Hook for Howlin' Wolf's Smokestack on Moanin' in Moonlight
Hi David,
How y'all doin?
I'm trying to get the hook in Howlin' Wolf's Smokestack Lightnin' on Moanin' in Moonlight, but I can't get it right.
Is this anywhere close? (at about 1:00)
2...2 2......2"2 2"2 2"3'3' 2 12 (45 after the 3rd time)
Can you help me out here? He is chording or playing double notes sometimes, so that might be messing me up.
Around 2:53 he seems to move it up an octave.....or something.... Any hint on that?
Thanks,
Annamarie
Here's what my ears hear. This is a challenging lick... it will take a lot of practice to get the nuance of it
3+ 2 2" - + - - 2 P 3+ then repeat
The 3+ is a pickup
Chords sound like
1st "-" Draw Chord = 1 2 3
"+" Blow Chord = 1+ 2+ 3+ 4+
2nd "-" = 1 2 3 4
3rd "-" = 1 2 3 4
Thanks, David. I will give it a shot.
The Hal Leonard Blues Harmonica book has some transcriptions for Howlin' Wolf, including Smokestack Lighting. I find that the tabs can be inaccurate and a bit simplified (it's pretty rare to find anyone other than Dave that puts pulls and other small nuances into transcriptions with 99% precision and accuracy), but it gives you a jumping off point when digging into a song. Lots of Sonny Boy Williamson II stuff in it also. I think going through the songs and marking up the transcriptions with corrections is actually a pretty valuable learning aid for me. After doing that for a while, I really noticed my awareness opening up when listening to harmonica music in my leisure non-study time. Adam Gussow has some transcriptions with lessons too that are kind of the same story. Any transcriptions you can find are valuable to some degree (except maybe some of the stuff on harmonicatabs.com).
Thanks, Ward. That's a great idea. Only a true harp connoisseur would appreciate harp notation that is inaccurate!
Muddy and Little Walter did this song too. Might wanna check that out.
Yup. Got those.
Sorry, wrong forum
I'll give a listen to it and get back to you...