even when playing a known song. continue reading...

It’s challenging to perform a piece of music. There are techniques (precise bending, tongue blocking, articulation, etc.), movement (conjunct and disjunct), dynamics (volume and tonal), rhythm (individual licks and their chaining together into phrases) and everything else involved in playing a particular piece of music well. continue reading...

A student asked how I would structure an 8 hour a day practice routine. I thought you would appreciate seeing this...

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Assuming I was where you're at right now, this is how I would structure my practice day...

1) 15m - Warm up playing scales: Major Pentatonic and Blues Scale for each chord of the three positions (C, G, D, A) across the entire range of the harmonica.

2) 15m - Arpeggios: Major, Minor and 7th Chords from of all the chords based on the home scale in three positions (C, G and D scales) continue reading...

The key word yesterday was "gift," to "gift myself enough time to get bored." Our daily lives are full with responsibilities, so we naturally have to allot specific times for our various activities, with our practice sessions commonly starting and ending at prescribed times. This scheduling is part of what makes us successful, but some practice sessions should give you hours instead of minutes. When I was a teenager that was easy to do, I had hours on hours of time to do as I pleased. continue reading...

Space... it's the most simple and effective way to stay in time. Leave more space in your playing. This is accomplished in two ways...

1) Space in the form of rest between phrases, where you're not playing.

2) Space in the form of long holds, where you play a note for a bar or longer.

Both types of space give you the opportunity to listen to where you are in the form and make micro-adjustments between phrases.

It can be challenging at times to anticipate when chord change is going to happen in a song. Maybe the tune has very smooth transitions between chords (no telegraphing) or the volume mix of the instruments on stage is such that it makes it hard to hear the collective chord change. continue reading...