Harmonica Book For Beginners Pdf
Otilia Mojarro
The other most important fundamental is: The Deep Relaxed Mouth Position. This means that the moist inner part of the lips is touching the cover plates of the harmonica.
After searching around on instructables, I didn't find any complete harmonica tutorials. There are quite a few good ones around the internet, but I thought there should be an instructable.
So. The harmonica is one of the easiest instruments to play, it sounds really cool, and can be used for a variety of musical styles. All right, maybe not too many musical styles, but it's fun to play anyway. So. Here we go.
Playing "bends" using the TILT Method
Start with the #4 draw (you can pick any note to start with but the general consensus seems to be that #4 draw is easiest). Remember that you must change the angle of the airflow over the reed to "bend" the note. So let's cheat a little bit and alter the angle of the harmonica rather than alter the airflow angle by changing your mouth, tongue, and throat. Hold the harmonica by the ends and then while playing a clean #4 draw. Tilt the back of the harmonica up towards your nose. Make sure that when you tilt the harmonica up that you continue to draw the air through the harmonica though you hadn't tilted it up.
- Do not let your head, mouth, and tongue follow the angle of the harmonica with your airstream, or you negate the effect of tilting the harmonica in the first place.
- REMEMBER: You must change the angle of airflow across the reed to make the note bend. This trick of physically tilting the harmonica up, will create the same change of angle that you must eventually learn to do with your mouth, tongue, and embouchure. If the harmonica pops out of your mouth, start over and make sure you have the harmonica placed far enough into your mouth so that it won't pop out.
- TILTING TIPS: The reed in each hole requires a different angle to achieve a bend. Generally speaking these angles look like this:
Hole #4 draw takes about a 45 degree change of airflow angle.
Hole #2 draw takes almost a 75 to 90 degree change of airflow angle
to get it to bend down a whole step.
Hole #3 draw takes an angle somewhere in between 45 and 90 degrees.
Experiment with the tilting technique until you get a change in pitch. When you start getting a "bend" stay with it until you can make a noticeable change in pitch. If you just can't seem to get #4 draw to "bend"....go ahead and try a different hole. If one practice session doesn't yield any "bends", call it a day and come back tomorrow. But whatever you do, don't give up.
Playing "bends" Without Tilting the Harmonica (recommended)
After you have reached the point of being able to get "bends" using the tilting method, it's time to start learning how to get the same sound without tilting. Tilting is OK to get the idea of "bends", but you won't be able to play very many songs if you're constantly tilting the harmonica around. You now must learn to change the shape of your mouth and tongue to simulate the same change in airflow that you got by tilting the harmonica. This is the most difficult harmonica technique to describe in words (and different people describe the same process differently) but here goes.
-Start by playing a single, clean, draw note.
-Push your lower jaw forward just a tiny bit.
-Push the tip of your tongue against your front bottom teeth.
-Arch your tongue towards the roof of your mouth.. (but don't arch so much that you cut off your ariflow).
-Draw (pull the air) a bit harder to compensate for the sharp airflow angle caused by your jaw and tongue changes.
-Caution: Don't draw too hard or you will move past "draw bend" to "overdraw bend".
-Do 2,3,4, and 5 as close to simultaneously as possible.
-Listen for the change in pitch (the "bend").
-Congratulations!
-Immediately after the bend, relax you jaw relax your tongue
-Return your tongue to it's regular place (at the bottom of your mouth)
Continue the draw, and the note should return to it's usual clean single note sound.
Your harmonica might have more than one key printed on it. On one side it probably says C, but on the other side, it might say G. Which key is it in? Your harmonica is technically in C, but you can play a different type of scale in the key of G.
The natural position of the harmonica (in this case, the key of C) is called first position or straight harp. Second position, or cross harp, is the key a fifth up from first position (G).
Why use different positions? Two reasons. First, they allow you to play in multiple keys on one harmonica. Second, it allows you two play scales other than the standard major scale. For example, if I wanted to play a blues scale in C, I would use a harmonica in the key of F.
Each position is a fifth up from the next. So, on a C harmonica, 1st position would be in the key of C, 2nd in G, 3rd in D, 4th in A, and 5th in E. You will rarely use anything beyond fifth position, and you will usually stick to 1, 2, and 4.
Major Diatonic: This is a 10 hole diatonic that is available in a wide range of keys. It is interchangeable with all of the Lee Oskar range, meaning that if you want to convert it to a harmonic minor, natural minor, or Melody Maker tuning, you need only change the reed plates. Made by Japanese harmonica specialists, Tombo, it is easy to bend and sounds great on blues riff in particular.
Chromatic harmonicas are generally bigger, more complex and more expensive than diatonics. They typically work by having two sets of reed plates stacked on top of each other, tuned a semi-tone apart. In most cases a spring loaded slide is used to direct the flow of air to the upper or lower holes, thereby enabling full chromaticism, and, to some extent, negating the need to buy multiple harmonicas in different keys (some chromatics are available in a range of keys, but this is related to their melodic range rather than their ability to play in specific keys).
Seydel Deluxe Chromatic: This is the only Seydel chromatic that falls within our budget. It is similar in feel to a Hohner Chromonica 48, but features an ABS comb, making it more suitable for players for whom moisture is an issue. Seydel also offer a similar model with longer lasting stainless steel reeds (the Deluxe Steel Chromatic) but this is significantly more expensive.
Look at the top of the diagram and see C. If we move one space clockwise, we have our cross-harp key of G! To find the cross-harp key for any harmonica, find the key of the harmonica on the Circle of Fifths, and move one space clockwise.
On the Circle of Fifths, I can just find the key of the Blues song, and move one space counter-clockwise. If you know the key of a Blues song and want to find which harmonica to use, find the key of the song on the Circle of Fifths, and move one space counter-clockwise.
If you are still wanting to get deeper into understanding the music theory of positions and tunings, check out our other awesome blog on the subject Bamboozled by Harmonica Keys? Harmonica Positions Explained.
Thinking about it the other way, if you want to choose a harmonica for an F Blues, you need to choose the Bb harmonica. And if you want to choose a harmonica for an F# Blues, you need to choose a B harmonica.
Hang in there, and keep coming back and reviewing the material as necessary, and, before you know it, things will start to come into better focus. Remember, the most important thing is to relax, have fun, and play!
I'll break down everything into component parts: every song, every lick. I'll explain slowly and patiently HOW the sounds are made. I'll show you how to keep a beat, and how to set melodies in motion.
This website can't substitute for a flesh-and-blood harmonica teacher--somebody who listens to you play and offers feedback, guiding your development in a hands-on way. But my videos, tabs, jam tracks, and music can take you far, if you're willing to put in the work.
SECOND, think about purchasing my BEGINNERS SPECIAL, a collection of four essential videos for beginners, with tabs thrown in for free. They come as one easy-to-download zip file. You can reach the purchase page by clicking the link below. The Beginner's Special contains the following files:
It you'd rather start out with a bigger bang for a few more bucks, try my BEGINNERS DELUXE. It includes all the materials in the Beginners Special plus the following videos, tabs, and jam tracks described below:
THIRD, if you'd like to dip your finger in the pond rather than plunging in, you might want to pick up one of the following videos and/or tabs for raw beginners. EVERY VIDEO requires no more than one harmonica in the key of C:
"Raw Beginners Start Here": For absolute novices. If you were my private student and you showed up for your first lesson, I'd spend most of our first hour together showing you the basics: How the harmonica is put together; how to hold the harp; how to play single notes; how to play your first scale; and how to troubleshoot several basic problems that raw beginners always confront.
"Tongue Blocking I": An introduction to one of the key techniques for blues harmonica players--the one that gives you the "big sound," including octaves, splits (such as the 25 draw), counter-rhythms, and a range of textural effects.
FOURTH, you'll need some jam tracks so you can take the licks and grooves I teach you and begin to put them into action. The jam tracks I offer feature a whole band in a music-minus-one format. You can find them HERE:
FIFTH, if there's one book I'd recommend to beginners, it's Blues Harmonica for Dummies by my longtime friend, Winslow Yerxa. Winslow isn't just a great player, but he's been teaching the harmonica at a very high level for a long time. Back in the early 1990s, as the publisher of a newsletter issued by his Harmonica Information Press, he was tabbing out Jon Popper's ridiculously fast solos--one of the many ways in which he served the harmonica community. He is the former president of SPAH: The Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica. BUY THIS BOOK!
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