They’re like, “look at me trumpet players, I can play even HIGHER than you.” But those of us who don’t play trumpet are like, “Ow. For example, trumpet players are obsessed with playing super-high notes, because it’s difficult to do. On any instrument there are difficult techniques that are impressive mostly only to people who play that instrument. None of my favorite harp players I grew up listening to used overblows (with the notable exception of harmonica overblow and overdraw master Howard Levy, of course.) So I don’t really sweat it too much. And then after that, explore tongue blocking. I didn’t even mention tongue blocking and all of the possibilities it opens up. Ok! You’ve played well all previous 9 songs… now let’s make things a little more challenging with the classic, well known song “Happy Birthday”.I was just chatting with on another thread about harmonicas with alternate tunings, and the subject of overblows and overdraws came up tangentially, and I realized that it such a popular topic these days, I’d better go ahead and start a thread where we can chat about it.įirst of all, I think many people become obsessed with talking about and learning this technique and, I don’t wanna sound like a broken record here, but the vast majority of us harp players would be better served focusing our attention on the deep relaxed mouth position, being able to isolate really clean notes with lip blocking, being able to get draw bends on clean on draws 1-6, getting intonation of half step bends on -2, -6, and especially the -3, being able to get the blow bends on holes 8-10, learning scales and patterns of scales, learning how to improvise well, working on our time, playing with dynamics… You get the idea. Home Sweet Home (80 bpm) by Bruno Berloto 10. Home Sweet Home (65 bpm) by Bruno Berloto Jingle Bells (110 bpm) by Bruno Berloto 9. This Old Man (160 bpm) by Bruno Berloto 8. When The Saints Go Marching In (160 bpm) by Bruno Berloto 7. When The Saints Go Marching In (120 bpm) by Bruno Berloto Camptown RacesĬamptown Races (100 bpm) by Bruno Berloto 5. Mary Had a Little Lamb (160 bpm) by Bruno Berloto 4. Mary Had a Little Lamb (120 bpm) by Bruno Berloto Playing 6 blow instead of 3 blow is a variant to test the jump from hole 4 to 6 since we are working with holes 4, 5 and 6 at this point – the easiest ones to play on the harmonica. Although the tablature says 3 blow, which is the note of the original song, the last line in the audio is recorded in the same note one octave higher (G in the middle register). The second part of the song (last 3 lines) is repeated. AlouetteĪloutte (100 bpm) by Bruno Berloto 2. I play all the songs with a 10 hole diatonic harmonica in the key of C (letter C). Learn more about different tablature systems in this article: “How to read harmonica tabs” The tablature I use is the arrow system – up arrows for blow notes and down arrows for draw notes. At first, problems with playing hole leaps are very common because you may not have a good reference on the harmonica yet, but you will improve this with practice! When you jump from holes 6 to 4, you could accidentally play hole 5 by falling short, or hole 3 by jumping too far. When you jump holes, you must not move your mouth too far from the harmonica just try to keep the gap to a minimum to land right at the center of the hole you want to play next. “This Old Man” and “Jingle Bells” have several articulations and many passages with hole leaps, which make them even more demanding for a beginner. Playing a song with a clean sound is more important than playing it fast. It will be useful to learn each song bit by bit, and then play it all together. The songs are arranged by difficulty, and each song has a slow practice version and an original tempo version. In 9 of these songs you will see that on the tabs there are as many articulations as repeated notes. As a consequence, the sound of the repeated note will be clearer. These articulations separate the notes and give them a more defined starting sound or accent.įor example, when we play a hole 4 blow and then repeat it, instead of blowing twice (with two separate airflows), we will only blow once, and by using the syllable “TA” as an articulation, the continuous airflow will be interrupted when your tongue fastly hits the hard palate, separating the notes. It is also advisable to apply articulations using syllables like “TA” and “DA” when doing repetitions of blow and draw notes, respectively. If you find it difficult to play these songs I highly recommend that you go first to my article How to Play the Harmonica – An easy-to-follow Guide.
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