Winslow Yerxa is a widely known and admired harmonica player, teacher, lecturer, and author. He has written, produced, and starred in many harmonica books and video projects. He provides private harmonica instruction both online and in person in the San Francisco Bay area. He also offers classes, interviews, and lectures via the Harmonica Collective.

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Foolish Assumptions 3

Icons Used in This Book 3

Beyond the Book 4

Where to Go from Here 4

Part 1: Getting Started with Harmonica 7

Chapter 1: What Is This Thing Called Harp? 9

Considering the Harmonica's Coolness 9

Becoming the Next Harmonica Idol: What It Takes to Play 11

A harmonica 11

A little music know-how 11

Your body 12

Regular practice - and unstructured fun! 12

Taking Your Talent to the Next Level 13

Hanging Out in the Harmonica Village 14

Sharing your music with others locally 14

Visiting the repair shop and the accessory store 14

Chapter 2: Becoming a Harmonica Owner 17

Shopping for Your First Harmonica 18

Understanding the construction of the ten-hole diatonic 18

Tuning in to the key of the harp 19

Starting out with a harp in the key of C 19

Pricing a harmonica 20

Determining where to buy a harp 20

Safe and Sound: Caring for Your Harp 21

Collecting Additional Diatonic Harps 23

Purchasing popular keys 24

Expanding your range with harps in high and low keys 24

Adding Variety to Your Harmonica Kit 25

Chromatic harps 25

Tremolo and octave harmonicas 27

Making Your Harps Portable with Carrying Cases 28

Getting to Know You: Discovering How a Harmonica Works 29

Making a five-layer tin sandwich 29

Taking a closer look at the reeds that make the sound 30

Locating different notes 31

Chapter 3: Making Your First Harmonica Sounds 33

Preparing to Play the Harmonica 33

Picking up the harp 34

Putting the harp in your mouth 34

Breathing through the harp 35

Moving through the holes 35

Getting Acquainted with Some Musical Concepts 36

Zeroing in on harmonica tab 36

Counting with musical time 36

Locking in with the beat 37

Using beats as building blocks 39

Developing Your Sound 44

Expanding and sustaining your breathing 44

Cupping the harp in your hands 47

Nestling the harmonica in your mouth 50

Playing some cool rhythms 50

Chapter 4: Relating to Notes, Scales, and Chords 55

Getting in Tune with the Singable Notes 56

Understanding the curious phenomenon of octaves 56

Naming the notes and creating a scale 57

Using octaves to name all the notes 57

Altering pitches with sharps and flats 58

Measuring small distances with semitones and whole tones 59

Sizing Up Intervals 60

Counting out the size of an interval 60

Determining the quality of an interval 61

Finding the Key of a Song 62

Stepping Through Scales 63

Diatonic and chromatic scales 63

Major and minor scales 64

Modal scales 66

Altering a scale with sharps and flats 66

The Building Blocks of Chords 67

Four basic types of chords 68

Adding notes to basic triads 68

Chord progressions 69

Writing Notes Down 70

Placing notes on a staff 70

Writing sharps and flats on the staff 72

Unlocking key signatures 72

Finding harmonica notes on the staff 73

Part 2: Starting to Make Some Music 75

Chapter 5: I Hear a Melody: Playing Single Notes 77

Shaping Your Mouth to Single Out a Note 78

Forming the pucker embouchure 78

Producing a tongue-block embouchure 80

The Elements of Motion: Moving from One Note to the Next 81

Exploring breath changes 82

Finding your way with hole changes 83

Alternating breath changes and hole changes 85

Coordinating simultaneous hole changes and breath changes 86

Exploring the Three Registers of the Harmonica 87

Playing Familiar Tunes in the Middle Register 88

"Good Night, Ladies" 89

"Michael, Row the Boat Ashore" 89

"Mary Had a Little Lamb" 90

"Amazing Grace" 91

Making Your First Multi-Hole Leaps 92

"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" 92

"Frère Jacques" 92

"On Top of Old Smokey" 94

Shifting up from the Middle 95

"Bunessan" ("Morning Has Broken") 95

"Joy to the World" 96

Floating in the High Register 97

"Aura Lea" ("Love Me Tender") 98

"She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain" 99

"Silent Night" 100

Chapter 6: Shaping Your Sound 103

Enlarging Your Sound with Projection 104

Using your air column 104

Enriching your sound with the smooth swimming exercise 104

Increasing airflow through the reeds 106

Varying your volume with dynamics 109

Projecting with your hands 110

Starting and Ending Notes with Articulation 112

Starting notes with your tongue 113

Using your throat to articulate notes 115

Initiating a note with your diaphragm 116

Shaping the Tone Color of Your Notes 118

Changing vowel sounds with your tongue 118

Brightening and darkening your sound using your hands 119

Slowly changing the sound 119

Combining hand and tongue vowels 120

Pulsating Your Notes with Vibrato 120

Diaphragm vibrato 121

Throat vibrato 122

Tongue vibrato 123

Hand vibrato 123

Synchronizing and layering pulsation 124

Chapter 7: Enhancing Your Sound with Your Tongue on the Harp 127

Using Your Tongue to Combine Chords and Melodies 128

Knowing the chords on your harp 128

Accompanying melodies with chords 129

Chasing the beat with a chord 131

Reinforcing Melody Notes with Your Tongue 132

Applying the tongue slap 133

Popping chords with pull-offs 133

Creating Chord Textures with Your Tongue 135

Alternating tongue placements to produce the chord rake 136

Lifting and replacing your tongue to play a chord hammer 137

Rapidly alternating widely spaced notes with the shimmer 138

Combining Widely Spaced Notes with Splits 139

Sticking with a locked split 139

Inching along with variable splits 140

Playing Quick and Wide Leaps with Corner Switching 145

Chapter 8: Bending Notes 149

Knowing the What and the Why of Bending 150

What is bending? 150

Why bend notes? 151

Getting Started with Bending Notes Down 151

Exploring the roof of your mouth 152

Making some helpful noises 153

Creating your bend activator with the K-spot 154

Playing your first bend 156

If at first you don't succeed: Practicing persistence 158

Deepening Your Skills at Bending Notes Down 159

Surveying the bendable notes 159

Working through the four stages of bending control 162

Bending draw notes down in the middle register 163

Bending draw notes down in the heart of the harp - the low register 165

Bending blow notes down in the high register 170

Bending on Different Types of Harmonicas 174

Chromatic harps 174

Double reed harps 175

Chapter 9: Positions: Playing One Harp in Many Keys 177

Understanding How Positions Help Your Playing 177

Figuring Out a Position 179

Relating Positions, Modes, and Avoid Notes 181

Rocking with Six Popular Positions 182

First position (C on a C-harp) 183

Second position (G on a C-harp) 185

Third position (D on a C-harp) 188

Fourth position (A on a C-harp) 190

Fifth position (E on a C-harp) 193

Twelfth position (F on a C-harp) 195

Part 3: Growing Beyond the Basics 199

Chapter 10: Fancy Playing: Developing Flair and Speed 201

Mastering Melody from the Ground Up 202

Seeing the scale 203

Recognizing scale patterns 204

Anchoring melodies on chord notes 209

Simplifying the scale to five notes 211

Adding Ornaments to the Melody 214

Shakes 214

Rips, boings, and fall-offs 215

Grace notes 215

Developing Your Speed 216

Start slow and know each individual move 216

Learn in small chunks 217

Speed it up - slowly 217

Think and play in larger units 217

Chapter 11: Mastering New Songs 219

Understanding How Songs Work 219

The container: Structuring time 219

The shifting backdrop: Chord changes 221

The foreground: Melody 221

Choosing the Right Harp 222

What are the notes in the scale? 222

What are the notes in the chords? 223

Making It Up versus Playing It Straight 225

Learning melodies 225

Jamming on a tune 226

Trial and Error: Playing Along with Random Music 227

Chapter 12: Behind the Hidden Treasure: Bending Notes Up 229

Considering the Coolness of Overbends 230

Playing more licks, riffs, and scales 230

Playing in more keys 231

Exploring the Things to Know Before You Start 232

How to choose a suitable harmonica 232

Determining which notes overblow and overdraw 232

Preparing your mind, body, and ears 235

Getting Your First Overblows 236

The push-through approach 236

The springboard approach 238

Achieving More Overblows 239

Getting Your First Overdraws 239

Raising the Pitch of an Overbend 241

Playing overbends in tune 241

Bending overbends up241

Blending Overbends into Your Playing 242

Strengthening your overbend approaches 242

Smoothing your follow-ons 244

Part 4: Developing Your Style 245

Chapter 13: Rockin' and Bluesin' 247