|
Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
harmonicalessons.com and such
harmonicalessons.com and such
Page:
1
RyanMortos
51 posts
Jan 19, 2009
4:47 PM
|
Just out of curiosity, do any of you belong to harmonicalessons.com or something similar for a 2nd source of information? I've been curious what else out there might be able to help with advancing from advanced beginner to intermediate. If you have tried or do use something like this what do you think of it? Would you join again? Thanks for any thoughts on the subject :) .
----------
~Ryan
PA
Ryan's Tube - Containing [0] uploads and counting...
|
Chris Jones
16 posts
Jan 19, 2009
5:26 PM
|
I hope I don't come across bitter but I've come to conclusion that practice and more practice along with listening is all that is needed, at least for me. I have a membership at harmonicalessons.com, I'm sure it is a big help for beginners but I don't get much out of it.
I have subsriptions on Youtube to Ronnie Shellist,12gagedan, PaulLennonUK, and of course Adam. I find visual demonstration better for me. I think practice and listening truly is the way to go, I used to get pissed hearing "practice, practice!!" but it's slowly sticking in my thick skull. Private real life lessons or forming a local harp blower group would surely help as well.
I think Dan Gage says " Hours not years" in regard to practicing, that sounds right to me. I feel I'm in a rut, so I'm not the jolliest guy in Arkansas today.
|
Tuckster
88 posts
Jan 19, 2009
5:54 PM
|
Well said,Chris. I couldn't agree more. Ryan, If you can find musicians who are tolerant sorts, play with them as much as you can. Really steps up your game. As for that rut--funny I haven't run into you there. I've been told everyone experiences this. Part of the learning process. At least you KNOW you're in a rut.
|
RyanMortos
52 posts
Jan 19, 2009
6:28 PM
|
Thank you for your comments you've confirmed my belief. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing out :) .
----------
~Ryan
PA
Ryan's Tube - Containing [0] uploads and counting...
|
Jeff
185 posts
Jan 19, 2009
10:45 PM
|
I'm a member at harmonicalessons.com. It's a good track for somebody who literally has never picked up a harmonica before. But looking back on it, it was a total waste of money. I could have learned to play a single note without spending $50. The site offers virtually nothing beyond elementary instruction - nothing I would even consider intermediate level. Most sites and books cover nothing but technique. They don't attempt to cover actually playing music.
Last Edited by on Jan 19, 2009 10:58 PM
|
tookatooka
94 posts
Jan 20, 2009
2:34 AM
|
Not wishing to hijack this thread but I want it to be known that along with Tuckster and Chris, I also am in the rut with you. I'm going to give this some thought and start a new thread about it.
----------
When I'm not blowing, I'm drawing.
|
kudzurunner
254 posts
Jan 20, 2009
4:37 AM
|
I'm going to join in, if I may.
Every player hits ruts. (And by the way, I don't mind people here exploring options other than the majestic, funky lessons at MBH.) You might take a look back at that strange, midnight-hued trio of YouTube videos I made in Feb/March 2007 called "Blues From the Crossroads." I laid out the journey to mastery, as I see it, and I still believe that those basic steps are valid. You can only go so far working with "teaching materials," for example. After that, a lot of jamming along with jam tracks is required--and time must pass. Then: you can only get so far jamming along with prerecorded stuff. After that, you need to get out to jam sessions, play with other musicians whom you've just met. Then: that can only take you so far. At a certain point, you need to team up with one particular band or guitar player and begin to master some specific material, specific arrangements, and begin to hear the music--and your part in it--in a deeper way. Then you can go back to your CDs/mp3s and listen to them in a new and deeper way.
Repeat the process. Play gigs. Go back to the woodshed and listen more deeply. Carry your harp with you, take a break from work, go off to a park, make up new melodies.
All it takes is one small new melodic discovery per day, as many days in a row as you can make it.
Take a harmony course. Learn something about how chord progressions work--how the leading tones move around.
Then it takes time.
For what it's worth, EVERY harp player who has been playing for one year--at least in my experience--sounds pretty much like every other harp player who has been playing that long. I'm not sure why this is true. But the exceptions are rare. The question is, why do some begin to take off and grow in the year, two years, three years after that?
Last Edited by on Jan 20, 2009 4:40 AM
|
RyanMortos
54 posts
Jan 20, 2009
6:13 AM
|
Ah, thanks for the input. Ill definately check out those Blues from the Crossroads videos. I feel like Ill be catching up on the youtube lessons for quite a long time. All the MBH tutorials you make equate to the single best source of information Ive come by. Ill just keep having fun while breaking through the rut!
----------
~Ryan
PA
Ryan's Tube - Containing [0] uploads and counting...
|
harpnoodler
19 posts
Jan 20, 2009
7:57 AM
|
I'll add another perspective, but come to the same conclusions as tuckster and Chris:
I have played harp for 20 years, about 5 of those
seriously, so I have the years, but not the hours. Family, job, moving around and I fell out of a "musicians'" circle. For a while (~8 yrs), I was sitting in with bands of various kinds (country, folk, reggae, rock, blues) almost every week, sometimes getting paid in cash, but most often in beer. Occasionally, I would rehearse the tunes I was going to play with the band, or jam casually (usually "chemically enhanced") but I never practised, really.
Because I learned how to play with people (how to keep time, how to anticipate changes, when to shut up, etc.) bands would seek me out out as a harp player over others who were technically better than I was. In fact, I got a lot of compliments from very competent professional musicians, who, in retrospect, probably didn't have as high standards for harmonica players as they would have had for bassists, drummers or keyboard players. Anyway, it led me to believe that I was better than I was.
Flash forward to about 5 years ago. I wrote a bit about my band experience in the "Band Politics" thread and my start with piano. Piano is hard. To even play the most simple blues tune takes skills that require years to acquire, so I began to woodshed in piano, practising chords and scales and licks.
I reckon I don't need to explain this to anyone on this forum: there's Something About the Harmonica. And it occurred to me: the harp has done so much for me. It taught me about the experience of music and jamming, hell, it even got me laid a few times.
What has the piano ever done for me? Almost led to a divorce ;p! And yet, here I've been, spending hours getting trills down, making the LH automatic, learning theory, getting the hands to work together...
I found Adam's Youtube lessons and then I recorded the "Great Harp Player". Man, I hate my tone!
I was willing to put all that sweat into the piano over 2+ years, and listening to Otis Spann or Dr. John, I would never say "I'm a Blues piano player", at least not without 5-10 years more woodshedding, but I had the stones to say I was a "Harp Player"?
I can bend all holes pretty well, I have a throat vibrato, my chords sound OK, I can TB out of both sides (though the left side is a bit weak), I'm starting to be able to OB holes 5 and 6, my single holes are relaxed..
But I am many hours away from playing with the...what's the best word? Yeah "AUTHORITY", that real harp players have. There's a quality, even though their tones are different, that distinguishes the accomplished players from the apprentices. It's a polish and a confidence that comes through each note and each chord and you can't learn it from a book. It's sweat put into the instrument, hour after hour.
Anyway, that's my take.
I'm working my throat/diaphragm vibrato with a metronome 15 min a day now. From my theory studies with piano, I know what modes are, so I'm practising arps and scales in several positions. I'm using two of Adam's exercises and learning one fiddle tune.
Shortly, I'll start translating my licks from 2nd position to the others. Once I record myself and hear that my mechanics are getting there, then I'll start jamming to CDs and seriously copping licks.
I owe my harps and it's time to pay up.
Andrew
Last Edited by on Jan 20, 2009 8:02 AM
|
mikolune
9 posts
Jan 20, 2009
5:52 PM
|
Regarding the fact that after a year of playing, every harp player sounds about the same: I wonder if the level attained after one year would depend on age. For example, would someone who started top play the harp at 50 years old play the same as someone who started harp at 20 years old, after one year ?
|
dfwdlg
3 posts
Jan 21, 2009
12:18 PM
|
IMHO,w/ respect to how players progress, it may have to do with the development of their ability to play and listen at the same time (listen to themselves AND the other musicians). Then they need the bandwidth to think ahead, compose the part(s) they will play next, and then get them out of their body into the harp (and maybe amp).
I think previous musical experience helps. For that matter, previous learning experience in general helps and that is where I agree that there might be an age effect that works in favor of older players. All I know is that after playing harp for the last two years, and guitar and bass in bands for decades, what I learned on the other instruments and in bands made all the difference in my progress (along with the YouTube harp masters out there of course) Once you know how to pay attention and listen you can make the whole band sound better (i.e., dynamics for starters).
After largely eschewing the blues till I found harp, I've spent the last months listening to Little Walter, Muddy, Robert Johnson, Hilbert et al to put together a guitar/rack set. It is a struggle, but when a song comes together it is a great feeling.
|
Post a Message
|
