One of the easiest to learn, and the hardest to master. No matter how good one gets, there’s always more to learn. One my favorite aspects of the instrument.
Jonah: I have played guitar for 25 years, and although the harmonica is easy to pick up and anyone can play one, to MASTER it, especially the diatonic, is a real challenge. I started your "Blues Harp Success" course when it first came out, and I am on Unit 3, learning riffs. Is it easy? No. BUT, when I really, really learn this, I will be light years ahead of where I would have been if I just watched RU-vids all day and mastered nothing. Thanks for being such a great instructor and I look forward to moving on from riffs (after I really master them) and going on to the next section. Cheers! P.S. Another thing I have learned from playing the harmonica is that "subtle" movements of the mouth, tongue, and breath, make all the difference in the world, whether it is bending, or over bending, etc. Subtle movements make huge differences.
Yeah, that’s partially why it’s so hard. You really need solid control. Thanks for sharing your experience with the course, Hope to catch up with you and Brent sometime soon!
Thx for Vg presentation. Harp has been difficult to learn & to grow. I’ve been practicing guitar after many years of dormancy. Unfortunately, injuring my fretting middle finger prevented guitar for a few months so I signed up for an o/l harmonica course which has always intrigued me. It is my first wind instrument. Course was tune-oriented & fun. However, I didnt feel technically solid or proficient at the end, so I tried a more music- & technique-intensive program. While it is challenging & very informative (I even get good guitar stuff from guest teachers), the core program is boring. Once my finger healed after 4 mos, I started playing guitfiddle again while continuing to work on the harp. After a while, it was obvious that harp is a more difficult instrument to learn than expected beyond basic technique due to the layout of notes; it’s technique intensive to play all the missing notes (you have to bend & overblow/overdraw to get all notes (crazy)), etc. As a result, few weeks ago I decided to focus on guitar, my 1st & enduring love. Harping is on hold for now.
Best advantage of harmonica is that you can fuck around with no idea and have fun with it. I did just that for around 5 years until I felt I was prepared to actually study the instrument.Given my personality I wouldn't have learnt any other instrument, I tried to fuck around with no idea with Irish flute, violin and guitar but the result was much hopeless and less fun.
Breath control and tone production is one of the toughest things for me. I played brass instruments when I was younger, and while it’s “easier” to produce sounds on a harmonica than a trombone, it’s much harder to make a harmonica sound good. Also, positions and modes forced me to learn way more theory than I ever thought I would need.
I can whistle quite well on the draw and exhale. Have done so since my Uncle showed me when I was little. The Harmonica is a haven for me, think it, it happens. The tongue blocking is natural but the fancy warbling I had to practice. In and exhale do different things at different times depending on tongue shape. I learnt that while whistling. The Harmonica is the most underrated instrument of all time. Sad, but true.
Well after some years of learning the guitar, a neverending process, I'm still the real slow hand. Then, two weeks ago, I bought my first Hohner Crossover in C and the process has been fun. Now the single notes are appearing of course in slow songs or improvisations. I'm liking the harmonica a lot.
Single notes were not too bad. Bending was and is a challenge. The concept of positions doesn't sit easily in my head - I want to think of a harp in C as the same thing as A minor or D dorian etc - but harp players think about it differently.
You can easily find and play all the modes on harmonica, it’s actually really easy. Just learn the major scale and start from your desired note. Where harp starts to differ is that in 2nd pos (and others), you can play new scales in new keys. Modes don’t really fit in that sense.
There are God knows how many positions, but you only really need to know one - 2nd position. That is where the guitar is in E and the harp is in A, or the guitar is in G, the harp is in C and so on. That said, first position where the harp and guitar are in the same key can be effective - Little walter and Magic Dick use that sometimes. Third position can be quite effective - guitar is in A, harp is in G, but don't worry about the fancy ones at first, concentrate on cross harp - 2nd position. Once you feel confident about that, then branch out and see if you can learn the others. For 1st position try 'I Want to be Loved' by Muddy Waters. Little Walter plays 1st on that and it's fairly easy and pretty effective.
Great video! I’ve been playing harmonica for about a year now. Started with a book and now I follow a professional online course. The hardest part has been getting single notes down. I’m still improving on this but once I got it down over all a lot of the other stuff came more easily. Granted, I am still a beginner though so I’m still learning and can’t say learning single notes is THE hardest part.
Single notes are hard, bends and overblow a are even harder. Look on my channel for my single notes video, I introduce a very simple exercise that may work for you.
Interesting but to me you’ve underplayed it. I’m at 3 years in. I’ve had full school tuition with Tomlin ( he considers me to be a highly dedicated and successful student) and practice every single day to the point of obsession. I can do the low end bends now but not on every key of harp as it’s different effort on each key. I can learn songs but my improv is still very poor. I don’t go near top end bends yet or overblows or even blow bends yet. I’ve still not mastered all the techniques well or breath control. And tongue blocking I’m just beginning. You make it sound too easy in my view. And any instrument can be picked up and sound good if you strum it or hit the keys. It’s not just harp that that can be done with. Just my little opinion though. Thanks for the video. 🚀👩🏻
Stay with it! In 3 or 4 more years you will say....."Why was that so difficult back then?" I can attest to that. I don't consider myself musically gifted, but through daily practice over 7 years, I can say this has been a satisfying journey and I think I can Hang with most harp players ,regardless of their level. It's a journey. I hope to hear of your progression in the years to come.
Don't bother with tongue blocking! Paul Butterfiel and Sony Terry never tongue blocked, neither do I, Overblows are best done on the higher notes. Try a harp in the key of A for overblows. Magic Dick does overblows on Wamma Jamma - he also uses an A harp on that. Once you have masterd overblows, it can be a very effective technique if done sparingly.
I play many instruments too. Diatonic harmonica is the most difficult to master. I enjoy playing melodically so I prefer chromatic, but I still play diatonics. I finally started recording my efforts... Here's one... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-JN-q1OZ335c.html
I have to avoid salted popcorn or I can't play for a couple days. Chapped lips are real! /Struggling with my left wrist as I try, yet again, to learn a bit of guitar.
Hey Nacoran, I remember that you said that you had nickel problems with the soloist. I’m dealing with that right now, a Kongsheng Mars got me going. Just curious, how long did it take for that to calm down for you?
It's Hard..... it's a small intricate and complex little instrument.-don't let it fool you as it did me. Thanks but my right hand is plenty strong... get lost of practice.
A very good video. I agree bending is difficult and bending with tongue blocking is even more difficult, well for me at least. I know you tongue block and wish you would do a couple videos on just tongue block bending.
i loves your videos but i think the title for this video is how hard to learn instruments, you drift away to the main topic but overall it is a good video
Sadly I didn’t follow this video to the end due to the commentary continually drifting away to mention various other instruments. I respect the fact that you have tremendous musical experience, but you need to keep to the main subject of learning to play the harmonica, forget the other comparisons and keep to the point of an otherwise great Tutorial.
