For the Beginner
What’s the best choice for your first (or next) amp?
A frequent question from novice harp players is: what should I buy for my first amped setup? Some of the people reading this are going to buy an amp for themselves or someone else for Christmas, or buy one after Christmas with their Christmas money….
What every player (including a novice) should know and do about harp setup
I read a lot of posts on Facebook from people who have bad experiences with harmonicas right out of the box. These people complain that the harp is out of tune out of the box (which I agree is bad), reeds break (FYI, you’re blowing…
As We Await the Delivery of the Line 6 Spider V, A Few Thoughts on Gear
I’m getting set for a lot of activities in the next couple of months: creating a patch set for the Line 6 Spider V series modeling amps, writing and arranging the music for my next record, “Blue Future”, recording keyboard parts for another record, and…
Our First Video on Bluesharmonica.com is up and running!
Inspired by David Barrett’s review of the Fender Mustang I on Bluesharmonica.com, we did a video to introduce harmonica players to the front panels and software that run the Fender Mustang amps. You can find that video on Bluesharmonica.com now (if you’re a member of…
Christmas reprise: what’s the best choice for your first amp?
We first published this piece–a guide to buying your first harp amp–a year ago, and with Christmas near it seems like a good time to reprise it. Just click right here to find out everything you need to know about picking your first amp (or…
What’s the best embouchure for harmonica?
A novice harmonica player posted this message to the Harp-l list: As a beginner, I pucker for everything, and find tongue blocking to be very difficult. Is it true that the great Chicago blues tone can only come from tongue blocking? I think I read…
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…
Breathing Exercises for Beginners (and anyone else)
Note: this information was originally published in a post to Harp-L in 1996. Recent posts to the list have requested breathing exercises. Three that have worked well for me are described below. 1) The purpose of this exercise is to give the player a “feel”…
Got a Jones for Gear? Read This
It occurred to us recently that lots of players we know seem to constantly buy new gear, and some of those players don’t think much about how to get more out of the gear they’ve got. With that in mind, we’ve put together a few…
