Harmonica Resources for Beginners
This page is expressly for beginning harmonica players. It contains links to valuable resources for beginners, broken out into three categories: Answers and Advice Instruments, Software, and Tools Instruction Answers and Advice Check out our new PRO PAGE, where top players in country, blues, jazz,…
Loud, proud, and inexpensive–What’s not to like?
I get a lot of questions from beginners about what gear they should buy to get started making amplified music with harmonica. In this piece I’ll make a couple of simple recommendations for gear that does a few things well: It sounds good. Not just…
Tom Ball's Favorite (Harmonica) Things
Tom Ball began playing guitar at the age of eleven and took up harmonica three years later. As a teenager he was a founding member of the Yerba Buena Blues Band. In 1979 he teamed up with guitarist Kenny Sultan, a partnership that to date…
Richard Hunter’s Advanced Harmonica Technique Workshop: Program Notes
Introduction The purpose of this workshop is to cover a wide range of approaches to playing music on the harmonica. The workshop isn’t aimed at jazz, or blues, or folk, or any other style in particular; the techniques and approaches we cover here will help…
Mike Stevens's Favorite (Harmonica) Things
Sarnia, Ontario-based (about an hour from Detroit) Mike Stevens is one of the best bluegrass harmonica players in the world, with a string of credits that includes multiple appearences at the Grand Ole Opry and performances with Roy Acuff, Jim and Jesse (with whom he…
Mike Stevens is a Harp Monster, Period
I first heard of Mike Stevens when his most recent CD, “Normally Anamoly,” was discussed on Harp-L. I contacted Mike to get a copy, and it’s an unusually fresh and powerful harmonica recording. The pieces on the CD break down into two basic categories: rockers,…
RP200 Patch for Harmonica: Stack Amp with Whammy (pitch bend)
This patch combines a Stack Amp Model setup — a useful “hard” amp model for harmonica on the Digitech RP200 (my favorite), RP100, and RP300 — with a deep pitch-bending “whammy” effect that’s under foot-pedal control. It’s great for long, timed bends that seem to…
A Few Words About Special Tunings
The majority of harmonica players play diatonic harmonicas almost exclusively, and most of those players have never played a harmonica that is not standard-tuned, i.e. tuned to a Richter scale in a major key where the lowest exhale note on the instrument is the root…
How to get the most from a jam session
Originally published in GuitarSam eZine Vol. 23 Finding Jam Sessions Most local papers now list jams and open mics by style (folk, blues, rock, jazz, etc.). Signup times are usually pretty early, like 7:30-8:00 PM. Some places provide a backup band; usually you find out…
