Lessons - Blues Harmonica Quick Start

Check the Links page for more advanced instruction pages, also please take some time to download the MIDI to tablature player.

Chapter 0: Introduction.
Chapter 1: Definitions.
Chapter 2: Mastering the major diatonic scale, playing the Can-Can on the middle register.
Chapter 3: Playing bluesy, introduction to low (draw) bends.
Chapter 4: Controlling some draw bends, playing the Can-Can on the low register.
Chapter 5: Introduction to the blues structure. The 12 bar blues and chord progressions.
Chapter 6: The blues scale (check this file for the blues scale in al 12 positions).
Chapter 7: Some licks.
Chapter 8: Advanced playing, playing chromatically.
Appendix A: Suggestions for further reading.
Appendix B: The big ones, famous harp players.
Appendix C: Positions cross-reference.
Appendix D: Song keys.
Appendix E: Sounds files, played by me (sorry!).
Appendix F: Tips and suggestions.

Chapter 0: Introduction

First of all let me tell you that I'm just an amateur harp player, this page should be considered as a starting point to blues harmonica for a beginner. All the material presented here has been taken from different sources, specially from harp-l, some lessons I took with a sax/clarinet jazz player, and my own experiences. The exercises were made (and played) by me for copyright reasons, so don't expect a great method, just try this if you don't have anything else or for curiosity.

I'm writing this page because I felt the lack of a beginner's page on the cyberspace. The final idea of this page is to share experiences on the harp playing learning process.

All the examples here are played and notated for a C harmonica, you can play the same holes on other harp keys without any change (besides the tune transposition to another key), but keep in mind that here when we talk about a note, G for example, we refer to the G hole on a C harp.

Chapter 1: Definitions

Lets see some vocabulary of harp playing terms (any comment or addition ?)

CHROMATIC SCALE: (A very simplistic and engineering view) A chromatic scale have all the notes, if you look to the piano keyboard, you get the chromatic scale using the white and black keys. In occidental music we have 12 notes (half tones or semitones) on each of the diferent octaves. You can get the frequency of a note on other octaves by continously multiplicating or dividing by two. The starting point is 440Hz (A), on the next octave we have 880Hz for the same note, so to get the frequency of the rest of the notes we multiplicate 440Hz successively by the 12th root of 2, and we get: A (440Hz), Bb (A#), B, C, C# (Db), D, D# (Eb), E, F, F# (Gb), G, Ab (G#) and A again (880Hz).
DIATONIC (MAJOR) SCALE: On a diatonic scale you have a specific pattern of half tones. For the C diatonic major scale you use only the white keys of the piano (C D E F G A B). You can get the rest of diatonic major scales following the pattern: root note (C), one tone (D), one tone (E) , half tone (F),one tone (G),one tone (A), one tone (B), half tone (C = root note one octave higher). For example the A major scale is: A B C# D E F# Ab A (look at the chromatic scale above and follow the pattern). You can write down all the 12 keys as an exercise.
BEND: Change the pitch of the natural hole note lowering its frequency. You can bend when the distance between the blow note and the draw is greater than a half step. On the low register you have the bendables notes on the draw side, holes 1,2,3,4 and 6 (the draw notes are lowered because they are higher than the blow notes), and on the high register you have the bendable notes on the blow side, holes 8,9 and 10 (the blow notes are higher than the draw notes). With a lot of practice you can get every note (half steps) between the blow and the draw note (for example, three on the 3rd draw hole plus the normal 3rd draw, four notes on the same draw hole! plus the normal blow five notes! plus the overblow six notes on the same hole! ). You still can draw bend the 5th hole and blow bend the 7th, but not enough to reach another note but can be used for stylistic reasons.
EMBOUCHURE: The way you put your mouth to play the harmonica. It can be puckering (like a kiss, or whistling) or tongue block. It's recommended that you practice both. Some people use the U tongue position too.
PUCKERING: When you play a single hole on your harp using only your lips (like a kiss).
TONGUE BLOCKING: When you play a single note using a wide embouchure (3 to 4 holes length), and you block the lower holes with your tongue. You need to tongue block if you want to use tongue slap, or get some chordal or country sound or play octaves, blocking the center holes for example only the 1st and 4th holes.
TONGUE SLAP: When you play single notes using tongue block, but on each note you start with an unblocked position, and quickly you do the block.
OVERBLOW: A technique that allows you to raise the pitch blowing usually on the 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th holes and get notes not available before on a diatonic harmonica and making posible to play on every key (chromatically). You get a half tone over the draw reed. You blow trying to choke the blow reed with a little pressure and changing the air stream with your tongue. The easiest one is the 6th overblow. It's a very advanced technique, remember to adjust the reed gaps (offsets) as close to the plate as you can. There's an instructional video by Howard Levy available.
OVERDRAW: Same principle as the overblows but now you inhale until you choke the draw reed and the blow reed makes the sound, you get a half tone above the blow reed. The new notes not available before come from the holes 7 and 9.
VALVES (WINDSAVERS): Small plastic pieces that block the air in order to make it flow only in one direction. The valve avoid any air escape trough the oposite reed. They come on chromatic harps but are used on the diatonic harps too. A side effect of using a valved harp is that you can bend down on any one (being it a blow or a draw one), with a valved diatonic harp you get more bends thus you can play chromatically if you master this technique (ask IronMan Mike Curtis).
HAND VIBRATO (WA-WA): The easiest effect you can create. You open and close your hand cup to create a wa-wa effect. Sounds great when it's mixed with a bent vibrato.
THROAT/BENT VIBRATO: A more professional technique, you actually change the pitch of the note (like a singer) using a kind of fast cough or bend.
POSITIONS: We talk about positions usually when we play a theme in a key different to the harmonica key. When we have a C harmonica and we play a G scale we would be playing in a specific position (2nd). We give numbers to the differents positions according to the circle of fifths (12 posible positions).
TABLATURE: The notation that tell us which notes must we play (unfortunately without any rhythm information). I'm going to use a notation similar to the used by David Barret on his books (he uses standard music notation plus these symbols under the score). The notes are represented by numbers separated by spaces, the draw note is represented by a negative number (-2 for G), the blow note with a plus sign before the number (+4 for C), and the bend notes with a quotation mark for each half step (-3' for Bb, -3'' for A, -3''' for Ab on a C harp). If I write more than one number (without spaces between them) you must play those holes at the same time. For example +123, it means that you blow the three first holes. Also I use an 'o' to denote an overblow or overdraw, for example +6o is Bb or -7o is C# on a C harp. The ~ symbol means that you start playing the note with a deep bend (the lower pitch you can get) and then move it to its normal sound.

Chapter 2: Mastering the middle diatonic scale. Playing the Can-Can.

I think this is the best exercise for practice your embouchure and learn the complete middle diatonic scale. This melody has the characteristic that sounds good when you play it slow, or as fast as you can, and at the end you play the major diatonic scale.

Check also the midi file, so you can see the tablature via software:
+4 +4 -4 -5 +5 -4 +6 +6 +6 -6 +5 -5 -4 -4 -4 -5 +5 -4 +4 +7 -7 -6 +6 -5 +5 -4 +4
Listen the file.
(taa taa ta-ra ra-ra taa taa ta-ra ra-ra taa taa ta-ra ra-ra taaaa ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra , each 'a' is an eighth note)

Practice slowly until you get perfect single hole notes (you can use tongue blocking or puckering, better if both). Get the feeling of the scale. Remember the swap on the 7th hole.

Chapter 3: Playing bluesy, introduction to lower bends.

Here you will listen a very simple melody, but will allow to start your bending on all the low draw notes (holes 1, 2, 3 and 4). First listen to the file, and then try it. The tablature is very simple:

-1 +2 -1 ~2 -1 +2 -2 ~3 -1 +2 -2 ~3 -1 +2 -2 ~3 -1 +2 -2 ~3 -1 +2 -2 ~4 ~3 ~2 ~1 -1 +2 -1 ~2

(ta-ta-ta-taaa ta-ta-ta-taaa ta-ta-ta-ta ta-ta-ta-ta ta-ta-ta-taaa ta-ta-ta-taaa taa taa taa ta-ta-ta-taaa)

The ~ symbol means that you start playing the note with a deep bend (the lower pitch you can get), and then move to its normal sound.

There are a lot of comments on the list (check the harp-l archives or FAQ), about how to bend. What I can say is that you first must master the puckering single hole play (you play a single note using only your lips, not the tongue block technique). You must play clear draw notes, the 2nd hole can be difficult at first (you do an unintentional bend), try to make a clear airflow relaxing and trying different positions of your tongue, compare the sound with the 3rd blow hole.

To start to bend you use your tongue to change the air stream, to bend the lower notes you can inhale thinking that you have a hot piece of food on your mouth, and you want to cool it before you swallow it. The back of your tongue must touch the roof of the mouth. If you don't get a lower sound, try to change this touch position, making it deeper in your mouth, also open it more (simulating a yawn). One of the problem I had when trying to bend was that I had never heard how a bend sounded like, so check the sound files. Some people get the bend using a strength lips position and don't use the tongue or throat, the problem of this technique is that you can't get a deep and loud bend, and is difficult to bend two or more holes at the same time (useful for train riffs), try to use only your tongue (just try, sometimes you need also a strength lips position until you master the your own technique).
After these first aproaches to bend you will discover that you can bend while using tongue block or bending without any tongue movement using just your throat or diaphragm

I think that the 3rd or 4th hole is a good start. Note also that the mouth position must change when you bend different holes: when you bend the 2nd hole you put the tongue on a deeper position than when you bend the 6th hole.

Warning: Don't use too much pressure, it must sound as natural as you can.
I don't cover here the blow bends, just a comment: you put you tongue near your teeth and blow with a little more pressure.

Chapter 4: Controlling some of the low bends.

Now you can try to play the Can-Can on the lower register, to do so you'll need two notes not available with normal draw or blow, the F and A. You can get the F bending two half steps the 2nd hole, and you get the A bending two half steps the 3rd hole. If you can play the melody on the middle registers then you have the feeling of the major scale on your harp, so you can practice the scale on the lower register until you get the right bends.

Listen the file, note that I'm still learning to control the bends, for me is difficult the get the A on the 3rd hole, it's easier to get the Ab or Bb. Here is the tab (of course you can exchange the +3 by -2, both are G).

+1 +1 -1 -2'' +2 -1 +3 +3 +3 -3'' +2 -2'' -1- 1 -1 2'' +2 -1 +1 +4 -3 -3'' +3 -2'' +2 -1 +1

(taa taa ta-ra ra-ra taa taa ta-ra ra-ra taa taa ta-ra ra-ra taaaa ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra , each 'a' is a eighth tone)

Chapter 5: Introduction to the blues structure. The 12 bar blues and chord progressions.

This chapter isn't complete yet, but you can look for any jazz lessons site to know what chord progressions are, in summary you can divide almost any blues song in 12 bars sections (or 8 bars), each bar will have a specified chord like:

I / I / I / I / IV / IV / I / I / V / IV / I / I (V)

I / IV / I / I / IV / IV / I / I / V / IV / I / I (V)

where I is the tonic, IV the 4th scale dregree of the tonic or subdominant and V the 5th degree or dominant,
for example if you play a song in the key of C, the chords are:

C / C / C / C / F / F / C / C / G / F / C / C (G)

or in the key of G:

G / G / G / G / C / C / G / G / D / C / G / G (D)

Chapter 6: The blues scale.

When you play blues, there are some notes that sounds good at any time, that's because each chord has some related notes or some scales associated. For blues the chords are usually dominant 7th (G7) and major chords, and the blues scale fits on both. So if you want to improvise, you can know the blues scale for each chord, or as a starting point you can play only the notes from the tonic blues scale.

I'll start with some basic explanations of the diferent scales. They will apply to all keys, so suppose we name the notes with numbers (don't confuse it with the tablature symbols).
For a given major diatonic scale, we have the notes: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (8=1). For example on the C scale. 1=C, 2=D, 3=E, 4=F, 5=G, 6=A, 7=B, 8=C=1.

We'll start to learn the major pentatonic scale. You can get it by using the pattern: 1 2 3 5 6 8. For the C mayor pentatonic scale we have: C (1) D (2) E (3) G (5) A (6) C (8). Here I'll mention briefly another concept, the modes: You can play this scale starting on any note, they are diferent modes.

Lets play all the modes of the pentatonic scale (it will serves to know the upper notes):

C D E G A C and back A G E D C
D E G A C D and back C A G E D
E G A C D E and back D C A G E
G A C D E G and back E D C A G
A C D E G A and back G E D C A
C D E G A C.
Check the file. (I did'nt put the tablature here to avoid a mess with the numbers).

Now for the minor pentatonic scale. You use the pattern: 1 3b 4 5 7b 8.

So the C minor pentatonic scale: C Eb F G Bb C.
And the G minor pentatonic scale: G Bb C D F G.

You can see that the G minor pentatonic scale needs only one unavailable note on the C diatonic harp, but you can get it with not much effort bending the 3rd hole from B down to Bb.
Note that the G major diatonic scale is: G=1 A=2 B=3 C=4 D=5 E=6 F#=7 G=8.

And now the long awaited blues scale: it is much like the minor pentatonic scale: 1 3b 4 5b 5 7b 8 (or 1 3b 4 4# 5 7b 8), the only difference with the minor pentatonic scale is one new note, the 5b (or 4#). For the G blues scale we have: G Bb C C# D F G. And the two unavailable notes are found on a C harp through bending, you get Bb bending a half tone the 3rd draw hole, and the C# bending a the 4th draw hole. So we have a complete blues scale in G on a C harp... we are playing the a blues scale in second position (or cross harp)!.

Now listen the blues scale, played on and electronic piano and on the harmonica. and midi
Remember: You MUST know the blues scale, you'll see that the improvisation is much easier on blues themes. Check this file, you will find a table of the blues scale played on the 12 different positions.

Chapter 7: Some licks.

When you play blues you do a lot of improvisation, using the blues scale notes (and other passing tones too), and have a stock of licks that you use on different parts on the blues chords progression.
Here are some:

Endings:

A Sonny Boy Williamson or Little Walter style ending.(2nd position): The notes are: +6 -5 -4 +4 -3' -2 -1 +2 -2 -2...-2''
A classic piano blues lick.: You use three draw notes on the 2nd hole:; -2 +4 -2 -2' +4 -2' -2'' +4 -2'' +2 -14 +25 -14 -25

Various:

Blow Bends example lick.: +8 +8' +9' +9 +9'... +8 +8' +9' +9 +9'... +'9 +9 +9' +8' +7...(fast: +7 +8 +7 +8 +7 +8 ... +7 +8' +7' +8...)

Misc:

Bluesy using lower register bends.