All that's going on in the vid is improv over I IV V chord changes.
But, if you want to blow harp over specific tunes, try instrumental versions or improv over any of these acoustic blues:
HESITATION BLUES Rev. Gary Davis/Hot Tuna MOJO HAND Lightening Hopkins LOVE CHANGING BLUES Blind Willie McTell MAKE ME A PALLET ON THE FLOOR Missippi John Hurt
If your guitar player can play slide, that helps. Also, not all of these tunes work with pure blues scale. You can also vary the tempo. In my blues duo we really rock out on Love Changing Blues which is not how the original is done
Now, you don't have to stick to blues. If you can handle some jazz and if you can get around in minor keys the following can work well with acoustic guitar and harp:
EQUINOX John Coltrane AFRO BLUE Mongo Santa Maria LITTLE WING Hendrix WHO'S BEEN TALKING Howlin Wolf (terrific minor key blues to jam on)
Playing duo is different than playing full band. The harp player has to be stronger. BUT when comping you don't have to play all the time, and be careful playing chords as the chords available on the harp won't fit every tune. Don't be afraid to leave space. Let the music breathe.
Filisko and Noden do this type of stuff in a blues context. But Filisko is an incorrigible show off and fills every available nook and cranny with harmonica which gets to be a real pain in the ass to listen to unless the listener is also an incorrigible harp junkie, which most audiences are not. Let the music breathe. Laying out here and there now and then keeps the music more interesting and makes you sound better whe you do play. It gives your harp playing greater meaningful impact. FWIW.
MR. MAGIC is very doable on harp in third position and would be easy to pull off in a duo. I just learned it for a jazz gig. TRUE STORY: got hired as a sideman to play a jazz gig at a hard core jazz venue for which I did not consider myself particularly well qualified. I mean I have a little bit of jazz vocabulary but I don't know any of the big words and I don't play chrom or OB. Anyway, it went surprisingly well, the mgmt liked it and allowed us to play overtime when a group of jazz snobs gave us a large tip to keep playing at the end of the night. After we got done and I had packed up my gear, one of the jazz snobs bought me a drink and said they particularly enjoyed the music I did not play. He said everything I did play was "perfect" (his word, not mine) and I didn't mess it up by playing when it wouldn't have added anything. That made me feel pretty good. Moral of the story: less can be more.
Last Edited by hvyj on Feb 22, 2016 9:29 AM
Thanks a lot for your advice Snowman, Eebadeebm 1847, hvyj and Bronze Wailer. I'm currently aware of some Harp standards as Juke, Walter's Boggie, and Whammer Jammer but wanted to hear some other opinions.
I have already played Juke and Walter's Boggie too many times. The truth is that are not very sure about exactly what kind of music we are going to do, but a song like Whammer Jammer would probably be to rock and roll for our set.
The guitar player I'm teaming up is a great traditional blues player, much more comfortable playing Robert Johnson songs or Ragtime than with playing Chicago blues.
The problem is that neither of us is a good singer so we wanted to start playing instrumentals and then if we keep on playing, we would then find a good singer.
The thing is that I don't want to Jam to twelve bars over and over, because I will get bored, so that's why I'm looking for songs that suits well an acoustic instrumental setting. Songs with nice melodies.
@Hyvj thanks for your detailed input. Maybe we could consider playing some Jazz or Bossa standards. If we are going to stay in the instrumental mood, I think it would be silly to pretend that playing a 10 set of Blues instrumentals will work for the audience. I don't know .
@BronzeWailer Thanks that's kind of what I'm looking for.
Maybe the James Harman song was not a great example. I give you here 2 links to the kind of songs that we have in mind.
In my experience most any song can be a non-lyric song. You just don't do vocals, you let the guitar ring out and add harp accents and solos. If you try this and pretty much keep it laid back it's nice background stuff and you can also step out harp on stuff like Mellow Down Easy and lots of other material esp that featured harp players like the Walters, SBII, Wolf, etc.
Jolene and I have been in a duo for many years. Mostly we do use lyrics but it's not hard to just not sing. ---------- http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
