Here’s something for those of you who occasionally (or often) have to compete with the electric guitar player to be heard. Those of us who have been in amplified bands know that can be a challenge at times due to feedback issues because we’re limited to playing through microphones which were intended for lower volume applications.

The folks at TurboHarp have been innovating for years making improvements to our humble instrument and now have created an actual electric harmonica which isn’t subject to feedback and the other limitations we’re all used to. Check out this video for details:

TurboHarp demo video

Imagine being able to plug your harp into an amp and/or a rack of effects pedals just like the guitar gods and not have to worry about feeding back, fiddling with mic volume knobs, and all those other little quirks we’ve learned to live with on stage.

The TurboHarp has reeds just like a normal harmonica, but the reeds are tracked with light sensors that provide the analog-to-digital conversion necessary to amplify the signal. This essentially eliminates feedback because there’s no acoustic feedback loop! You can literally hold the harp inches away from the amp speaker with the volume and gain cranked and hear blessed silence instead of paint-peeling squeals.

The TurboHarp inventors are in the process of seeking investor funding to further develop and produce the TurboHarp. You can help sponsor the TurboHarp project through the Kickstarter website whether you have big money or milk money and be part of this new chapter in the history of amplified harmonica. That’s a pretty cool concept in itself.

John

Howard asks:

“I am a novice. I can alter the tunings of my harps with good results.
Are there simple adjustments I can do to make my diatonics and chroms
play better i.e. (practice.. lol.) in terms of mechanics to make it
more user friendly?… Thanks for your time.”

I’m no expert on harmonica repair, so I’m going to throw this one out to the crowd. Anybody have any tips for Howard?

John

Sean asks:

“I am looking to learn “Oh Josephine” by the Black Crowes on the harmonica. Can someone tell me what harmonica I could play this song on and what you think the level of difficulty is? I would also like to get sheet music for this song?????”

Can anybody help him out?

My good buddy, Steve Guyger, has recently completed an instructional DVD for Hal Leonard & Co. Entitled “Blues Harmonica“, the DVD will hit the streets July 27th, 2010. If you’re a harp player, or as aspiring harp player, you’ll want to grab a copy of this one!

Steve is one of the top blues harmonica players in the world today and he shares many tips and tricks on this new DVD. Accompanied by Billy Flynn, an outstanding Chicago guitar player, the performances alone are worth the price of admission, but there’s much more.

Steve covers harmonica history, harmonica basics, harmonica techniques, sound and tone, playing chords, blues progressions, using positions and keys, playing in a band and more. The DVD includes guitar backing tracks so you can practice what you learn and try to match the technique and tone of this monster player.

As soon as I get my hands on a copy, I’ll be doing a complete review of the DVD, so stay tuned. It’s available for pre-order, so if you can’t wait, reserve your copy now by clicking the image above.

John

A reader asked for suggestions for a book to get for her husband to help him learn to play the harmonica she’d bought him for Christmas. I asked her a few questions to get a better idea of what type of book would be most beneficial for her husband:

Q: What kind of harmonica did you buy?
A: Hohner Special 20 in C

Q: What type of music does he want to play?
A: He plays “folky” type music a lot, but likes all kinds of music

Q: Is he starting from square one or does he have some experience playing either harmonica or another instrument?
A: He plays guitar and ukelele, but has never played harmonica

With those facts in mind, I made the following three recommendations:

	Mel Bay Deluxe Harmonica Method – has about 100 songs in it, mainly traditional. Mel Bay courses are generally pretty good and this one has gotten good reviews.
	Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing the Harmonica – the reviews on this one are excellent and I know this series is usually very good.
	Jon Gindick’s Rock ‘n Blues Harmonica – I learned from a book by Jon Gindick called “Country and Blues Harmonica for the Musically Hopeless” which unfortunately appears to be out of print. Jon is an excellent teacher and knows his stuff. Obviously, this one is oriented more toward rock and blues than the other two.

So, what do you think? What’s your favorite book that you’ve used to learn to play harmonica? Leave a comment and let’s hear about it!

John

The Blues Foundation’s annual Handy Awards nominees have been named for 2009.  Check out the full list here:  http://www.blues.org/bluesmusicawards/nominees.php

I’m very pleased to note that a long-time friend of mine, Steve Guyger, has been nominated for Instrumentalist of the Year: Harmonica.  What can I say except “It’s about frickin’ time!!”  Steve has been a well kept secret despite having toured with the late Jimmy Rogers, among others.  As far as blues harmonica goes, it doesn’t get any better than Steve and I’m delighted to see him recognized publicly.

The Harmonica Blog

…you just might get it.

Most amateur musicians with whom I’m acquainted dream of sitting in with their heroes on stage.  Actually, most of them would be happy to sit in with anybody playing a gig! They dream of being up there on stage knocking the audience dead with their astounding chops.

It’s an interesting phenomenon that people are so willing to jump in and participate in a musician’s work.  You rarely see anybody asking a tax accountant if they can “sit in” and do a couple of 1040′s, for example.

It probably has to do with musicians being so accessible and the perception that playing music isn’t really working. I mean, it’s not like a “real” job, right?

The fact is that professional musicians are working and the stage is their office. Sure, their main job is to entertain and keep the customers coming back for more, so there’s a certain amount of self-interest involved in having amateurs come up on stage to show their stuff. If they suck, the audience usually enjoys watching them suffer, to a point, and if they’re good, everybody enjoys it.

Those pros who do allow sit-ins do a great kindness as it fulfills a dream for many of the wannabe’s. Unfortunately, there are those who see sitting in as more of a right than a privilege.  They get up on stage and immediately start acting like they’re the star of the show.  They have no clue how to play with a band and they step all over everybody trying to get all their licks in before their 15 minutes of glory is over.

Performers will often allow someone to sit in if that someone happens to be a friend of the club owner or has some similar connection to the musicians’ paycheck.  Very often, they will throw the amateur a curve early on as a bit of a test to see if they belong up there with the big boys, so to speak.  I witnessed one such incident some months ago at a club in the area.

One of my favorite bands of all time is Magic Slim and the Teardrops.  I saw they were playing at a club about an hour from my home and went to catch the show.  The first set was vintage Slim and he had the place rockin’ by the first break.

During the break, Slim’s roadie helped a cat set up his vintage tweed Fender amp to the left of the stage next to Slim’s guitar player.  Obviously, this dude was planning on sitting in during the second set and sure enough, after a couple of tunes Slim called him to the stage.  Grinning from ear to ear, he set himself up, gripped his mike and looked at Slim who said, “Key of D-flat” and launched into the song.

If you don’t play harmonica, a brief bit of background.  Most blues harmonica players, especially amateurs, play in what’s called second position.  What that means is that if the song is in the key of E, you use a harmonica in the key of A.  A is the fourth of E, or E is the fifth of A, however you prefer to look at it.

Harp players get used to doing this transposition for the common keys like E, A, D, C, etc.  Having somebody throw D-flat at them is disconcerting, to say the least, because it’s a very uncommon key for harmonica tunes.

With that in mind, picture our amateur harp player with his jaw scraping the floor, his eyes glazed over as his brain desperately tries to remember what key harp goes with the key of D-flat in second position.  It’s sort of like watching a hitter freeze when a baseball he wasn’t expecting is headed right for his head.

So, after what probably seemed like an eternity to him, he leaned over to the guitar player and said “What’s the fourth of D-flat?”  The guitar player didn’t miss a beat as he leaned over and said, “F-sharp.”

Now, this particular amateur was fortunate in that he actually had an F-sharp harmonica in his arsenal.  Many hopefuls would have gone up there with the standard six or seven keys and been completely lost.  His wasn’t the standard Marine Band type of harp typically used for blues, but it was the correct key, so he quickly grabbed it and joined in playing with the rest of the band.

Slim let him stay up there through two or three more songs, each in a slightly less obscure key, then he finally tossed him a softball and played the Sonny Boy Williamson classic “Bring It On Home” in E.  I can’t say that our hero hit it out of the park, but he at least made contact and got it out of the infield.  With that, his “audition” was over.

Now, being a harp player myself, I could definitely feel for this dude, but at the same time, it was pretty obvious that he got up there through his friendship with the club owner rather than any qualifying ability.  It was hard not to feel like he deserved to have a few high hard ones thrown at him and had he proved himself to be a killer player, more power to him. 

Slim had every right to ask that the guy show him some reason that he deserved to be up there.  Whether the cat took the lesson to heart is the question.

Roots, Rock ‘n Blues

Paul Oscher – Knockin’ On The Devil’s Door

If you want to hear monster tone, check out this CD featuring two of the finest blues harp players in the world today: Paul Oscher and Steve Guyger. Oscher wrote most of the tunes on this disc and he and Guyger trade off harmonica duties. Both are killer players in the old school Chicago tradition and each shines on their respective axes. For a superb example of harmonica tone, check out the last number on the CD: “Alone With The Blues”. Oscher blows some incredible harp on this solo number accompanied only by his foot keeping the beat.

This is on my top 10 list of all-time great harmonica recordings.

John Sawyer

This blog is for harmonica players and fans of the harmonica. I started a blog a while ago called Roots, Rock ‘n Blues and found out pretty quickly that there’s a ton of info out there for guitar players, but very little for players of the tin sandwich.

Being a harp player myself, I’ve been on the lookout for good resources for harmonica players and have found a few, but decided to create a place where harp players can come and feel at home. That is my mission here and I expect you to let me know whether I’m fulfilling that mission or not.

This is a work in progress and your feedback and input are more than welcome. If you have questions, please use our contact page. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Enjoy!

John