Tip of the Day: Effective Lick Practice (Lesson 3)

Why?

1) Listen - No playing... no humming... just listen.

Why: Just appreciate the lick for what the lick has to offer... what its essence is.

2) Hum - This personalizes/internalizes the lick... learning the rhythm and contour of the lick before you pick up your harmonica.

Why: If you play ON TOP of the music right away it will take longer and be less accurate to learn... it's like the saying, "How can you listen if you're talking?" make sense?

3) Practice - Stop the loop and practice it. Using your provided music work on the blows, draws, bends, movement... everything related to performing that lick on your harmonica. Do this until you can get close to the rhythm of the lick in your memory for further practice.

Why: Again, separate the learning process into chunks. Now you're working on your machine, to later produce the "music" on your harmonica.

4) Listen Once, Play Once - You ARE practicing when you're listening to the music. Though I and others like to use the phrase "muscle memory," it is really your brain controlling and firing the proper nerve pathways that fire the muscles needed to perform this action. You WILL learn FASTER and more ACCURATELY by Listening Once, Playing Once... following this system. Once you feel that you have the lick, don't stop the Listening Once, Playing Once practice again. Now you can focus on often-missed dynamics, tremolo/vibrato, articulation, tone, and more.

Why: Your main goal now is to get the rhythm and performance elements dialed in. Again, you can't REALLY get the nuances of the rhythm down if you're playing on top of the music. Most non-professionals lack the discipline to DEEPLY listen to the music enough times to hear ALL of the elements going on in the music... pitch, duration, articulation, dynamics (volume), tone, tremolo/vibrato, hand usage, etc. This is your chance to listen and try!